The Weblog Review

In Brazil, there’s a book on curious facts on almost anything you can imagine. I myself am very curious so I immediately thought this blog would be interesting as the book is. And it is.

With subjects that cover what the sounds animals do are called to the United Nations, the author gives very good explanations on a myriad of topics. There are great illustrations to a lot of the posts. Everything is well written and he mentions sources and links to websites that are worth mentioning. I would compare the author’s work to what Google™ Answers offers. And I mean it as a compliment. Basically, what R. Edmondson (and the name is about all you’ll find about the writer, since his profile lacks information) does is good research. The only thing is, you may not be interested to read about that particular topic –and I guess that’s why we ourselves look up things after all –but if you are, boy, you’re lucky!

A Blogger template is used and follows the trend (dark background, light letters), which is the only thing I found that didn’t appeal to me. I don’t know if you’d agree, but this choice makes it harder to read stuff directly on the screen. Other than that, there’s nothing wrong with using a simple layout such as this, since obviously here the content should matter most.

This is a very good blog. It saves you a lot of time if you are lucky to find something you might be interested in reading about and if you’re just a curious person, this is the right place to go.
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This has to get top honors for being one of the most creative descriptions for a blog. Seems like this guy has a sense of humor – or does he really? I read the ‘About Me’ section on the side bar first – astrophysicist, yachtsman, television presenter … not! Seems this guy Dave really must have a sense of humor. I almost believed he really was all those things. It continues, “By day, I live by the seaside, play cricket for a Norfolk village side … and have had a couple of minor books published.” Can I have your life?

The actual posts themselves were very well written. You’re a parachutist too? God, this is making me feel pretty inadequate! But this is a review, so … well written and interesting. The posts are written in such a way that we get some insight into the authors’ personality. ‘Words’ really do seem to play an important part in his life, as does the battle between British and American English! There were a variety of topics, some humorous, some serious and Dave seems to an equal mastery of both. He has the rare ability to make everything seem like an interesting story. Another plus is that the posts aren’t too long.

The blog was easy to navigate with the use of a two column blogspot layout. The design integrates very well with your theme of cricket, with the picture in the header and the picture of you on the sidebar. Nice use of various shades of green in the color scheme.

Overall, this blog is definitely a good read. Going through it, I felt like I was getting to learn more about the author, who I suspect is secretly a Jedi Knight in training. But I’m still left wondering how “life is an elaborate metaphor for cricket” as stated in his title.
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Being a man I was afraid that this site would turn into a man bashing site, but instead it was knowledge that both sexes could benefit from reading… I read every article posted to the site and found some of the things very interesting.

The weblog is based on girl talk, from recipes to simple dos and don’ts in relationships. It also gives information from a women’s perspective on how to get men to adore and fall in love with you. I was kind of offended that some of the items on the site make men seem like total morons and that they didn’t know what women do to pick up “that hot guy,” but overall it seemed to be a positive atmosphere that didn’t prey on the typical “dumb male ego.”

The design was very simple and just as seductive as what was being discussed. It was red and white typical Valentine’s Day colors with a nice logo at the beginning. It was not cluttered with advertisements or links to other pages. She sited everything that she used and also gave links inside of article for further information… another very nice feature to add to a blog in my book.

I liked the site over all and feel that it would be very beneficial for other women to read and comment on her postings. It would be much better to have women involved in a positive atmosphere as in this blog, rather than a men bashing rampage disagreement with her girlfriends.

On a side note, the blog itself is working correctly, but none of her links at the top work, but the auction link… These items need fixed, but my review is based on the blog and its content. These links being broken drops my rating by 1 rating point from what this site would have received

Overall I would rate this site as a 3.25, while making one suggestion. I would post more often. It appears to me that she only posts during the second half of the month. I am not sure if this is a cycle that occurs on purpose or if it is just coincidental. I enjoyed reading the site, but would have to admit it is mainly designed for women.
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Every time I begin a review I start by glancing down the site quickly to see what sticks out, and what I don’t really like… I would have to say that the font on this site is way too small. It has a general Bloglines template, but appears to have some really interesting information. Another initial item I noticed is that there are no subject quick-links nor advertisements.

The weblog is a collection of Author interviews, book reviews, and writing tips. This weblog is for you if… (1) You like writing books and would like to know how to get started in the business, (2) You like reading about authors, or (3) You just enjoy literature. I feel this site is very informational. Parker asks legitimate questions of his interviewees. The questions actually apply to the career of book writing, rather than just asking what is your favorite color.

The design of the site is very simple. It has a peaceful layout that is easy on the eyes to look at, but the font is too small. I would recommend placing each of the articles on the site in one of the three categories and have links that would pull up the subject a reader would like to read. This would make maneuvering through the site faster and easier.

Parker generally likes to post to his site on Mondays. Also there are no archive links that you can jump to specific months without walking through each month from the month you are currently in. That can be annoying if you know the article you are looking for is in April of 2005 and October is the current month. He has links to other sites on the left hand side.

I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys literature. I feel the site has a decent layout. I would also like to say that Parker appears to be a very educated person keeping his site to a high standard. I give this site a 4.
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As I loaded BeingSteve.com into Internet Explorer, the first thing I thought was – Wow, that’s big. There’s a huge logo that greets you. It doesn’t take long to load, but if you’re still using a 800×600 screen resolution, don’t even think about it looking nice. The header image is a 988 x 248. Even at 1024 x 768, I still had to do a little left-to-right scrolling to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything.

The latest post on Being Steve is one of the neatest posts I’ve read in a long time. It was written on Friday, October 14th, 2005, shortly before he left for a weekend away with his girlfriend of two years. The post is the text of an email he’d written to ask her parents if he could marry their daughter. Instead of using the chicken way out, as he put it, he ended up asking them via telephone and has plans to ask her to marry him this weekend. So, hopefully, by the time this review is being read, Steve’s girlfriend will have said yes, he’ll return to blogging as a happily engaged man.

The rest of the blog, while not as lovey-dovey and sickeningly cute as the post I just mentioned, it’s fun to read. The way Steve writes is very conversational. He’s not writing a report on “What I on My Summer Vacation”, and he’s not trying to write America’s next great novel either. His posts typically describe his every day life – shopping for things in bulk, comparing nipples with his girlfriend, and his reaction to the “Who Makes Movies?” message they play at the beginning of movies in the theater. Steve has regular gripes just like the rest of it, and the way he writes them out gives many people, I’m sure, a feeling of familiarity with Steve.

Some of the posts are very long, but the majority of them are just the right length – you don’t get tired reading that much, but you feel like Steve really explained what it was he was trying to convey instead of leaving readers stuck with questions.

The color scheme is my biggest complaint about this site. Okay, it’s my only complaint. As I noticed when the site first loaded, the header image is enormous. The background of the site is black, and the font that was chosen is a turquoise-ish Comic Sans. It’s incredibly hard to read, and I often found myself squinting just to finish up a post. The rest of the layout is a typical two-column layout – the weblog portion of the site in a main portion, and a sidebar with the archives, photos, and links on the other.

In short, Steve is just a regular guy, with a regular life, running into the regular problems that anyone else will. That is what makes this blog enjoyable to read.

The site started back in June 2002. No, I didn’t read every post, but if I have bookmarked the site so I don’t miss any of the new posts. Besides, I have to find out what his girlfriend said to his proposal!
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