The Weblog Review

Xiuxin is an amicable blog. Simple template (blogspot, not my favorite template source), a tidy side bar with relatively few links, no about page and posts dating from August, 2003.

The blog is titled “What a Beautiful Day!” and from the brief blog description (“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray……My dear Lord, everything’s beautiful in you!”) you realize it’s the type of blog to belong more inside a “Christian” category, than in a “Personal” one. After reading a couple of her entries, I found out my initial impression was right: God is the catalyst of her life and her blogging. I must take time out to say that I’ve read many a Christian blog and most of them are not the type of blog to appeal to non-Christian readers. Christian blogs are usually very “niched”, being of interest to those who share the faith. This blog however, I found to be different, more universally appealing.

The author’s name is Susan and she’s a mother of three. She’s married to an Australian she met in China and in her posts, her family is described as truly wonderful. Reading through her archives, I discovered some interesting facts: she was converted during the 80’s (a good account of her conversion can be found in one of her older posts), she then joined an underground church (but was turned over to the police) and she even participated in the ’89 Tiananmen movement. The post where she tells the story of how she met her husband is also good reading.

Now, all of these things would be great to read of in an “about” section, but in order to find them, I had to do some serious archive digging (not an easy task considering she has a rather large archive). So, this is definitely something Susan should work on, an “about” section to get the reader familiarized with these interesting aspects of her life.

Probably, the most important characteristic of Susan’s blog is the passion with which she writes about her relationship with God and the daily struggles and self-discovery process this implies.

Those who share her faith will undoubtedly cherish her blog. She achieves true Christian wisdom in some of her posts and in others, she is able to encourage all those who seek God out. But should the reader be non-Christian, I’m sure he/she would find many posts worth reading (if only Susan had links to get to them). It’s the nature of Susan’s topics, which makes the blog appealing to a broader audience.

I found this blog to be quite inspiring. If Susan chooses to work on such details as making some of those interesting life posts available to the reader (through links for instance) or creating an “about” section, then the blog would surely kick off. In any case, this is one Christian blog I truly enjoyed.

xiuxin.blogspot.com

What A Beautiful Day is an extremely simple blog visually. I wonder if this is the simplest blogspot template available? Green header and white background. The text portion is quite wide and dominates the page. The author has been blogging here for one year.

This blog is mainly what I would describe as a kind of spiritual journal. There are entries about her family and a new house that her husband built for them, but mostly it centers around insights she is having in her life. There are descriptions of religious services she attended and what she learned from them and bible verses with commentary on what they mean to her. It is an intensely personal place where her faith is unabashedly displayed. The writing is straightforward and understandable, albeit with some grammatical errors here and there.

The only other thing on the page is a dated archive list, a moderate list of her favorite bloggers and a few web tool sites. No frills. Our author does not seem to be interested in the way the blog looks, but has her focus elsewhere.

This site would appeal to a Christian audience, or anyone curious about the inner spiritual life of a person of that faith.

xiuxin.blogspot.com

The Thinking Woman’s Diary is without a doubt the most elegant on line journal I have ever seen. Though to be fair, it is a personal web page, unfettered by hosted blog templates and limitations. But it’s a beauty. If for no other reason than this, you should go take a look.

Being used to several other types of navigation, I fumbled around a while trying to figure out what was what on the site, and how to get to it. I finally gave up the idea of chronology, for her posts really do not have that much date dependent material, the entries are more along the lines of gentle philosophical musings contained in separate categories. Some of these include: Nature, Life’s Treats, Passion, Travel, Good Life, you get the idea. So it really doesn’t matter what the date is while reading most of these essays. She has been writing here since April of 2004.

I would consider her style more in the creative writing arena, rather than a daily diary. She writes with grace and elegance on an astonishing array of subjects. If you look in the “Your Say, My Say” section, there will be a comprehensive bio that helps us put our author in perspective. Perhaps her world traveling has helped her become such an excellent writer.

Of course I have no way of knowing how many visitors our blogger is attracting, but there are very few comments posted. This is the one advantage to having your blog on a hosted site. You inherit a built in community of fellow journalists and can quickly make connections and friends. I hope that being reviewed at Weblog Review will increase her readership. She deserves to be read.

The one thing that I could not find on this diary was a notify function. I would suggest to our author that she consider adding one. It is a much better way to let people know you have updated, than expecting them to check in every day. There are absolutely no links whatsoever on this site either. A kind of breath of fresh air after some of the recent blogs I have reviewed.

By all means, please take a look at this blog. If for no other reason than to observe what I consider to be a benchmark of great journaling design. And stay a while to read a few very well written essays. I recommend “The Curse of the Easy Option” found in the Philosophy category as a good place to start.

The Thinking Woman’s Diary

The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person doesn’t look like much from far away and I imagine that most people who spot it will be like me and be instantly turned off by it. But my first encounter with this site was much like a caveman’s first encounter with a Raptor egg. If I had listened to my primitive reflexes and ran away, I would’ve never enjoyed the sweet, creamy, yellowy yolk that lay within.

There is no actual “about me” page (the about me page is actually an archive of posts that appear to have been written before she started using blogspot), but if the Alberta license plate avatar on the front page and her recent posts about the Calgary Flames are any indication, the blogger, Kaetlan, hails from Canada. The blog itself is a regaling of her daily adventures in and around her town and humorous personal insights on various subjects. From time to time, Kaetlan mixes it up a bit and lists things like, “22 Things I’ve Learned Since I Became A Massage Therapist” where she mentions how her clients think she’s actually a prostitute.

The design of the site is nothing to do cartwheels over. It’s a blogspot template with links and archives plastered on the left side of the page and the body of the blog on the right. Posts are archived by month, so you have to read through quite a bit of text if you’re searching for a specific post. Extras include a small Photo Album, an Amazon gift registry, and a mini store that sells clothing with her design on it.

The eyes are not treated to anything shiny or attractive when first visiting The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person, but upon further surfing of the site you feel anything but disappointed. In fact, I felt quite warm and fuzzy in the end. No, her corner of the web isn’t lined with fluffy wool or filled with teddy bears. To be more exact, the site is, as she put it, “an insidious, subversive, positively Communist site devoted solely to the purpose of providing a forum for the Author’s ill-considered and unwarranted megalomania.” While not as Communist as it is insidious, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person is a blog even Joseph Stalin would enjoy. It is a lighthearted view into a young Canadian woman’s day-to-day life that is good for a few chuckles. I give this site a 4.0, but it could score higher if she polishes up the design a bit.The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person

I said once before that I hate being honest sometimes and that still stands. So here goes. When I first entered this one, my first impression was not a very good one. What I saw was your very basic blog using one of those frequently used (but very boring) “Blogspot” templates. At the top of the page were the words “Talking Sideways”, which was the title of the blog.

Well everyone has heard the saying that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover . With that thought in mind , I dug right into the blog itself to begin my journey of reading.

As usual, the first thing I did was look for an “About” page. I like to read a bit about the author first so I can get an inside look at who the author is so I can get a better handle on what the blog is all about. To my disappointment, there was not one thing there that could tell me anything about the author.

At that point, I began to read the entries. First of all , the blog hasn’t had a new update in over a month. I read the main page and most of the archives. I would have read all of the archives but couldn’t because my eyes started to get blurry from the strain. Let me explain. Most of the writing by Crazy Dave (the author), is very crammed together. His sentences don’t leave much space in between. It was as if I were reading one long paragraph without taking a breath. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about in most of his entries. There were some of his posts I had to read over 2 or 3 times, just to see if I could understand them. It was really putting a strain on my eyes.
Besides all that, it didn’t help that there were a lot of spelling and grammar errors.

On the right hand side of Dave’s blog, are his archives and several links. All his links are working properly and fast loading. But the problem with his links are they are all out of date. Well at least most of them. I went through each and every one of them and there are about 4 of those links that are still active. The rest haven’t posted since 2003 etc.

Dave doesn’t frequently update his blog so it seems. Therefor, I don’t really expect it to be around all that long. If your eyes get strained easily, I would not recommend paying a visit to this site.http://crazy-dave.blogspot.com