The Weblog Review

I’d seen the BlogSnob ads around on various sites, but had never visited the main site that hosts the idea – TimepassTown. I’m very sorry I hadn’t gotten around to doing that yet.



TimepassTown is a wonderfully designed website in all aspects. It’s very nice to look at it, and the actual programming side of it is very intricate, yet useful.



The entries are set off from one another in a “thought bubble”, which is a concept that thoroughly impressed me. And throughout each weblog entry, you see different bits of clipart that break up the normal monotony of a plain text post.



There are extra internal links to look at that are just as entertaining as the weblog itself.



The 4.5 rating is only due to the lack of archives. Otherwise, it would clearly be a 5.0 rating. With weblog entries such as these, I want to read more, and when I couldn’t find an archive link anywhere (maybe I just missed it?), I was certainly disappointed. I can’t help wanting more entries to read, and you won’t either.TimepassTown

Well, I didn’t hate this site at all. But, I didn’t really love it either.



“…and in other news…” is thrown into a generic Blogger template, and I really felt like the overall site appearance was rather drab and boring.



There were various entries throughout the few months of archives that were just entire emails that had been cut and pasted as the entry for that particular day, and sometimes just little sidenotes that were perhaps directed just towards the author or those who know him.



The content was worth reading the majority of the time, though. Dean is a writer that explains his thoughts in a nie manner and verbalizes his ideas in an easy to read fashion.



I can’t help but think this weblog could easily be a 5.0 with a little bit of originality on Dean’s part in the design aspect. The blandness really took away from the weblog entries.…and in other news…

Bluetterfly is a site that ranks up there among those that give you a true glimpse into the life of the author. Everything from the content to the design grab hold of you from first glance and invite you back for more.



Beatriz is a person who shares what she feels, and she does it in a way that brings you into her soul and allows you to feel exactly what she’s feeling at any given moment. She sometimes struggles with feelings of self-worth and self-doubt, but unlike so many others who might try to mask those feelings, Beatriz willingly lays them out and explores them. Though she’s dealing with some pretty serious things in her life, she always has a kind word for someone else who needs it. Hers is a weblog that fosters a sense of family and community, and she invites anyone who would like to be a part of that.



This site has a lovely layout/color scheme that works very well with the content. As suggested by “Bluetterfly,” the color scheme is in shades of light blue. The navigation is very clean and simple, with each set of link categories labeled in obvious yet unobtrusive ways. Beatriz uses Greymatter to power her blog, and she utilizes the “more” feature for her extended posts. This allows the front page to remain uncluttered and clean. I found no broken images or links.



The one special feature at Bluetterfly is the site itself. If you’re looking for a read that gives you the opportunity to truly get to know the author and their feelings, opinions, hopes and dreams, visit Bluetterfly. If you’re looking for a site that’s lovely to look at, visit Bluetterfly. This site appeals to the over-twenty crowd, but there’s certainly nothing that’s inappropriate for a younger reader. All-in-all, this is a most delightful site!Bluetterfly

IntegralWill, in short, is a weblog that belongs to Will. It’s called “Welcome to the 2nd Semester”, and goes through the episodes that are Will’s life.



It took me a while to decide if I liked the layout or not. It’s slightly different, with everything opening up in a center frame, but it’s an overall effective layout for the site and fulfills its’ purpose.



I like Will’s weblog entries. They range anywhere from a meaningful piece of poetry to him to how he’s feeling to normal everyday trials and tribulations in Will’s daily exsistence.



IntegralWill is a good site to visit to pass some time without feeling unconstructive, because the majority of Will’s posts are very thought provoking and worth reading. It’s updated several times a day, and very well maintained.IntegralWill

There’s not too much I can say about The Girl’s Life, but I believe I can sum it up rather quickly.



This is a blog maintained by Emi, a girl who seems to be a high school senior. Emi discusses movies, video games, and refers to Britney Spears as “The Beast.” That phrase was, by far, the best tidbit I found within this site. The majority of the posts seem to be short, stream-of-consciousness kind of posts:



“Pikachu over Hexadecimal times the quantity Bivalves. Plus cartoons, minus food.”



Unfortunately, the design and color scheme leave much to be desired. A black background paired with bright red and magenta text at a very small font size is very difficult to read. Perhaps the greatest flaw with this site is the lack of archives. Yes, there is a link to a set of archives, but the page returns a 404 – Object Not Found. Because Emi doesn’t date her entries, all we know upon first glance is the day of the week the entries are from and the time of day they were posted. If a reader truly wanted to know the date of a particular post, they could always use the hover-over-a-permalink-and-check-your-status-bar routine. I, personally, think that’s a bit too much effort to go to in order to find this information out.



I believe the target audience to be Emis peers, not necessarily people of her own age, but people who know her and are familiar with the things she’s talking about. As much as I would like to say that this is a blog that has moments of heart-warming honesty or rib-splitting wit, I’m unable to. Correcting the broken archive link and softening the color scheme would be a great start to making this a user-friendly blog.

this girl’s life