Here we have a decent blue themed web site with a relatively professional look. There is a simple, round but fairly effective logo with some binary numbers riding on top left of it. I could imagine this being animated so the binary numbers keep circling the "TB" circle.

There is a sense of consistency across the design. For instance, the main menu in the header and the categories menu in the sidebar are both round, only with inverted colors to fit the background. The content areas and the sidebar also feature rounded corners. Titles of article teasers on the homepage have a blue background matching the main menu background in the header.

However, there are some immediately visible rough edges which testify of the need to apply some tuning. The most obvious is the fact that the above a big square ad is displaying above all content on the main column of the homepage which is a practice that can send a wrong message to the reader. Content should always be in the spotlight, not ads. Ads could also be styled to more closely fit the color scheme (instead of using google default) so that they fit in better.

At least on Firefox 3, input boxes for search and login and the drop down box for language selection seem to be too wide making them extend beyond the width of the sidebar they're set on. A teaser with a huge Internet Explorer icon jumps off a little too much from the rest of the teasers. It would be a good idea for each of them to have a same-sized teaser image instead or none. It's also not clear what the teasers on the homepage represent, but it doesn't appear to be all recent content of the site since there are only two pages worth of them and there are many more articles in the categories. Is it featured content? Whatever it may be it might be a good idea to have some sort of a headline saying it.

When clicked some categories reveal sub menus which display as a bullet list of normal links, but the bottom margin could be a little larger so it doesn't almost touch the next menu item.

The language flags on category pages and the homepage seem a little redundant given that there already is a "Select Language" drop down in the left sidebar. If they're gonna be displayed however they might fit better within the header area either at the very top right or at the far right of the main menu strip. Alternatively it could be at the top of the left sidebar. If it wont be displayed then the top of the right sidebar, or at least just below the search box, would be a good place to move the language selection drop down menu.

Article pages are fairly good, but certain shorter articles or pages just briefly describing a particular subject, such as this one end up terribly ad ridden. Ads end up taking far more space than content. Larger font size of the article content is a good thing though.

TopBits.com also has other sections aside from what appears to be main content many of which appear to be using a special integrated software module. Blogs look a little bare right now with only one blog available. Forums are also empty and their theme seems a little troubled with "New Topic" and "New Poll" buttons displaying below each other and crossing into the first forum header and having the "jump" drop down menu crammed between stats and "online" information (which seems redundant given the stats above).

There is also a glossary with a fairly decent look consistent with the rest of the site except it loses the sidebars on the page of a specific term in the glossary. It also has the same issue as the homepage with the square ad displaying above all content. Games section looks decent as well, but could use some work on buttons like "leaderboard", "newest games" etc. The green hover color on links doesn't fit their background too well and they could use a somewhat larger padding to look neater.

Chat section isn't integrated to the design and the search section isn't loading (though it's unclear why it's necessary if there already is a search box on the sidebar, at least on homepage.

All things considered it's a decent albeit not wow inspiring design, but needs some polish in few places and some attention to the blog, forums and perhaps the chat section if the idea is to integrate it to the rest of the site's design.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

On a first impression it actually isn't entirely clear what this site represents. "Top Bits" is short and sweet, but if you miss the meaning of "bits" you'll have to scour the categories to get the hint of it as a tech resource of some kind. After plowing through all sections I figure it's a relatively large technology resource built with an intention to build a community around it. In any case an about page or an introduction of some kind would really do good here.

Focus Rating: 6/10

Content:

Content is among the strongest elements of TopBits.com albeit it doesn't seem so at the first glance of the homepage given the lack of clarity as to what kind of content is the homepage meant to show and only two pages available. The richness is in the categories listed at the top of the left sidebar as well as in the glossary. Plowing through main categories I could estimate over 3300 entries. Some of them might not be full articles as certain entries are just brief descriptions of a subject, but that's still quite a lot. Glossary contains over 650 terms defined judging from the number of pages and terms per page.

So as far as quantity is concerned there's definitely a lot to offer. Regarding quality it's difficult judge an entire collection, but there seems to be a relatively diverse offering of articles some of which are quite comprehensive. It seems to be covering everything a techie might have an interest in, from basic information such as definition to detailed guides with examples and bullet points.

The weak points, of course, are the blog (nearly empty) and forums (empty, despite what the mysterious counter of the last forum says). However these could be late additions and not primary to the site so they shouldn't count for much at this point.

Content Rating: 10/10