The Weblog Review

(note: these guys originally submitted a GeoCities url)

I don’t know about you, but just the thought of looking at a GeoCities website makes me cringe. Nearly all beginning web designers are guilty of using GeoCities, hence my apprehension. I was hopeful, though, when I was greeted with a “we’ve moved” page. Hope did not live long when I arrived at their current location.

It looks like it is supposed to be four small town guys writing a log. There really isn’t much of a log going on here, though. I found no archives in which to better judge their writing styles. Either the log is new and there are no back entries, or they don’t think their entries are important enough that other people would want to read them. A lot of it appeared to be “mindless dribble” (as stated on the May 24, 2002 entry by Cruz) or your typical high school guy thoughts.

There really isn’t much to find out about these guys, since their “about me” section is “coming soon” (except for Cruz’s bio, making it obvious that he’s the one with the most control over the site). The “new guy” doesn’t even have a “coming soon” “about me” section. It is near impossible to get a feel of exactly what these guys contribute to the log, since like I mentioned before, there are no archives. They appear to treat their weblog more like a personal message board, since their comments are mostly from eachother.

In a few of the entries, a new layout is being hinted at. Boy do these guys need it. They have used Flash for navigation, just for the sake of Flash (one of my bigger pet peeves). They couldn’t have done much worse with their black background and frames (unless you add animated GIFs, which these guys thankfully didn’t do). All of the text was uncomfortably small to read. Reading the content was even more difficult on the interior pages when it became microscopic white comic sans text.

This site had few, if any, redeeming qualities. Dull, difficult to read entries and almost no worthwhile content on the rest of the site. This weblog would probably only be interesting to people who really know these guys.Cruz’s Page

As soon as my modem finished gathering the relevant information for the starting page of Adversity I was already impressed. Unique, clean, and descriptive it had everything I needed to know about the site displayed in front of me over the map of the British underground. I immediately clicked on the bio of the author, hoping desperately to get a background before I started on the weblog. The description of the author, Blair, despite being brief was enough for me to start with, I at least knew whether or not she was male or female and what some of her strong beliefs were, it makes reviewing a blog so much easier.

After reading a little I noticed how strong and opinionated the blog was, and not just your normal whining but direct, precise and informative opinions. I found this style of blogging refreshing and quite digestible and you can really see that the author certainly has some writing ability as I found myself reading through the blog post after post. Despite some very obvious opinions here and there the blog certainly is centered on the day-to-day proceedings of the author and I really didn’t come across anything that made me want to skip past a section.

The design is fantastic, a nice cream background with neat fonts, headings and subsections make for easy and pleasurable reading. Navigation wise I can’t complain, everything’s there for you to click and browse, all the links worked correctly, and yes, I was quite impressed. The blog does lack graphics, which is fine because I don’t believe blogs should be about graphics, and it also means more entries can be posted before being archived (there was 20 long entries). Perhaps this could be cut down though I don’t think this would be a problem for most people. The only annoying feature was the lack of an index for the archive posts, it was a case of next 20 or previous 20, and you couldn’t jump to say a specific month or period. Again, hardly anything that most people would be too fussed about.

Extra site features like articles etc ensured there was plenty to see around the site. I got wrapped reading one article written about ‘Teen pop stars and culture’ which I found most stimulating to read. Such controlled and intellectual writing in personal sites are few and fair between, but I do like to have the option.

Overall I was pretty impressed, in fact I’d go as far as to say this was the most enjoyable weblog I’ve reviewed of the 10 or so I’ve have done before. I give Adversity a big 4.5 out of 5, which ok, sounds a little high but I think if you check it out you’ll be inclined to agree with me. Two thumbs up and I highly recommend Adversity as your next stop after reading this.

Adversity

I make no promises is a very simple looking weblog, but simple is refreshing when so many others are becoming more and more fussy. Anna definitely hasn’t gone for the girly blog.

Anna is an American teenager, actually two days younger than my son, she started this blog in November last year and has posted pretty much every day since. Its exactly what you would expect from a teenagers blog, but its well written, and Anna expresses herself very well for one so young. This blog reminds me of what it was like to be eighteen. There is a lot to read here and it should take you a while to get through it, but its worth every minute in my opinion.

The design of this site is very simple, using a white background with black text and sky blue links. I make no promises is set out in three columns the centre column being the one that houses the main content. The two side columns contain all the other things that this site offers, including links, about, places to go, things to do, pictures, plus a few more. Most of the links work, and the comments section is also used well.

All in all this is a very well thought out, well written weblog, and you cant really ask for much more. It will invariably appeal to the younger audience, but if you are longing to reclaim some of your lost youth go here for a while, you wont regret it. I give it a creditable 3.5

i make no promises

“…inexplicably fancy trash.” makes me wish I had a better sex life so I could completely relate to the discourse on this site, which revolves around sex, sexuality, and erotica. The blog’s description, “Being a blog on what it is we think of when we think we’re thinking of sex. With your host, Nicholas Urfé,” is clever and enticing, making the reader first have to puzzle out the sentence structure, then pause to wrap one’s mind around the concept behind Nicholas’s writing.

The suggestive background image, which is partially obscured by the main body of the blog, emphasizes the relaxed, irreverent approach to sex that the author exhibits in some of his entries. But do not think that this is a fluff blog with a sexy lure. Tough issues like teen sex-education and freedom of speech are also linked to and discussed. In other words, “…inexplicably fancy trash.” is Nicholas’s views of sex and its portrayal and role in society, from funny and flippant to angry and reactionary, and everything in between.

“…inexplicably fancy trash.” is, of course, for those 18 and up, though I’m sure Nicholas would have his own thoughts on our society’s insistence of protecting “the children” from all things sexual. The site design could be better, but it serves its purpose of providing the reader with refreshing and interesting content. For a topic that is still a touchy, sometimes taboo subject, Nicholas manages to discuss sex with a healthy, open-minded attitude that takes away the giggling, blushing reaction to sex without stripping it down to boring, dull biology. Kudos.“…inexplicably fancy trash.”

Blue, black, pink, and simple layout, so I was pleased right off the bat. The simpler the blog the easier it is to read and understand, in my opinion.

Stephanie Anderson’s “Retrospection” isn’t really all that retrospective at all, but the author is the first one to note that. It seems like it started out with the goal of restrospection and just became a daily journal about whatever struck the author’s fancy. As such, it serves its purpose just fine. This site has probably the most thorough (and hilarious) about sections “moi” that I’ve ever seen.

At first its kind of difficult to find the archives. The ‘oldies’ section, when clicked on sends you to the Pitas.com webpage. The author needs to change that link from ‘archive.com’ to ‘oldestentries.html’. I found the right link in the ‘qoutes’ section, which is a section I throroughly enjoyed. I never thought I would find myself pondering the depths of a Gary Gilmore qoute. There’s also a guestbook.

The design compliments the site. Nothing to distract from what you are reading, the colors do not make it difficult to read.

All in all, I enjoyed this site a lot. Easy to navigate (the archives don’t work well with an older netscape, any IE will do fine though), hilarious at times, when I was done reading I felt like I knew the author, an all around good weblog. Four stars, check it out.

Retrospection