The Weblog Review

When I finally arrived on the blog after navigating through a splash page and a rather annoying pop up requiring the reader to answer ‘qui’ or ‘non’ to the question “Would you like to vote for my site at DNW TOP 100?” my first impression was simply that the design comprised of an awful lot of shocking pink – some might say a little too much to be pleasing. But personal preferences regarding colour scheme aside the site on first impressions is bright, colourful and reasonably well laid on. I mean, personally I do not like this template layout – individual scrolling in all three columns. But these are factors I will touch on later in the review.

A small bio resides in the left hand column, which actually succeeds in providing very little information about the author at all. So I ventured off in search of the archives – first snag – where are the archives exactly? Not where I would expect them to be that’s for sure. Most sites tend to place there archives on an easily accessible archive page – or link to the them in one of the navigational columns. Not ‘In her own write’, here they are accessed by scanning down to the bottom of the middle column. That was annoying, archives in my mind should be located where they can be seen – not every reader would think to scan right down to the bottom of the centre column.

The weblog has been in existence since October 2003, and is made up of entirely personal postings about the author’s life. I’m getting the impression early on we are dealing with a fairly young person, and to be honest it is to this group this blog will largely appeal. It’s events as they happen, not life changing or thought provoking. Clearly its operated as some sort of public diary – which is fine for those readers who want to read about the life and endeavours of a young person.

The design as I mentioned earlier is, well colourful. Clearly the author is fond of the colour pink, and likes it as shocking as it comes. The template layout isn’t appealing for me, but again this is entirely personal preference – I’m not keen on having to scroll slightly down the browser to show the weblog area, and then having to scroll in each column to read what is in there. That sort of design works OK if, and only if the template fits on the screen entirely – which in this case it doesn’t. The archives were located in the centre column, not where I had expected them to be and I, for one, believe this needs re-evaluating.

On the whole ’In her own write’ isn’t all bad , it’s a fair enough contribution to this world we call blog – the design is individual and colourful, and the content although personal will no doubt appeal to those of a similar age, or in the same social circle. It isn’t a blog I would frequent on a regular basis. Adjustments to layout, less of the animated gifs in the weblog area and this site is likely to have some potential for the future – but as yet it looks and reads like just another teen blog.In her own write

As a UK citizen I was a little dubious about attempting to review a weblog which called itself “The Patriot Blog”, it seems to me that such a title is aiming for a purely US centric audience. – and obviously being neither an American or patriotic in my own land I believed I was not the right person to review to this site. That said, I did, and these are my observations. On arrival at the site the reader is presented with a very plain simple two column layout – there is nothing remarkable here on first site, yet nothing offensive in terms of design or color scheme. I believe the site had been designed with a 800 x 600 screen resolution in mind because there was a minor problem with layout which I will touch on later.

There was no clearly defined ‘site bio’, although I do suppose to a certain extent that the subject matter is intrinsically linked to the blog name – that said it is always nice to have a little background information on the author, or in this case authors because as I delve deeper into the archives I discover there are more than one. There are a few interesting links at the very top of the index page – quotes from people’s comments on the Patriot Blog, links to the archive page, and numerous others of potential interest to the reader.

The blog, or so it seems by the archive page has only been in existence since the beginning of January, and that is finally where I find my introduction to both the site and it’s authors.

“The words of this website will be written by three of the most esteemed gentlemen around. The daily posters will be yours truly, Grant Anderson and the more blunt of the three of us, Mr. Mills [Ymmit]. We will be harsh on those who dont meet the “Patriot Blog” standards! Every week we will be joined by James P. Hohmann for the week in review on FRIDAYS… “

With that in mind I continued reading. The content of this site is largely made up of rants about various subjects – be it depth of patriotism or vegetarians. The entries vary tremendously in quality, and are strong on opinion but not necessarily objectivity. So, yes, we have another opinion blog full of upfront viewpoints which take no prisoners – which is fair enough, there are bound to be some readers out there who will find this mode of writing entertaining – possibly just Americans from a similar chain of thought as themselves. It did little for me, but then the site isn’t intended to appeal to an English vegetarian now is it? 😉

The design as I said is plain and unlike some of it’s content not particularly offensive. The small problem I mentioned earlier with regards to layout was this – although the site frame itself seems to adapt to browser size, the left hand column seems fixed in size. Now this isn’t necessarily a problem, but aesthetically it leaves a large gap on larger screen resolutions making the text appear very fixed to the left hand side of the column. The site is easy enough to navigate, although some method of moving from one individual entry to the next would really benefit a reader like myself – moving through the month archives is simple enough. Again I picked up on a problem here, albeit it a fairly minor one – the right hand calendar menu continues putting a link to previous months even when no entries are present.

The site overall is as I had initially expected – tailored towards an entirely American audience who share a similar chain of thought to themselves. Entries vary tremendously in quality, and as yet there isn’t a great deal to read, but content to date is mostly ‘opinion’ and rants. Standing aside from my personal preferences I see this blog having limited appeal – certainly to Americans, probably to those who share a similar chain of thought. That said, even a blog whose opinion I don’t share can hold appeal, but this failed to grasp my attention for too long. An adequate contribution to the world of the web.Patriot Blog

With a name like Patriot Blog I knew that this was going to be a heavily influenced by politics and the what not. I didn’t know if it was just going to be about the election this year, or about a specific topic, so I dove right in.

I was pleasantly surprised that the design was very clean and simple. A logo, a two column layout, a small banner for the “true patriot award” is all that there is. Nothing fancy. This made me very happy.

After reading the posts on the main page, I hit up the archives. The archives can be accessed in multiple ways. First there is the dreaded calendar which I always have hated, then there is a link to all the articles listed in chronological order, and finally at the bottom of the page are numbers which will take you from page to page. I liked the fact that there were multiple options available.

So what is the Patriot Blog all about? Well there are three guys who post at the blog about all different things from sports to movies to politics. There is a great mix of topics within the site which helps a lot. There are also a lot of great jokes through out the site which made me laugh which gets points.

So I was all done reading the site when something caught me off guard. Each of the post’s titles was a link. At first I thought it was just the perma-link to the post, but then after I clicked one I noticed something… The post had doubled in length! Every post seems to have an intro and then the rest is displayed only when you visit that specific posts page! This is very annoying since there is not a MORE link at the end of each intro. I have two pet peeves with weblogs: the first is a splash page, the second is having more to an entry and not letting me know about it in some way.

I enjoyed my time at Patriot Blog… both times (read above). I think it has a lot of potential to be a great read, so long as they stay on their current path. Fixing the posts to display in full length ALL the time would help it even more. So if you are looking for a possible new entry on your blog roll this might be a good one to start at.
Patriot Blog

I picked this blog because I live geographically close to London and actually lived there for a few years. At first glance this girl appeals to me, the visual appeal is slick and there is a nice animated pic of various pics of her and an aquarium. Also she seems to have a grip on the sort of things people are feeling at the moment. It is winter, last week it was holloween and the whole of the UK is obsessed by fireworks. She also seems to be involved with ‘Flash mobs’ something that I have heard of, and looks great fun.



This is my first review, one of the first things I was looking for was the link to TWR, unfortunately she seems to have decided that TWR should be gathered at the very bottom, with Blogger of all things! Probably one of the only things I can find to criticise this site. One small point might be to add a comments feature or to make it a group blog and let other friends contribute.



This web site seems to be a highly attractive mixture of personal diary and ‘London promotion’ which I find pleasing. Especially as the blog entries seem to denigrate the public services. It is like showing people what it is really like at the same time as advertising what is going on in London and why they should visit. I would agree with this pragmatic effort. London is great but you have to be willing to make the effort to entertain yourself, especially at this time of the year when the weather is terrible.



Trying to place a value on a weblog is a difficult thing. It really depends on what you want to read. Personally I like to read about obscure locations or topics. The writing here is admirable but I think at times she is desperate to find something humorous about her day. There isn’t anything wrong with this, it just wouldn’t attract me because as the saying goes ‘who wants to be a comic, everyone laughs at you’.



The design of the blog is perfect, giving the impression of vitality and energy of London, the fish tank idea is wonderful. There are quite a few extra links to activities in London and other people’s blog. However I would like to know more about the author, maybe that is the drawback of our busy lives and I suspect that being a Londoner she doesn’t want to have an ‘about me’ page but I think it might be useful especially when some of the jokes seems to involve friends and family that I know nothing about.



In conclusion this is an appealing slick blog for this girl and her friends. She does have other things to say apart from observational humour, there are the weekly results of her life drawing class, a nice discussion in May about the ‘Diceman generation’. The blog is regularly updated – another appealing feature. I really find it difficult to find anything else to say about this blog. It is a lot better than my own blog, it probably isn’t the blog that would appeal to me but that shouldn’t take away from the overall mark. In conclusion London is a great place, and Harriet is a great person, so take a visit to both!


In the Aquarium: a londoner’s life

When I first browsed hurriedly through LOVEindifferenceHATE(LiH from now on, for convenience’s sake), what caught my eye was naturally the chinese characters and colorful graphics adorning the top of the blogspot blog. They are beautiful, admittedly, but I was a bit puzzled about the choice of the chinese characters, as they have no obvious relation to the blog title, the blog or the writer.

My habit when reviewing blogs is to first find out any information on the blog about the writer. I find it helpful to have at least a hazy image in mind when I read the entries, so generally my first impressions are garnered from writers’ self-introduction. I have to say that Jessica’s way of doing it, by posting up one of those twenty-questions things(Favorite food? Favorite cartoon character? etc.) – except in her case it’s more like twenty-thousand-questions – did not impress me very much. It somehow presented her as a callow teenager. However, as soon as I started to read her posts I found out how wrong that impression was.

Jessica, as projected on LiH, is a young woman pursuing her dream of being a teacher. She likes children a lot, in a non-mushy way, and is a nurturer. She is also trying to come to terms with and overcome her depression, a breakdown she suffered more than four months ago, and an ugly break-up.

It’s not so much Jessica’s experiences that make LiH such a diamond of a blog; it’s her. Jessica, the person. Her entries are all personal, all heartfelt, all honest, and easy to relate to. It’s a combination of her introspective musings, observative comments and unflinching candour. There are times when, reading through her entries, I feel a surge of admiration. Even when she is dealing with issues painful to her, Jessica manages to offer glimpses of insight and inspiration to the reader, often without seeming to. These ‘painful’ posts are never painful to read; they are seldom self-pitying moans, but rather, genuine portrayals of her current thoughts and emotions. Perhaps the best thing about LiH is that Jessica writes not only when she’s overcome with melancholy, nor only when she’s regained total control of her senses. She writes when she’s caught up by her current sorrow or anger, and she writes when she’s composed and had time to think things through. This way, readers get the whole picture. Although this may not sound like a big deal, it is a point that further enhances the readability of LiH. For one, readers feel involved. For another, they feel like they’re reading about a real person’s real life instead of just a ranting spot.

The design of LiH is fairly typical blogspot: title with graphics right on top, followed by entries in the wide left column and links plus a tagboard in the narrower right column. I find no fault with the layout, though, as I mentioned, I am a little puzzled over the choice of the chinese characters and graphics.

Once in a while, I come accross a blog that touches me to the point of tears. Once in a very long while, a blogger makes me wish that he or she is my friend. LiH and Jessica accomplish those. The only reasons LiH did not get a 5.0 from me are the various annoying run time errors, certain bad links(entries from 07/06/2003 – 07/12/2003) and a smattering of spelling errors. Fix those, and you have a perfect blog.

LOVE indifference HATE