Amour Chaleur

Most of my study breaks had been spent on surfing the Internet and browsing through websites I had never been before. I’m pretty sure most of us own a website, be it a resource site or just a personal blog. I believe everyone will have different opinions about their likes and dislikes for a website. In the short span of 2 days, I have jotted down some characteristics of websites I had visited which I’m uncomfortable with. As a disclaimer, these are my personal opinion and I’m not referring to any websites in particular.

1. Personal websites with a donation button

I find it puzzling when I saw a small notice mentioning “to cover the cost of renewing the domain …” right below the donation button when the website in question has been hosted for free. How much does a domain name cost a year? I estimate it to be about USD 9 for a .com domain. Apart from contributing to the renewal of the domain name, I cannot think of other cost which would be required to keep the website going. Is it really necessary to ask for donations for the resources¹ which are supposedly provided to your visitors for free? I do not think the kind souls² who donated would know how their money were being spend.

I understand that for some cases, the owner of the website had met with some financial problems or difficulties of their own and needed our help. I’ve no qualms about that. However, requesting for money with a donation button to fund your personal website is a bit too much. I’m pretty sure there are also other ways to get a domain name. I was reading Mimi’s blog the other day and she mentioned getting a new domain name via her rev.iew.me points. I think it’s a fantastic way as compared to asking for donations. Moreover, I often see online contests giving away free domain names for winners. Perhaps some people should start trying their luck and testing their ability at those contests.

2. A link on the navigation which leads to nothing

I need some enlightenment on this even though it’s the least annoying for me. I have seen some sites with no visitors content at all but they had a “visitors” link on the navigation. I was quite surprised to see a “No visitors content yet” when I viewed the page. In this case, the navigation link is pointless. If the content is not ready, please remove the link. Your visitor might either be disappointed or surprised which definitely makes this idea a bad choice.

3. I need a magnifying glass to be able to read anything on the site

I’m actually referring to the virtual magnifying glass – Ctrl ++ on Windows. It’s very helpful when I visit sites with extremely small font size. Having such tiny text on a website is not cool at all. Similarly, light pink text on a white background is killing my eyes. It will be nice if the designer of the layout can spare a thought for my eyes.

4. A few dozens advertisements

Seriously, does anyone really need 2 dozens advertisements on a site? The first thing I notice when I arrive at a website like this is not the content but the advertisements. The flashy graphic ads take away all the attention and I would simply click on the close button at the top of my browser without a glance at the content. It’s common to have ads on a website, be it text or graphic but try to keep it within a certain area of the layout instead of placing them everywhere. If there are many ads, a rotation might be feasible. Personally, I feel that an overdose of advertisements also spoils the entire look of the layout. No matter how good the layout is, a whole lot of ads is just repulsive for me. The mountain of ads will also slow down the website significantly. Why would I spend time waiting just to view all the ads?

1. Such as Photoshop brushes or premade templates [«]
2. They may be fans of that website [«]

I am grieving over the lost of one of my mahjong tables¹. Someone had stolen it yesterday’s afternoon and we only noticed it when we are heading out for dinner. It’s surprising someone would actually stole something this big. It’s about 80 by 80 centimetres and since we are living on the 9th floor, there is no lift access. Were they that eager to play such that they have to steal a table to do so?

Where's my mahjong table?

I assume they carried it away in a hurry because we found one of the small drawers of the table at the bottom of the stairs on the 8th floor, they didn’t even bother to pick it up when it dropped. Were they guilty concious and afraid that someone would catch them in the act? Why would they steal an old rusty table when you can get a new one for less than SGD 50?

We do not have a store room at home and due to the design of the old flats in Jurong, there’s a large corridor. It is usually only use by my neighbour and my family as it’s an isolated corner. Hence, we placed the table folded outside. It’s puzzling to me why the thieves would take the old one and not the new one? We have 2 of those and my neighbour has another identical one on the same corridor. I’m guessing the old one was placed nearest to the stairs and thus makes it an easy target. Theft has been a problem for the past few years. My neighbour had reported at least 3 pairs of track shoes missing and my cage of hamsters were stolen a few years as well.

I was bored and extremely displeased hence I spend half an hour walking around the entire block hoping to see if anyone had discarded the rusty table after using it. I did not find any clues or indications on where my table was. I joking told my Dad that we should put up a notice saying “Area under camera surveillance”. Maybe that will scare off some of the thieves!

1. A table used for playing Mahjong, a game for four players that originated from China. [«]

I’ve been so engrossed with fixing this layout that for the first time in weeks, I slept at nearly 4am. I decided a new layout is necessary not because I was bored of the previous one but because I think I need something new to “freshen up” the entire site. This blog hasn’t been very active lately because most of my time had been spent on last minute revisions for the upcoming examinations. I had a few other ideas for the new layout but the “Candy House” idea was my final pick.

New icons

Frequent visitors of my blog would know that I usually don’t change any of the comments design because I’m always at a lack of ideas (okay, I admit I’m lazy). This design is one of the simpler ones without much details. I didn’t have much time on hand to work on this. The entire layout took me about 6 hours and I didn’t do any detailed cross browsers checks either. I did a quick check in Opera, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari. It seems all right hence if you notice any issues, please let me know.

Panda King

Regarding this design, I have to admit I’m not a fan of candies or chocolates. Anything sweet is not exactly my cup of tea¹. However, I thought a candy house seems pretty interesting and I’m pretty sure it’s a cosy place to live in. This design is made from lollipops, colourful chocolate M&Ms, strawberries and chocolate sticks, vanilla cream, lots of melted chocolates and my trademark, panda king. No pandas were harm in the process of making this layout. I hope you like it because it’s going to stay till at least April or June.

I’ve also been thinking of ideas for my blogger’s namecard. It’s been on my list of to-do for the past year but I still haven’t started yet. Perhaps I should start jotting down my ideas. What do you think of using this candy design for the namecard? Oh and if both of you are reading this, Terry and Brenda, both of you need to start too! I want one when you are done, okay?

1. I don’t think pandas like sweet stuff as well [«]