The Weblog Review

For someone who loves purple, it’s always a nice surprise to go to a blog and see purple everywhere. I figured from the title that this might be a group, blog, but only reading the remainder will tell. Upon reading about the author you find it’s one author. I do enjoy the very cartoony look to this blog.



As you read further you find out that the author, Katia, feels a desire to write, as most bloggers do. She admits that she has no direction in her writing, and it’s simply for herself, but some of her posts might find quite interesting. The blog itself is very personal. There’s a lot of french strewn about in the midst of the text. Early entries about neopets are cute, as her and her husband both were slightly obsessed for a moment. The entries have a tendency to be along the lines of “i did this today” kind of entries. While others are short sending you to something she found interesting or funny. While you might find yourself searching for the gold in the masses (she has a lot of posts for each month of her archives) there are the occasional wonderful stories that leave you smiling. The entries are well written, and for the most part thought out.



The design is very cute and very original. When you change to different pages, the image on the top right changes as well. They’re not overwhelming and overpowering of the blog, but actually accentuate the content. The navigation is easy to find, although when browsing through the archives it would be nice to have a “back to top” link, becaucse Katia actually writes quite a bit each month.

There’s a lot to read and view besides the general blog content. She gives you the option to change the look of the blog and I’ve always liked that feature. There are a lot of good external links with only a few broken ones (from earliest archives).

This blog has had a wonderful beginning and a middle. There’s a lot of content to read through. While some of the entries are rather mundane in it’s day to day nature, the others are worth a read. Some are nostalgic and others just wonderfully written experiences. There are quite a few spelling errors, but nothing that takes away from the reading of the blog. There’s also a portion of the blog written in french, and while I don’t understand it, it probably accentuates the content as well (if only I could understand them). This is a blog I would read again, though probably not on a daily basis.An Aussie Lass, a Frenchman & a Burmese

The title itself suggested this was probably done by a little girl, maybe in junior high, for a bit of fun for herself and her friends. The hot pink background you see for some time as the site loads reinforces this idea.

This site has a lot of technical problems. It’s two colums, but the boxes and sliders everywhere are frustrating. Sometimes the archives work; sometimes they give you a Blogspot error message. If I’d just been a casual visitor I probably wouldn’t have hung around long enough to read through it. It’s graphics heavy and there’s also music, and an upper navigation bar I found eventually, as it took a full ten minutes by the clock to fully load. (Often, those on high-speed connnections forget that 50% of the online population is still on dialup modems, as DSL and cable is not available everywhere.) Some of the links in the left go to inactive webrings.

While I was waiting, I skimmed through the archives and found there were a few spotty entries since July of last year. I discovered Deb is a 20-something college journalism student, so this is probably a “fun” project. Such entries as there are have quotations found on bathroom walls, some lines (with more graphics) about Barbie and the author’s Women’s Studies teacher. If this is a parody on ultimate ditziness, I’d like to see more! This is why I hung around long enough to try and read more of the entries. Even the “non-blog writings” (also difficult to get in and out of) are downright hilarious!

It’s clear she’s put a lot of work into creating this world — next time I’m out at the college where they have a T1 connection, I’ll make a point of visiting this site again for a better look. But if I was teaching writers at her school this young woman would definitely get some extra credit for this blog.

I’d recommend it to anyone with a high-speed connection, who could use a laugh for the day. Judged on content alone, this blog would rate a 5, but unfortunately the technical problems will put off some visitors, so I’ll give it a 3.

Deb on the Web

The first thing that caught my eye on this blog was the neat background and the interesting header image. After that, it looks like your standard personal blog/journal. The title, “Stephanie’s Online Diary,” verified this assumption.



Random Scribbles is the diary of a gal named Stephanie. Her entries are pretty interesting and honest, but they are few and far between for my standards. After going through the archives, it looks like Stephanie doesn’t blog as much as she used to. I’m sure there are reasons, but infrequent updates don’t make for a good daily read. There’s a good variety in her writing, but there’s nothing that really sticks out for me.

The blog is well organized and is well designed. It’s a Movable Type blog, so it has organized archives and integrated comments, which are always a plus. Stephanie also took the time to customize her template with a nice looking background and a captivating header. Very nice.

Overall, this is a very well designed personal blog, but there isn’t really anything special to warrant it a daily read. I’d definitely come back though and see what Stephanie is up to. Random Scribbles

A quick look at the list of Jim Howard‘s interests is innocuous enough at first, until you reach item number eight: nudity. As the site’s tagline so neatly states, Jim is from Missouri, words aren’t enough, you’ve got to show me.

However, aside from a semi-nude cam photo in the top left corner of the site (nude from the waist down, mind you), there isn’t an awful lot of skin outside of the photo galleries. The blog is a mildly diverting read; currently a lot of time is spent discussing the site’s eventual move to a new url, and the problems Jim is having securing a domain name. The content is often relatively personal – no grievance sharing, plenty of familial discussion – though it reads well and the author pays attention to his spelling and grammar, which certainly helps.

Unfortunately, one thing Jim has apparently not devoted much time to is the site’s design. In IE it is passably average, in Netscape a little less so. The masthead is a poorly optimised jpeg with red text on blue that blurs more and more the harder you try to read it.

The site is a three column affair, though a little more organisation would help with the placement of links – one column devoted to external links, one to navigation, would make far more sense. So too would having a proper archive: there is a calendar view of September, though it is impossible to select a different month to view so trawling through older posts is a cumbersome and involved process of selecting the last entry and clicking the link to the previous one each time.

There is a reason to come back to the site; many reasons, perhaps. The author and his family are moving house, and are saving to do so. The struggle to save money is well communicated, so too the search for a new home, and how different family members treat the process. With any luck, Jim will find time to redesign after the move(s); a change could do this site some good, but until then, at least it’s easy enough to read everything that happens in September.

Jim Howard’s ShowMe

As a reviewer, I haven’t yet mastered the art of the News/Links review. I

figured now would be as good a time as any to start getting better at writing

these kinds of reviews. The first thing I noticed was the lack of images.

This is quite depressing, as when you read Bill’s bio and find he seems like

an interesting person. I’ll admit, I have no idea what “Peoria” or “Pundit”

is. I had to look them up in a dictionary. For those of you who don’t know

either so I’ll give it to you here, just as help.

Peoria:

n.pl.
1. A Native American people forming part of the Illinois

confederacy
2. A member of this people.

Pundit: n.
1. A Brahman

scholar or learned man.
2. A source of opinion; a critic: a political

pundit.
3. A learned person.

Having gotten that done and over

with, onto the review.



First of all… go all the way back. Go back to the very beginning of this

blog. When you hit the oldest month, scroll all the way down to the oldest

entry. Now read the whole thing. It’s okay, I’ll wait for you. Just read.



Good. Now that you’re back we’ll get more into the review. Bill’s eldest

entries are scarce. There isn’t a lot of content in the 2002 archives, but

there are, in place of quantity, some quality reviews of sites, and books. The archived entries seem more along the lines of a personal blog. The entries are well written, as I’m sure they would be considering Bill is a Freelance writer and Newspaper Columnist. Bill’s entries are thought provoking and original. He isn’t saying the same things over and over again. I’m at a loss, simply because I’m not quite sure if I should write this review based on the massive amount of external links or the amazingly written content. He signed up as a “News/Link” site, but I’m finding this much more interesting than any news site I’ve run across.

Again, I say, I’m not sure how to review this site considering the large amount of personal entries throughout. There’s a bit of it that falls into the political. While another part of the site falls into personal interest. The author writes a good commentary for the entries leading to links, and makes the reader (at least this reader) want to click to find out the more.

Bill’s entries are interesting in the idea that he almost goes above and beyond what other bloggers seem to do. Most of the month of May is google searches on his name. He’s found some rather interesting articles in his search. The author’s thoughts have a tendency to swing one way, politically speaking, but they’re not extreme.



He’s a wonderful writer and there are many things worth a read in this blog. I don’t generally enjoy blogs like this, but the older entries did a good job in changing my mind. THe newer entries seem to follow suit in how most blogs of this type are. They’re short, sometimes sweet, and “go read it yourself” attitude is a little stand-offish. I’d much rather come back for a read if the entries were as personal as the earlier posts. One of the better parts of this blog?? It’s all interesting news, and not the information you get inundated with daily.Peoria Pundit