Chris Brandrick

Just a quick update to let you know that my RSS feed is now served to you via Feedburner, so if you want the latest version of my feed be sure to re-subscribe via the new address. The RSS image to the right is all linked up to the new one, so it’s simply a case of clicking through.

I really should have used the excellent Feedburner service from when I first started my blog, but it’s done now, so hurray! I mainly decided I should switch due to wanting to track my subscriptions more effectively.

If your blogging, Feedburner is highly recommended.

Before I begin, just a quick word, hoping you all had a good Christmas.

For the first in a series of blog reviews I will be taking a look at DailyNintendo.

DailyNintendo, as the name suggests, is a blog which concentrates on aiming to deliver daily news about the popular videogaming company Nintendo. The site appears to have started posting Nintendo news back in March of 2007 and since then has been reporting various informal tidbits of information at a healthy rate. Despite having a healthy flow of news, it is worth noting that this rate is far from the advertised ‘daily’ (more so every couple of days), maybe something for the site writers to work on in order to stay true their name.

In terms of design the blog has a simple layout which appears washed out and unfortunately somewhat bland. The world of Nintendo is bright, colourful and fun, maybe the blog should reflect this. The header image is a positive step in the right direction, offering the visitor various imagery from Nintendo history (just refresh or visit another page), something no doubt any Nintendo fan would appreciate; although it may worth stylizing the DailyNintendo logo to increase recognition of the sites name and on a whole the sites identity. A splash of colour and a tweak to the logo will go a very long way.

Upon opening the blog, my eyes were immediately drawn to the Google AdSense advertisements on the right hand side, now this may well be down to my personal familiarity in dealing with AdSense, but the placement of these ads are very apparent and will probably result in very little organic clicks. The AdSense spots underneath each individual news post are much more effective, and no doubt receives more clicks. Check your stats and if so maybe consider removing that unsightly ad spot on the right.

At the very footer of the page a blurb of text quotes ‘Podcast Powered by podPress (v8.5)’, DailyNintendo may well have a podcast, but I can’t see it, and this is a problem as podcasts are great ways to bring return visitors and a superb way to interact with your loyal site fans. If the site doesn’t have a podcast, then why is it there? Am I missing something?

DailyNintendo is connected. Each post offers the reader the opportunity to bookmark it and add it to a wide selection of social sites, such as social news sites like digg and del.icio.us, and even networking sites like Facebook. This is a great way to get the site exposure. As expected of any blog you can also subscribe via the RSS feed, this is offered to the user via a small graphic on the right sidebar, and should be exposed more (bigger more attractive RSS image perhaps?) to increase readership; maybe even run a contest to get people to subscribe.

This blog delivers content at a healthy rate, but could be improved, as lets not forget, content is king. Spruce up the colours (Maybe a classic Nintendo red, or the Wii’s subtle blues?) and pay some attention to the logo. With these changes implemented no doubt your visitors will appreciate them, and no doubt you will too. Keep at it.

www.dailynintendo.com

Just a quick update to say Merry Christmas to all my readers and be sure to have a happy holiday!

Blogging will continue here at ChrisBrandrick.com after the big day, but be sure to come back after the festivities as the first person to make a comment on this post will receive 50 free Entrecard points. Just leave your details.

Merry Christmas and happy blogging,
Chris Brandrick

Last week I posted about how my Mac’s Magsafe cable had broken, today during a train journey I had some spare time to burn while in Birmingham so I visited the Apple Store in the Bullring, booked a session with an Apple Genius and told them my problem.

Despite me calling an Apple store earlier in the week and being told that the cable would need to go to a repair centre the Apple employee swapped my old cable for a new one (the new model) right there in store. Convenient!

Still, the cable should not have broken in the first place, so Macbook owners be weary of the cable and keep an eye out for any changes in it’s appearance.

This post comes to you from my Macbook.

When coding any website it is imperative to check that your code renders in a suitable fashion (preferably valid of course) on all browsers, be it Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer or  Opera  making sure your site is accessible to as many potential visitors is something that can not be ignored; and why should it? If you decided to code for just one browser exclusively you would be denying yourselves could be visitors.

Of course checking that your site looks right in individual browsers can be a chore, so before downloading every browser on the planet make sure your code is valid, sure your code may well be pretty stable but different browsers has a habit unfortunately of rendering code in various alternative ways.

I recently stumbled upon a helpful site which allows you to enter any given URL to see how it appears in various browser windows, in fact it offers over 15 browsers (various versions) to try it in.  The site in question is Browser Shots (http://browsershots.org), it offers a simple interface and plenty of options for your desired results, from window size (800×600, 1024 etc), colour depth, and whether flash, javascript and java should be enabled and if so by which version. Upon submitting your desired URL the site takes a few minutes (so be patient) to retrieve your results, and when it does you will be presented with clear images of how your site looks, so click through them to spot any inconsistency’s.

If your currently in need of checking cross browser compatibility for your site Browser Shots is a highly recommended solution.

Back in July I posted about my Halo 3 blog, Halo Three UK which has now been running for over a year. As predicted in the earlier post the blog would reach the peak of it’s popularity around the games release (which for those of you that missed it was in late September).

Up to the release of the game content surrounding speculation and details on features, levels and more was ripe and easy to find. Blog entries where thick and fast and the visitors numbers reflected this. In the months before the game was released the blog was hitting an average of 6,000 to 7,000 uniques. During the release month of September this figure doubled.

Since the release the visitor figures have dropped, and that is understandable as so have the blog entries, which again is understandable. The blog is still updated but less frequently due to less relevant content being available. It is still making an income from sold text links and affiliate links.

This entry reaffirms my predictions on how the traffic would fluctuate around release, but shows that even with some small effort a blog can still pull in healthy visitor numbers and turn a profit. If anything running the Halo blog has been an interesting experiment in seeing how interest in websites which concentrate on consumer goods vary around their release date.

That’s right, from now until the end of January I shall be offering free blog reviews on ChrisBrandrick.com. If you would like your blog reviewing just check the following conditions and get in touch:

• Your blog must have been active for over 30 days.
• No blogs featuring explicit or illegal content.
• I can decline to review any blog.
• A backlink to my blog on your site (in any form, be it a blog post or text link) would be appreciated.

The reviews will feature my opinions on your area of content, the content itself, blog design, update frequency and so on. The reviews will be done on first come first served basis. You will receive notification from me when your blog review goes live on the site, or if you get declined. Just use the following form to get in touch, and be sure to include all the necessary details!

NO LONGER AVAILABLE, OFFER OVER, MANY THANKS TO ALL THOSE THAT SUBMITTED.

Thanks for the submissions in advance!

If you have never visited ChrisBrandrick.com there is a good chance you are here thanks to Entrecard, but if you are here wondering what Entrecard is then this blog post sets out to explain this new ‘Web 2.0′ service.

Entrecard (www.entrecard.com) is a recently launched website which offers the opportunity to share a ‘digital business card’ via your own personal blog. It’s a simple yet brilliant concept which allows site owners to widen there online horizons, find new blogs, advertise their own blog, and up their RSS count.

Upon signing up you create an advert that represents your site, and then start earning credit to use on advertising. Credit is earned via sharing your advert (entrecard/business card) on other peoples site, and when others leave there card for you to check out.

With this credit building up, it can then be used to advertise your card on a external blog of your choice (depending on several factors).

My Entrecard section can be seen on the right side of my blog under ‘Blog of the day’, so if you are already a user drop me your card! The site is growing fast and with good reason, it offers a free way to advertise and a superb way to expand your network.

Recommended.

A little personal post today about something which is bothering me, and that Macbook owners should be aware of.

In January I bought myself a Macbook as I was long overdue a laptop. Since then me and my mac have enjoyed a great relationship, where it worked, and I was happy. In fact I am so impressed with the Mac OS I find myself on my PC less and less, but that’s another story.

Over the past few days my ‘Magsafe’ Power adapter has been giving me problems, initially upon plugging in the charger it charged…but only for a few minutes, then charged again. This intermittent state of charging was random, unsatisfactory and more than anything concerning. Last night this problem revealed it’s true side.

The cable had melted, and the inner wire was visible. I stopped using the cable immediately as I would prefer not to burn down my home. After a brief period of research online, I discovered that this was a common problem many Macbook owners were experiencing. Just check out this Flickr set for examples.

An example of what my cable now looks like.

Despite me being under warranty I still checked out the Apple site to see what the going rate was for the power adapter. Unfortunately it was, to my disgust, £59.99 (Which works out at about $120).  I am going to call Apple later today to try and get a new cable. It seems a revision has finally been made to the cables, as seen in this picture from Flickr, so hopefully I will receive one of these newer models.

Tonight I have upgraded chrisbrandrick.com to the latest version of Wordpress, which is 2.3. The new version has several neat new features so be sure to upgrade if you haven’t yet by visiting the Wordpress site.