The Weblog Review

Alright, let’s talk lazy here. I like it so much when I go to a site and right away the author gives me an exact description of what he/she thinks the particular weblog they post to is about. Don, the creator and author of “Reveries of a Solitary Blogger”, explains right away that this weblog is “a collection of progressive news and commentary, designed to keep readers engaged in the world around them.” The description alone leaves some pretty big shoes to fill, so I was anxious to see if Don was successful in filling those shoes.

I quickly classified Don as a newsjunkie. Not only is he right on top of things as they’re happening, but he knows more than just the basic information you may only find in one or two news articles about the particular event. He’s opinionated, but likes to have enough information validating his side of things. In general, doing that requires a lot of knowledge and a real zest for wanting to inform and be informed. From the writing, I almost immediately gathered that Don is exactly this type of person.

A lot of what Don addresses at this site is the political arena, and sometimes, without the proper background information on the reader’s part, I could see where readers could get lost in what’s being discussed. This isn’t a bad thing at this site – it’s just something that may not be as convenient or as easy to follow for some.

Design-wise, the site goes between two standard Blogger templates – one’s used for the main page, and there’s a different one still looming in the archives of the site. Both make the site operational and easy to navigate, but of course, there’s nothing in that aspect that makes the site stand out from any other.

“Reveries of a Solitary Blogger” hits the nail on the head when it comes to the site’s description, and is a must read for any political and/or news fiend. Don’s opinions are certainly worth your time.

Reveries of the Solitary Blogger

Spinneyhead is coming on being up and running for nearly a year now. I went through all the archives to give the site as fair of a review as possible. It took all of about an hour. All of the entries are very short, with only perhaps one or two sentences in the majority of the postings. Only in the last few months does Ian finally get to be a bit more verbose, which is definitely a plus with this site.

Spinneyhead started out with Ian, our author, just linking to different sites around the ‘net, sharing limited views on them. As time has progressed, Ian started sharing more and more about himself, his personal life, and more extensive views and reviews of what’s going on in the world. Once this began, I became much more interested in Spinneyhead.

I had some trouble with the colors used for the layout of the site. The bright red background is nearly blinding before the rest of the page loads. Once the two white columns load, the site looks much better.

There’s more to this site than just the weblog, too. Along the left column of the site, you’ll find links to a novel Ian’s working on and several links to different photo galleries. There’s the standard links to his favorite sites, webrings, and other miscellaneous things, but Ian has it all laid out very nicely and it’s very easy to read and navigate through.

What this site has that so many sites now lack is intelligence. Ian doesn’t use extremely long words or quote prestigious news sources to make him look smart. Instead, he uses his natural intelligence to express his views, no matter what they are, and has also captured the art of keeping his readers attention. Obviously, this makes for a great weblog.

Spinneyhead

Amy Beth is an old school blogger. Her earliest archives dated back to April 2000, and she’s one of the few that have been a faithful blogger for that entire amount of time without taking much of a break at all.

The posts made over the years at this website are pretty basic. They’re either quick links to something the author has found interesting (either newsworthy or worth a few good laughs), or just a daily update on what’s either going on in her personal or work-related life. It’s nothing ground breaking, but more a casual weblog with casual reading.

All of the archives of this site are functional. Of course, there are some links that are no longer valid or some images that no longer show up, but that’s just expected when looking at something that was posted over two years ago. The only complaint about the archives would be the color schemes uses before Amy Beth started to use any weblogging tool. The colors are nice and bright, but don’t go well together and often cause a bit of eye strain when trying to read the weblog entries.

The only thing that puzzled me was the image at the top of the site. I had no real clue how the eight different images of flying creatures really related to the weblog at all. And when all was said in done, it didn’t. Of course, it had no effect on the rest of the weblog.

The rest of the site is quite extensive as well. There’s a photo gallery, postcards you can send to your friends, and a humor section to name a few.

Overall, the *supah*weblog* is a fun one to read. Amy Beth sometimes updates several times a day, and it makes for interesting reading. I would suggest giving it a visit and see if “What’s Up With What’s Going Down” is something you’ll add to your bookmark list.

supah: whats up with whats going down

Weblogs that are classified in the New/Links genre are often hard to review. Authors and creators of these sites just slap any random link into their site with little or no explanation of their own, and often just copy word for word text from the aforementioned link. This is a mindless activity that anyone can accomplish. The author of Filter Coffee takes his weblog containing the news links from current events several steps above that notch.

Such as the way things work on the World Wide Web when it comes to linking to another site, sometimes that link is no longer valid or has moved to a different URL – especially with news sites. My favorite entry was one that sent me on to a site where I could find a printable flowchart on how to respond to telemarketers when they call. I almost took offense to another one of Mahesh’s posts regarding the overworked, dumbed down call center employees. When not reviewing weblogs, I just happen to be one of those “deprived souls”. Then I followed the link to realize Mahesh was really referring to the call centers going up in India and the absurd way of Americanizing things that they’re forced to follow. Yes, I learned something from this weblog. Big points there!

The layout at Filter Coffee is very nice. It’s simple, the images used in it stay with the concept of the weblog’s title, it’s easy to navigate, the colors go well together, and anything else that makes a weblog look nice that I can think of is done here as well.

Filter Coffee is a relatively new weblog, but I would certainly consider it a unique and refreshing way to add to your daily national news intake.

Filter Coffee

Call me a crazy nostalgic person, but I was instantly interested when I saw Storm Troopers in the design for Imperial Doughnut . It sort of reminded me of the U.S.A. Today of blogs – full of color and an easy to read format. I could only hope that it wasn’t dumbed down for public consumption though.

The writer of Imperial Doughnut is Michael, a British student who claims to be “mostly harmless.” Michael has a great writing style – you get the feeling that if the two of you went out for a pint at the pub that you’d be blowing beer out your nose from laughing so hard. I’m sure I don’t know anyone else that could bring the varied styles of Princess Leia’s hair into a discussion about his own hair phobia.

Imperial Doughnut has a great, very simple design. What’s better is that it’s so easy to navigate – archives are in a drop down. There’s an excellent “About Me” page that not only gives us the basics, but also more information than we could ever even want to know! The only thing I can complain about is that the design is not uniform thoughout the blog.

I recommend giving Imperial Doughnut a read!
imperial doughnut