His post got me thinking about aspects of tech blogs that I dislike and I came up with enough stuff to make my own /diggworthy/ list. Interestingly enough that is also number one on my list..

1. Writing For Digg or Other Social Networks

The 10, Top 20, The Best.. Many articles that are written to make the Digg crowd digg the article. They seem to love top lists. And yes, I’m very well aware of the irony that this post is one.. Many people love those posts but I have to say that I avoid them at all costs unless they are special. Consider that before writing about the Top 10 Firefox extensions everyone should use or the Top 50 iPhone applications for iPhone owners.

2. It is English

My English is not perfect and I get regularly bashed in the comments because of mistakes I make. But, there are some blogs out there that are really hard to understand because of the grammatical structure and choice of words. If I read something and have to guess what the author meant because of the grammar then it is game over for that blog. Unless it is really unique.

3. Repetition

Seeing articles about the same news story that originated from one source on dozens of tech blogs is something that makes me click the Delete button in rapid succession. I do not want to read about it if all that you are doing is repeating what the source already wrote. Adding information or opinion is required to keep my fingers from itching.

4. Not Linking To The Source

There are actually two aspects that annoy me here. The first is when a blog is not linking to the source it got the news from. One rule of journalism and scientific writing is to always mention the source. If you do not mention it you land in the trashcan. Yes, many respected online magazines do not like to link to (or only sparsely) other websites.

Some sites on the other hand link directly to a file that they reviewed instead of the developers homepage. That’s a no-no

5. Blogs That Are Not offering Full Feeds

Offering only partial feeds might be a way to get a little bit of traffic from visitors who read the first paragraph of an article in their feed reader. It will on the other hand annoy many tech savvy users who do not have the time to visit hundreds of websites each day to read all the articles that they could not in their feed reader. If an article is interesting enough the readers will come because they might be interested in the comments as well.

6. Advertising Instead Of Reviewing

Some companies like to buy reviews to get backlinks and exposure on the Internet. This would not be a problem if the author of the article would disclose that fact. Sometimes they do not. If it is to obvious the blog will be deleted from the feed reader.

7. Writing Unrelated Articles

Stick with the tech stuff if you run a tech blog. I’m usually not interesting in reading stories about stuff that is not tech related. If it happens occasionally that’s fine but if it’s a regular thing I’m gone.

8. Internal Linking

Linking internally can be a great way to provide readers with additional information about a certain aspect of an article. Some websites overdo it on the other hand and always link certain keywords to certain pages on their website even if the information is not related at all.

9. Dividing articles on pages

Dividing a top 10 list on ten pages might increase the pageviews tremendously. It will however annoy the hell out of many readers who have to use the print feature to read the full article on one page. It gets complicated if these sites do not offer full feeds or a print option.

10. Filling a Top List To Make It Look Better

People digg top 10 lists but they might not like your fabulous top 17 list. That’s why you have decided to fill it with three not so fabulous entries to be able to post a top 20 list. And yes, this is another excellent example of a filler..

Your turn. Got anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

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5. Advanced Strategic Command

Do you remember the game Battle Isle ? It was a great hit on the Amiga Computer and could be described as one of the first turn based hex-strategy games. Advanced Strategic Command uses a similar mechanism, its a turn based strategy game. You play against humans in multiplayer or against the computer in a single player campaign or on single maps. You have different types of troops like soldiers and tanks and factories that produce new units.

The graphics are a bit outdated and there is no tutorial whatsoever but everyone should get the hang of the game pretty fast. Motivation and fun are what makes this a great game.

4. Zac McKracken 2

First, there was Maniac Mansion, then there was Zak McKracken. Those have been the first two adventures by Lucasarts that used the SCUMM technology and a point and click interface which revolutionized the adventure genre. Zak McKracken 2 is a fan project that looks and feels like the orginal.

It has everything that most adventures of today are missing. Funny dialogs, great interface that is easy to use and riddles that feel like riddles. Remember when you found a chainsaw in Maniac Mansion but no fuel and Fuel in Zak McKracken but no chainsaw ? Its the same type of humor, definitely recommended.

3. Warrock

Warrock is a Battlefield like game, the only difference that warrock is free while battlefield is not. Warrock uses the same principles, you have to capture flags to gain points for your team and reduce the points of the other team. To do this you can use vehicles and one of five classes that have different weapons and skills in the game.

You could choose to play as a sniper, engineer, medic, heavy weapons guy and assault soldier. Everyone is able to enter vehicles like tanks and recon to move faster and gain extra firepower. Graphics are great only some animations have to be worked on to make the game look more professional.

2. GunZ The Duell

GunZ the Duell is a massivly multiplayer game from Korea. You start by creating a character. You can change his appearance and class at the beginning. After that you see the main server window where you select a server to play on. The character starts at level 1 and gets experience and money from killing other players and objectives in the game. Game modes include Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch as well as some others like Gladiator.

Every character has a primary fireweapon, a secondary fireweapon and a blade or knife. You can also equip armor and grenades. Every weapon and armor can be upgraded by purchasing new ones from the shop. The game itself is much more action than roleplaying game, you can perform lots of special moves that look like they came right of the matrix movie trilogy. Walljumps and running along walls are two of the moves. It takes some time to get the hang for the moves but once you understand them they are essential for your ingame performance.

1. Mono

Mono is a fantastic simple game. Your objective is to change the color of the screen to the opposite color. The player starts with a white or black background and has to change it to black or white by shooting at colored balls that explode into halves and leave traces of their color on the background. You get extras like additional firepower which you need badly later in the game.

I hope that you enjoy at least one of the games listed here.

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