Redesigned My Blog - Ready For Critique

[chimeric]

I just redesigned my blog one day ago and would like to kindly ask for some critiques. I think most of it is OK but I am always in for criticism ;).

Blog: http://chimeric.de (http://www.chimeric.de)
Goals: up to now I am blogging for the fun of it (may change in the future)
Design Goals: simple, clean, viewable down to 800x600, easy to read
Audience: Friends, people how know me, anyone who`s somehow interested in web/linux and doesn`t feel harassed by the randomness of my blog topics
Other: I think I am pretty happy with it, but the header may need some graphics (I completely lack any talent for the latter though ;))

[ses5909]

hmmm, I think it loosk pretty great overall. My only suggest would be to add a little padding bewteen your breadcrumb trail and your header.

[chimeric]

Thanks for your feedback Sara, I gave the breadcrumbs another 2px padding.

[ses5909]

Looks better. It was fading into the header too much I thought. Sorry I don't have any other tips! I meant to ask you before though, what are your recent links? Are they places you have linked to from within your post (so it's dynamic) or is it more of a favorite links section?

[chimeric]

I run my own scuttle (http://sourceforge.net/projects/scuttle/) install were I keep my bookmarks (it`s quite similar to del.icio.us), the recent links are just the feed of my scuttle install - so it`s dynamic (something like a link blog). At the moment I display just every site I bookmark but plan to show only links with a special tag.

Hmmm, maybe naming them "Recent Bookmarks" would make it a bit more clear?

[sbpoet]

I quite like it.

Love the tagline.

Sorry, no suggestions. I like that it has some personality; I feel like I get some sense of the writer, and could easily get a better sense by following some of those links.

Those I could understand, that it.

[shyflower]

Starting at the top, I like your favicon. It displays well and seems to suit your blog. :)

I like your concept and your design works well enough. I like your right hand graphic on your home page, but I would use some kind of minimalistic tile for your header background. It's a matter of preference, but the header has too much height for a solid color for my preference or maybe it's just the black.

On your projects page, if you can, I would be a bit more descriptive. I really am not familiar with your topics and couldn't much tell what they are about.

I love the little penguin on your snippets page. I am wondering why you are allowing the 'edit' function on that page. If it's intentional you should explain it. If not, it seems pretty risky to me.

Your personal page has too many emoticons for me... if that's what they are. As well as the winking smiley, there's a blue globe preceding many words, for example -- gentoo, SAE, and friend. There is also the WordPress W that is preceding many words such as PHP, hacker, python. If you need one, I'll be happy to send you a screen shot of this page as it appears on my machine.

[chimeric]

I like your concept and your design works well enough. I like your right hand graphic on your home page, but I would use some kind of minimalistic tile for your header background. It's a matter of preference, but the header has too much height for a solid color for my preference or maybe it's just the black.


That`s actually bugging me too, but I lack any talent in doing graphics, that`s why I left it as is ;).


On your projects page, if you can, I would be a bit more descriptive. I really am not familiar with your topics and couldn't much tell what they are about.


Hmmm, never thought about extending the descriptions yet. Up to now I assumed that people who land on this pages actually now what my projects are about. But I think your right, I could be more descriptive there.


I am wondering why you are allowing the 'edit' function on that page. If it's intentional you should explain it. If not, it seems pretty risky to me.


Since my blog is actually a Wiki almost every page on my site is editable by everyone (except my blog and a few other pages). That`s part of the Wiki philosophy (see http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Permission+Granted). This is the case since about two years now, and I never had serious problems with vandalism or spamming (I have some spam prevention tools running though ;-)).


Your personal page has too many emoticons for me... if that's what they are. As well as the winking smiley, there's a blue globe preceding many words, for example -- gentoo, SAE, and friend. There is also the WordPress W that is preceding many words such as PHP, hacker, python. If you need one, I'll be happy to send you a screen shot of this page as it appears on my machine.


Well only the smilies are real emoticons (you`re maybe right that it`s too much of them). The globe should just indicate that it`s an external link, and the W is actually the Wikipedia W, these are links which link to Wikipedia entries.

Thanks for your feedback shyflower :).