The Weblog Review

I started looking at “Hi. I’m Black!” and was looking forward to a good read. Almost every blog I’ve reviewed here has been filled with well written posts, and an interesting perspective. Most of them have had a nice design/layout.

The design of this blog is nice. It’s Moveable Type, with some nice personal touches in color and placement. The navigation is easy, and the color choices are nice, excepting the mouseover color. It blends in to the background too much. The rest of the look is a nice blend of contrasting colors making it easy to read.

I can’t say enough about the content of “Hi. I’m Black!”. Really, I can’t find the words to say much of anything about the site.

Oh wait, I have a few: bland, boring, uninspired, weak, uninteresting…

The author makes a few pointed statements, but doesn’t bother to back them up. For example, in a post called “I’m Angry”, he just rants about his co-worker who ratted him out. He never makes a point other than that he has finally learned his lesson with this person. There are several short articles about a Team Blog he wants to start which are probably better suited to email. In an article called “Whoa!”, he starts to talk about the situation in the mid-east, devoting three paragraphs to it, summing it up in his third paragraph (actually two sentence fragments connected with an ellipsis) by saying he likes the writing of the author of the site where he read about the problem. It makes you wonder if he actually has an understanding of the problems there to give an informed, well written opinion.

In one of the better written articles on baseball, he starts talking about facts and figures, even mentioning the National Leage MVP from 1998, without mentioning the name of this person. It is an attempt at journalism from the site’s author, but not well done. If you’re going to tell me about someone’s accomplishments, at least tell me who that person is.

Another article mentions his disgust for the emergence of a new product. The product is a bobble-head doll of Justice Rehnquist. As of this sentence, I’ve written more about the entry, than the author of the site wrote about his disgust. You’d think someone could give a little more thought to something which gets him hot under the collar.

The site’s author puts it best in his site design, where it tells you about who made the entry. Instead of the typical “submitted by” or “posted by”, it very aptly says, “babbled by”.

To be fair, you’ll find a few posts where the author finds something to write about, and does really dig his fingernails into it. However, those posts are few and far between. Reading some of the older posts from when he started, you can see the learning curve he went through. It’s nice to see how someone can grow and learn, and it appears as though the author reads his own work since there are signs of improvement from the early days of the site.

This blog is not worth your time. However, if you’re the type of person who sees a dead rat and is morbidly curious, you might find some fascination with it. Sadly, it will take some time before this site becomes one worth reading on a regular basis.

I’d like to come back to this blog in a month or so and update this review to show me how wrong I’ve been about the writing. Seeing the improvements the author has made on his own, I hope he takes this review as the impetus to make improvements in his writing. Here’s to hope!Hi. I’m Black!

With a name like Hi. I’m Black! There are a lot of instant stereotypes that come to mind about what the site could be. Some of them hold true, others do not. My biggest fear with this site is that it would have a lot of “More evidence how the white man is holding the black man down” type posts. Thankfully the author chose to not drown us with these posts.

The weblog itself is fairly well written. Most posts are thought out, and have a good point, be it something in the world as a whole or something in the author’s life. The author likes to link to a lot of different stories. There are quite a few number of “Black this” type stories or “White that” but as a whole, they work well with the other parts of the blog.

The design is inconsistent between the front page and the archives. While I like the simplicity behind the design on the archives, it is really missing a lot of what the site has to offer. Also the front page, which actually has a good design, seems to be lacking something. The picture of Michael Clark Duncan as The Kingpin from Daredevil doesn’t seem to add much to the site.

I really wish there was an about me or about the site section. I looked through all of the archives of the site, and while I could only get a slight preview as to what the goal of the site was I am not sure if I am correct. An about section would really help the reader understand not only the goal of the site, but where the author has been, and where the author is going. Some sites do well with out an about section, others require them. This is one that requires one.

Over all I found the site to be a good read. I am not sure if I am the target audience for this blog, but it has at least peaked my interest into keeping an eye on it to see where it will go. I hope the author will make the goals of the site more clear so that a vast array of readers will be able to understand an enjoy it.
Hi. I’m Black!

My very first impression of this weblog was that of feeling welcome there. Something about the colors and subtle background images and even the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about children make visiting this a site a comfortable experience.

The layout for this weblog is fantastic. There is a calendar up top where you can click on 5 days’ worth of recent entries, and three different nice-looking background images surrounding the actual weblog writings. There are three other ways to get to archived entries, all of which are rather helpful. You can click on archives by month, recent entries, or by category. There is a nice list of links to other weblogs, the obligatory Amazon wish list, and a site search tool and section about what she is reading.

A good deal of the entries include something about motherhood. The author has a (lovely, from the photos posted) two-year-old son. Since I am a mom, I particularly like reading about someone else going through the ups and downs that accompany being a parent. Entry topics range from the author’s frustrations over trying to find time for proper exercise to public transport etiquette. She’s down-to-earth in her musings, and writes well. The author mentioned wanting to create an `About’ page, which I think would be a nice addition to an otherwise excellent site.

Whether the author is writing about being a stay-at-home mother, spirituality, or Golden Rice Crispie Cakes, she manages to make daily life interesting for her readers. Pewari’s Prattle

Welcome to My Brain… Well not mine, but that of Brian Shaver. While the domain itself has not insights to the blog, the title of My Brain is a rather good one.

I quickly noticed a floating head with rotating eyes in the design. This was somewhat of a distraction as I didn’t see what purpose it had on the site. The general design of the site is a two column layout with the content on the bigger right side column. The design is nothing to shout home to mom about, but the simplicity of the site fits with the weblog itself.

I recommend reading the about section before venturing into the weblog as it will provide you with a fair number of insights about Brian that can come in handy. In the about section, there is also an about this site which is somewhat unique and not often used in weblogs anymore.

The weblog itself is a very easy read. Mainly because the author is a freshman in college (note: now he is a sophomore, but the blog is about his first year) who is interested in computers and math. Even though he is such a stereotypical computer geek (talks about computers, math, star trek…), he very rarely mentions these things, except where they add to the post’s details.

Brian posts mainly about what he is going through his freshman year in college. Mainly of the posts are about a situation that either just happened, or will happen shortly. Brian shares with us his struggles of figuring out who he is; which is something he never had to face before.

The only downside is that Brian seems somewhat conflicted with the site itself. All to often I read a post that said, “It has been a while since my last post” which isn’t surprising since he is a freshman in college, but I would liked to have more frequent posts.

The best part of the blog has to be that Brian is sharing what he is going through. It is good for anyone to read, to remember those times, or to learn about those times, or even just to say, “Yeah I am going through that too.” The blog could stand to have a little bit better focus, and a better design to complement the author more. If you are looking for a daily update, then you will be disappointed. But if you want a blog to read on the once a week basis, this is a good one for you to add to your list.
My Brain

Before I begin this review, I have to state that minishorts is a blog I have been reading
regularly for quite a while, and the owner is on my ICQ contact list. That being said,
I’ll try to offer a review that’s as unbiased as possible, and one that may offer
additional insight into the site which is afforded by knowing the author. Minishorts
has been online since September 2002 and the first post involves three pieces of
poetry which the author wrote. I particularly enjoyed the one entitled “Dearest
Mother” which manages to be touching without being clichéd.

The weblog is a mix of the author’s thoughts about everything and also her
personal issues, with occasional posts which provides a very intimate view into the
author’s life. An example of this is the January 14th 2003 post which has pictures of
her bedroom, complete with photos of the bed, her wardrobe (with clothes) and the
author herself. Minishorts is a 23 year old Chinese Malaysian doing her Masters in
Linguistics and the blog is representative of what personal weblogs in Malaysia are
all about. The author aspires to be a writer and she occasionally posts bits of
ongoing stories in the blog.

The entries are updated consistently, and the author manages to post even while
on vacation in Hong Kong, using the hotel’s business center’s net connection. The
posts have a nice smattering of photos at appropriate intervals and this manages to
prevent the monotony in reading an all-text blog and provides a window into the
author’s world. There are plenty of pictures of the author’s and her friends and one
can’t help but feel like they’re with the author as she goes through her life. There are
photos of her trips, her convocation and so forth and reading the blog feels like
watching one of those time delayed footage of a plant going through the growth
process of a bud to a flower. This and the always entertaining posts is what keeps me
going back for more.

The design of the site has recently been changed into one featuring a Matrix
layout, with a non-standard horizontal scroll bar. The content of the blog is featured
in a window of the left side, followed by a large Neo, and leading into the tagboard.
The tagboard is dynamically replaced by things like minishort’s bio, links, credits
and so forth when one of the navigation buttons is clicked. However, the links are
images which doesn’t provide anything to suggest where it leads to, except when the
hover text comes up. This “mystery meat” navigation does not seem to be a good
design strategy.

Someone pointed out in an email that there are essentially two kinds of weblogs
– the personal ones and the ones that provide social commentary on current issues
and news. This blog belongs to the first group and if you like those, you’ll love
minishorts. If you don’t, well I guess you won’t, but click on the link anyway and
see if the site will change your mind. I’m giving it a 4.5 because I honestly think it’s
a very interesting site. This would be interesting for you too if you’ll like a voyeuristic
look into the life of a 23 year old in Malaysia.minishorts@urban-flirt