The Weblog Review

I started from the very beginning of existence of “tangents” to find out what it was all about. Turns out, the weblog used to be hosted by some place called “teen open diary” before Stephanie (that’s our author) switched over to Blogger, which is where it’s hosted now.

No matter where I visited in the nearly year’s worth of archives, one thing remained the same – the audience Stephanie continues writing for is an audience that not only knows her online, but in person, too.

The only thing to this site is the weblog. There’s no information to fill you in on who you’re reading about unless you go through and read all of the archives, and even then, you’re still left with entirely too many unanswered questions to feel like you really know anything about the person you’re reading about. To me, I found that a bit disappointing.

The layout of the site is a plus. The format is very simple, and with the lack of any additional part of the site, it’s naturally easy to navigate. It features black text on a white background, with a bright pinkish color used for the hyperlinks scattered throughout. The site is very pleasing on the eye, and shows that sometimes less is, in fact, more.

The same can’t be said for the actual weblog, though. There’s no concept at all of the word “less”. Most posts are a good five or six paragraphs long, but are often shoved into one paragraph, with lots of “……” and random words in bold type every now and then.

The weblog was hard to actually get into. Stephanie would share a story that I could nearly relate to, and then follow it up with an entire conversation transcript from AOL or a recount of her day, which included too many personal tidbits for me to really grasp what she was talking about.

I’m sure those that know Stephanie or those that are involved in her life would love coming back to visit here. For the average weblog reader, who’s never met Stephanie and who never will, this type of writing is a tad hard to follow.

tangents

When I saw the pink my first thought was “cute,” in a bubble gum sort of way (note the irony). The next thing I searched for was some kind of “about me” page so I might get a better feel of whom the author really is. Not finding what I was looking for I dive right into the eldest of archives. I cross my fingers and hope this blog isn’t some cheesy teen blog I got suckered into reviewing.



Much to my surprise, Stephanie is a wonderful writer. She ventured to blogger from a place that was once my home, open diary. Her titles are witty thus making it quite easy to find the extremely interesting of the entries. I noticed, however, that even when I wanted to skim I ended up reading the whole thing. Her older entries mirror the thoughts of a teenage girl. She quite possibly writes the same way she would talk if she were talking to a room full of friends. This actually makes the reader feel like a good friend, or long lost friend. She has her little quirks, and saying’s she writes quite often. She writes entries in latin. Mentions an awful lot of people no one else knows about. Chats online with friends she goes to school with. Overall, she reminds me of myself at her age. While there’s a lot of entries that focus mainly on the daily going-on’s in her life, there are the occasional rants that get right down to what she really believes in.



The design is very functional. Considering the blog is hosted by blogspot, the archives all seemed to work, and even links in entries from a year ago still work. The text may be a little hard to read because it is a little small. Older entries kind of run together in large paragraphs making it, at times, hard to follow. The design is simple, but where it lacks in flare, it makes up for in quality.



The author has a “comment” area, but the comments are in a tagboard-like setting. No real way to comment on individual entries. She links to a lot of sites that I’m familiar with, and she writes a bit of fiction. If you actually look around there are photos to view, and many interesting external links to check out.



I couldn’t help but feel utterly sorry for her after reading the initial post about a restarting computer. My desire to help kicked in and I offered a bit of help… or tried to at least. For the most part I enjoyed reading this blog. Its main attraction might be for those closest to her, real life friends who know of the blog’s existence, or even reader’s that fall closer to her age range. All in all, the blog is quite enjoyable. It’s filled with humor and amazing wit. Makes me wish I had a chance to relive high school one more time (but only for a short time).tangents

When I clicked on the link to this site, the first thing that came up was the background image. It took a few seconds for the rest of the site (read that as “anything else”) to load up. My first impression was the background image was way too much. As soon as the rest of the site loaded up, however, I realized that impression was entirely off base. The main image, which is a piece done by Van Gogh, and the colors used throughout the rest of the site make the background become a bit more subdued. The overall appearance of the site is a very bold one, but not too bold to become gaudy.

“Area Youth Falls Prey to Narcissistic E-Trend” (“Area Youth…” for convenience sake from this point on) doesn’t miss a bit as far as the layout goes. The entire theme just goes very well together. The colors that are used for the links and text throughout the site very suitably play off the background and header images. The site is very simple to navigate, and has a nice mixture of extras as you scroll down the right side of the site. The extras include a brief bit about the site and about the author, contact information, a mood indicator, a zonkboard, the archives, and a good amount of links to outside sites like other weblogs, or sites that might relate to the author.

The archives go back to the middle of June, which is a time period that the author was just finishing the spring semester and preparing to study elsewhere for the summer. The author is studying Russian, so there are bits of Russian trivia and/or information sprinkled throughout the entries. While the majority of these tidbits are quite interesting, there are some that can be hard to grasp if you have no concept of Russian culture.

Like any personal weblog, there are some posts that are very highly involved with the author’s personal “real” life. I read this one, for instance, involving other people and past events in the author’s life. Most of the entries, though, don’t require you to actually know the author. They do mostly revolve around the happenings in the author’s life, what’s going on in school, and that type of thing. Each post is written in a style that’s easy to follow. While some of the entries were quite verbose, they made for very quick reading, which I personally like in a weblog.

“Area Youth…” is off to a very good start in the weblogging world. By experiencing things that most people won’t ever get a chance to experience in a lifetime, the author brings something unique to this journal. It’s definitely one that college-aged readers will enjoy, and it brings enough to the table that I would definitely recommend dropping by and giving the last few entries a read to see if it’s something you’d add to your favorites list.
Area Youth Falls Prey to Narcissistic E-trend

Named alike to one of the best movies of all time, in my most humble opinion, I was guessing I would be in for a treat going to “Dude . . . Where is my Computer?” When I first arrived at the site, I noticed his counter mentioning I was the 36th viewer, unless of course it rolled over 1 million. In all honesty, I believe it is not as brilliant looking as some other blogs I have viewed but it is decent.

This site is very new, less than a month old. There really is not that much to read. It actually tops out currently at nine posts. But it is quality over quantity right? Although most of the posts are regarding trivial pointless personal issues, you get a real feel for what is going on. Steve, the blogger, appears to be learning how to program and has released a game available for download. Other than that it is personal ramblings.

Design of the site is, “yet another blogspot weblog.” The blog is just the average orange color scheme. There is really nothing eye catching or fancy about the design but that is not what we are grading here. Like our name reads, it is more about the blogs.

I have a little time here to put some editorial comments on the site. I love seeing newcomers on the blog scene. But it may be better to get some posts and a few archives under your belt than submit the website a month into publishing. Keep up the good posts and someday I see this site in the 3.5 to 4.0 range.

As for now, I cannot give Higher than a 2.0 due to the fact that the site has no archives or a number of posts warranting such a section, as well as I should not give it a 0.0 because I was not urged to vomit while reading the website. Truth is, I see a bright future in this weblog. So I will give it a 2.0 or “The site could use some work, but it has potential to be something.” Like I said little work and a lot of time will do wonders.
Personal Ramblings

The splash page for eternal autumn shows some promise. It’s very nicely done without overpowering the eyes or the mind with too much “net” stuff. It’s not too hard to find the navigation to the site, and that, my friends, makes a splash page successful. Once you get to the blog, it’s very cute; the only word that comes to mind with its cute bouncing cat emoticon.

The early months are rather slow for this blog author, but that doesn’t mean to say that some of the entries aren’t worth reading. Some of the entries are filled with lots of emotion, while others are the run-of-the-mill “this is how my day went” kind of entry. The archives are kind of funny. Sometimes the font is big enough to read in Times New Roman; sometimes it’s tiny in Times New Roman. Other times it’s in Verdana (which is very easy to read, even if it’s small). As the months progress however, the author writes more and more about the going-on’s of her family and life. Some of the most memorable are quite easily March 2, 2003 and July 4, 2003; each of them bringing different emotions to the table. The longer entries, the ones that get very much into detail and the thoughts behind the entry, are well worth reading. They tell more than the story, they tell the author’s version of the story. And that’s what we read blogs for right? The personalized feeling of experiences we all could have had or share. There’s the occasional random post of chat conversations that will make you stare at your monitor with a quizzical look or laugh hysterically wishing you could’ve been a part.



The design works. For something done in frames, it works really well. One of the most interesting things I’ve seen thus far is that when you hover over her navigational links the letters actually flip upside down. For some this doesn’t seem like such a big feat, but for the avid designer/coder you’ll find this quite fascinating, especially knowing it’s not done with images. The text for the title is a little difficult to read, but everything else works well together. The range of color in the leaves makes it very pleasing.



The site offers a few fun features. As I mentioned before, there’s the random splattering of cute kitty emoticons that you can’t help but look at now and again just to see the little facial expressions. She shares with you the “song of the moment” which is always nice to read now and again. It’s hard to find anything about the author, but when you get further into the LiveJournal aspect of the site until you’ll find a profile for the author. She tells you all about what she uses for the site design and from a designer’s standpoint it’s nice to read. There’s a guestbook and comments, for the usual reader interaction.



For the most part this is your typical blog about what life is like in the working world. The more you read the more you understand and feel for this author. Some of the entries are gold, and others are passable. It’s when the author writes what she feels and believes, that’s when the reader may find themselves hooked.eternal autumn