Hardware sites reviewed: Part II

AS PROMISED, here is the second instalment of a series of three about hardware sites on the World Wide Web.

Part one, which dealt in part with journalism and design, is here.

Now let's roll our sleeves up and get wefting.

We can't look at every web site, but have selected a sample to illustrate general points.

Tom's Hardware
The mummy and daddy of hardware sites. We first met Tom Pabst at an IBM Microelectronics press gig in Switzerland. He's a doctor, but not a body fascist, and used to quite enjoy it when we smoked 80 Gitanes a day, because he quite likes those tabs himself, and cadged quite a few off us when we were thoroughly addicted to these coffin nails.

Tom don't write much these days, but we bumped into him at Computex in September and exchanged bodily fluids - we shook hands.

The site needs a re-design guys.

Anandtech
We first met Anand in Taipei as well. His mum was accompanying him to interviews because he was a minor. Both are very nice people. Now Anand is a little bit older. Has he outgrown Hardware Web sites? If so, we'd be interested to find out what his next project is after he's graduated as a doctor.

HardOCP
We used to like HardOCP. We probably still would if we ever looked at it. But Kylie Bennett quite deliberately went out of his way to ignore us at Computex this year because he's still apparently smarting over comments Paul Hales made about his site a thousand years ago. What a stubborn old goat!

HEXUS.net
The good "doctor" David Ross seems to be havering over whether his site is a news or a review site. If he plumps for the former, he'll have to redesign it. A bit like Russia, it's unclear whether this site is a crow or a peacock. Time will tell, no doubt.

Dan's Data
Good writing here. Dan's Data is pithy and he gets lots of letters. He needs a designer, sharpish.

This paragraph from a great book called Great Pages by Jan V. White, who I met 14 years ago when I edited a print PC weekly, is generally good advice for all website folken:

"If verbal and visual people both understand how the structure of the writing is organized, it can be given a visual format to help guide the reader through it. Being able to find elements is vitally important, especially in longer pieces. Making things easy to find respects the reader's lack of time".

Trusted Reviews
Unutterably and irredeemably dull and plodding.

Extreme Tech
Way, way too busy. Too many exclamation marks! Good competent writing here, if you get there before the busyness starts to make your brain hurt a lot.

Sudhian
No...

JC News
Breaks every rule in the book. I used to love JC's News, but he got depressed a while back when some nutter had a go at him. He still writes some stuff but not nearly enough.

Xbit Labs
There's something badly wrong with the design of Xbit Labs, but at least the people talk to system builders, which matters, and don't necessarily listen to spinners, which also matters. There's an advert on the site right now which seems to be pulsating at almost exactly the same rate as my brainwaves, and so a migraine is inevitable unless I smurf away from it.

Accelenation
I like this site's design, and the guys show a deal of creativity. But I don't like the white print on a grey background. When you move your pointing device over the text, the grey turns to black, which is a nice technical touch. But it makes it not very easy to read, which is a shame, because there's some decent stuff to read here.

There is a general tendency, by the way, for a lot of hardware sites to put white text on a coloured or monochromatic background. Probably most people don't remember Felix Dennis' Oz magazine, or the International Times, which broke all the same rules nearly 40 years ago in print. It was all right before LSD was made illegal, but haven't we moved on a bit from those days? µ