The Weblog Review

So who is Kotigre? Frederic is a Vietnam war orphan, raised in Canada and Memphis who ended up working for Coca-Cola and who eventually threw down his shirt and tie and went travelling.

I have to move on now to the layout, because I found it actually impaired my reading. The background is black, which doesn’t work well with the dark font used for the links and archive list. The white font used for the weblog is better, but is against a checked background. Above each page and frame there are GIFs. Dogs twirl, dragons writhe, birds float past, sayings loop round and round. All of this is a strain on the eyes, and takes away from, not adds to, the writing.

Finding it so difficult to focus on the words meant that I actually focused on the real gift of the site. Currently residing in Costa Rica and sharing a house with a selection of unwelcome lizards, Frederic provides a fantastic photo travel log. The pictures aren’t always clear or well lit. In fact, quite a few are blurry and hard to make out, but it was these very human photos that kept me moving through the pages. They were what made it worth rolling my cursor across the dark and muddled screen in search of the archive link.

Of course, the photo page is well worth visiting. The family photos page tells you more than the ‘about’ page ever could. There is a very interesting story to be told here and Frederic tells it not through the writing, which is more of a day to day journal, but through the photos.

There is definitely a future for Who Is Kotigre? and one I’d like to follow. My only hope is that the future includes a clearer layout. Until then, I suggest bracing yourself against the GIFs and heading over there anyway.Who is kotigre?

It started with:

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Revelation 6:12-17″
…I knew it was going to be a trip. And oh what a trip Sixth Seal is.

What a crazy read Sixth Seal is. The writers complete candor makes for a engrossing yet disturbing read. The blog consists of entries from hbpoh and veritas (a.k.a. Mr. Foaf) and the content from both is VERY different. All of veritas’ entries reveal his strong drug experimentation, of which he gives great detail. He talks about various drugs in his ‘trip reports’. They are very disconcerting but it does make for great reading. It was like reading ‘trainspotting’. Unbelievable stuff!

Hbpoh is a more typical blogger. With entries about: restaurants, wrestling, trips, vacations, depression, Monash University Clayton Campus, Melbourne, school , SexPo, bills, urinal photos, tennis anyone?, Explosive Diarrhea, Magnum Ice Cream bars and of course his girlfriend. I really enjoyed his writing. He documents his events well with photos, some are rewarding, some disgusting, some artsy…photos say so much. A
Funny entry was entitled “Proof that candy bananas are evil”. Want to know why? Read the blog. 😛

My favourite quote:

“Unix is the only thing I know of that can reduce a grown man to tears. Manly tears, that is…”

The author also experiments with substances:

“I was in the mood for some weed so I decided to sample some Australian hydroponically grown cannabis sativa to determine the THC concentrations present in a typical gram bag. All for the furtherment of science of course. I’m selfless that way. *preens*”

Veritas on Heroin:

“its the feeling of picnics and reading books and eating cheese cake and nice weather and mom taking care of you when you’re sick and i’ve got it! its the feeling of being a kid, where there are no real problems, only little ones, and you don’t need to do anything, you just hang around and feel comfortable and they’re parents there to take care of you. damn, thats what it feels like. return to childhood. its the feeling of waking up on a saturday morning to the smell of french toast and you just lie around in bed waiting for your mom to call you down to eat breakfast and you’ve had a great nites sleep and the only thing you want to do is read a good book, a safe book where there are no great problems and everything turns out to be okay in the end. jesus, you just don’t get this feeling anymore after you grow up. no wonder people get addicted to this shit. it’s really comfortable”
.

This blog is an experience. Never before have I felt such a deep impact from reading a blog. If a blog is meant to share an experience then Sixth Seal delivers.
sixthseal.com

So you’re feeling pretty good about how savvy you are as a netizen? You’ve been around since it was DARPA Net? You can enter the perfect mix and word order on AltaVista, Excite, or Lycos, and get the exact site you need to answer your query? You think you could have written “Google Hacks” better because you know more about how to manipulate and utilize Google?

Think again…

I’ve been around the ‘net for a long time. I remember when IRC was the cool new way the students and researchers at Duke and UNC would “talk” to each other about whatever. I used to be an AltaVista snob as it was the only search engine worth while.

The author of “Google Blogoscoped” has me beat. If there’s anything you want to know about Googling, this site probably has it. And the best part is, it surprisingly well written.

Why “surprisingly” you ask? Most übergeeks are great at being geeks. They got that way by completely ignoring grammar, spelling, and vocabulary in favor of being “733t” by writing things like “ur 2 gr8” and “OU812”. (Okay so the last one is a Van Halen album…sue me.) The author of this site writes very well, and will teach you something.

I found myself still reading the site about 90 minutes later, trying out the various “Googleisms”, totally lost in time, and not really caring. Maybe it’s the geek in me, but I really enjoyed the research, writing, and attention to detail in this site.

Initially, I didn’t think I’d like it much. Truthfully, the graphics and layout weren’t that great, but still not bad. I didn’t find myself running for the closest Boeing 737 looking for a barf-bag. I just didn’t like it much.

Then, I started reading. Once I started reading, I started learning. Once I started learning, I got sucked in. The article about what to expect from Google over the next 17 years is really insightful. I kind of like the idea of telling my computer “I’m hungry but too lazy to cook” and having my computer search Google, let me know there are no tables available at my local chinese food joint, but offer to place a take out of my “usual” or suggest another place close by.

The content of this site is for the geek, or wannabe-geek in many of us. Although I can’t recommend this site for the average ‘net newbie, those of us wearing the Internet Merit Badge will find it interesting, informative, and enjoyable.

A few small suggestions I’d like to make…

1. A clearer definition between the posts. It’s a little hard to tell when one starts and another begins. Especially when you’re really into what’s being learned. It’s a good thing the writing is good enough to keep you interested, but when you realize you’re off on some tangent, you end up looking back a paragraph or two to see you’ve already finished the article and are on a different one.

2. Use a serif font. This is just a personal pet peeve. I much prefer to see a serif font used when I’m reading typefaces that size. It’s easier on the eyes and helps the flow. I wouldn’t count off anything for this at all, though since it’s just a personal preference, and I’ve even worked on sites where I just get a “feeling” about using a sans-serif font.

3. Clean up the graphics. I’d like to see the graphics be as pleasing as the writing. Initially, they were distracting, but that was only until I finished the second paragraph.

Outside of those few little things, I find this site to be written with a level of confidence, and a level of Google expertise. It keeps your attention, and has an amazingly good flow. Keep up the good work.Google Blogoscoped

“Hi. I’m black!” – One can only assume by the title of the site that this weblog is written by someone that’s black. Glenn’s a 22 year old guy living in th San Francisco Bay area. He classifies himself as middle class, and in agreeing with a Brad Pitt quote from “Fight Club”, has accepted the fact that he’ll never be famous. And he just happens to be black. See how that ties in so neatly to the title?

The blog is still fairly new with only about four months worth of archives, but they’re all complete i thought and consistent in the frequency that they’re written. The format of them from time to time can be a little too small to read without squinting, but that was easily remedied by changing the text size of my browser.

Through the different blog entries, readers are able to learn quite a bit about the way Jason is – the things that make him tick and the things he finds to be of interest. He’s the type of person that sets goals for himself, and continues to keep those goals in mind. That personality trait seems to naturally give his writing a bit of positive flair.

The layout is really sharp. Glenn uses a powerful image of Michael Clarke Duncan as part of his design, and the orangish colors he uses for the rest of the site all blend well together. The only exception to the design that wasn’t as impressive or as sharp as the rest happened to be the different archived months that were in a different layout from the rest of the site.

Glenn has a powerful way about his words, and the things he tends to write about don’t just focus on one topic. Sports, movies, current events – Glenn runs across an interesting link he finds, and shares his thoughts, whether for or against the subject matter at hand. He throws in enough humor and personality in each of his posts to really draw readers in and make them want to come back.

“Hi. I’m black!” is a weblog I’d suggest. Once you get you feet wet in this weblog, chances are you’ll be coming back for more.

Hi. I’m Black!

Roger L. Simon, mystery writer, novelist, and winner of both the John Creasey Award (Crime Writers of Great Britain) and Mystery Writers of America Special Award, has a weblog! He started his blog as a means to promote his latest novel, Director’s Cut, but it has become a place of political observation with occasional morsels of miscellany.

The site was designed by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and is nice to look at and easy to navigate. You’ll find reviews of his work, book signing schedules, and some nice links in the right column of the homepage. At the top of the page are links to his `about’ page, books, films, pictures, and `words’.

If you aren’t familiar with the author, I recommend checking out his `about’ page first. It is well-crafted like all of his blog entries, and you get to see what he looked like as a child. In full cowboy attire. The `words’ section is full of reviews and commentary of Roger’s work in downloadable PDF file form. Worth checking out.

Anyone who followed the myriad `War Blogs’ floating around during the `Operation Iraqi Freedom’ days may have grown weary like I did of reading poorly thought-out opinions on it all. Fortunately, Roger reads a lot, and when he shares his views on the war, its aftermath, and anything else of a political nature, he has done his research. His entries are always germane, and he provides links and articles and quotes from diverse sources.

BLOGGING AND ITS USES (found in the April archives) was my favorite entry. I plan to shamelessly use his words: `I’m no Nostradamus. (In fact, Nostradamus was no Nostradamus.)’ in conversation as soon as I can. In Roger’s own words apropos his weblog: `For the first time in a long life of scribbling, I am writing with no one over my shoulder but you, dear reader–no editor, publisher, producer, executive, star, director, agent, underpaid development girl, studio elevator operator, etc.’ I rather like reading over his shoulder even though he’s hiding nothing.

Roger Simon’s weblog is always a good read. It is heavy on the political commentary, but always in an engaging way. And for those of you who don’t follow politics, there are some good entries about book signing events and a wonderful entry about his trip to Siberia. This weblog is decidedly worth bookmarking.Roger L. Simon