When I see a great logo on the Internet I save it in a folder on my computer. I don’t save them to copy them later; I use them as inspiration or as a way to start ideas. After going through my folder of logos I’ve found four that are odd. I think the designer had something else on the mind while making these.

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Being an avid blog reader I started noticing “free link exchanges” on some of my favorite blogs. Free link exchanges have become more popular because it promotes your site for free. I decided to try out the SPOTTT link exchange service and I was pretty happy with it, at first.

I was getting a few links back to my site, but it wasn’t anyone that was going to come back again. One of my goals this year was to generate some readers and the link exchange isn’t going to do that. Having the link exchange on my site wasn’t that big of a deal until I started seeing what links where showing up on my site.

Refreshing my site about a dozen times I had four links that were questionable. The SPOTTT terms of service says no “adult” links, but these ones are sure adult-ish.

I don’t think having these links show up on my site it alright. It makes my blog look trashy and that’s no good for bringing in new readers. I want the readers to way in so I have set up a poll. What do you think?

I just wanted to congratulate the guys at Outbrain, the makers of the fine rating widget on this site and many more, for there recent funding. Good luck and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

It’s been more than three months since I first reviewed the Chumby and concluded with the “gotta get one” recommendation. After some time has passed and the Chumby buzz has died down; I want to make a post-review after I’ve been able to spend more time with it.
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MyBlogLog is a relatively popular service among the blogging community and it’s always been a simple service. If you don’t already know, MyBlogLog is a social networking site for bloggers to communicate and a way to promote their blogs. Whenever a MyBlogLog user visits a blog with a MyBlogLog widget, the visitor leaves a picture behind (in hopes to bring users to their blog). The old widget was very customizable and would fit with almost any blog, but the new widget is the exact opposite.

The new widget seems to go against the MyBlogLog theme. It’s not only ugly, it’s clunky. The rollover profiles are obtrusive and annoying; completely opposite from the original single linked text. What makes this widget even worse is that there is no option to use the old widget, so keep the widget code in a safe place.

The reason for this new look? In early 2007, Yahoo purchased MyBlogLog and is now giving it a new look, for better or worse. If Yahoo hadn’t purchased MyBlogLog, the widget probably would have kept with it’s simple style. Too bad money trumps user wants.

You might have noticed that r3fresh has a new addition, the store. The store right now has a few shirts I made, and hopefully a bunch more in the near future. After doing some research (and asking a few questions), I decided to use Bountee as my shirt service. I chose Bountee because they offer the best quality prints at a reasonable price. I don’t want someone to buy one of my shirts and then find that it didn’t make it through the wash to wear again.

The only problem I’ve found with Bountee is its website. It sucks. I’ll start it off by saying navigation is near in-existent. Looking for new shirt puts you in an endless link circle; moving from one part of the site to another and back. I’m hoping a redesign is in the works.

The next problem is its homepage. Supposedly, the front page showcases most recent shirts, but that can’t be true. The same shirts have been up since last week. I have a feeling shirts are manually put on ‘most recent’, which seems old with current web practices.

The most fixable problem on Bountee is its speed. Bountee is slow, so slow it reminds me of Myspace (pre-purchase) and Myspace gets 500x more people than Bountee. Hey Bountee, if you want to grow invest in some more robust hosting.

Where the site does shine is the shirt creator. It defies the rest of the site with it’s nimble uploading and easy customization. The creator allows you to scale and position your design as well as pick colors. You can even pick the colors depending on gender and age.

Bountee will stay my shirt vendor until I find a site that offers similar quality at an affordable price. I’m looking for some alternatives. If you have a site that fits the curriculum leave a link in the comments.

You enjoyed the first, now it’s time for part two:

Internet search was made popular by companies like Yahoo!, Google, and Ask, but as these veterans of search evolve and create new things, who will be the ones to reinvent Internet search? Here’s the second list of (somewhat) new and notable search engines that are trying something different:
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I’m a sucker for a well designed site. I will even go as far as saying I won’t return to a site with an old and messy design (like IGN). Luckily, I’ve picked five fresh and relatively simple designs from around the net.

Mixx

Mixx is a rapidly growing social news site comparable to Digg sans the large user base. The blue, red, and tan color scheme play easy on the eyes. The red navigation bar makes for, well, easy navigation and the sidebar refines article searching. The font size on Mixx is very random, which takes away from the content on the site. Bump up the size of the headlines or you’ll never attract new users.
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