Month: January 1970

On entering the blog, everything in here gives a ‘punk’ feeling. There is this image in the sidebar very artistically distorted. Then there is this bar on the top having five images(apparently three of them are author’s own) all highly unrelated and all have been worked upon again to give the ‘punk’ feeling.

The author, Ryan Matthew, in his own words is ‘a humble university student locked into a meaningless liberal arts degree with too much time on his hands’. There is no formal introduction page apart for this and ‘what will you find in here’ type of a bar which hogs the entire main area, bringing the actual entries of the blog downwards.

The blog is fairly new, the oldest entry being on 7th Feb which, by the way, is pretty interesting; something that starts with a mildly humorous round up on the 80s and 90s, then before you know it things get revolutionary and it ends with the mourning over the death of Kurt Cobain. Despite its quirkiness, the entire thing makes sense and is quite a powerful entry for the first.

If the name of Kurt Cobain has inflicted interest in all the grunge rockers out there, I am sorry to disappoint you (and get disappointed myself), there is no mention of KC anywhere in the rest of the blog.

What had started out quite splendidly then whimpers to be just another blog of a university student, with an extra dose of Canadian politics. The blog has the usual share of politics, reviews (mostly movies), life in a university, etc. Nothing that would keep you stuck to the computer screen, but nothing to repel you either. There is a mixed type of humor used in the blog; you come upon really sarcastic, oh-so-subtle humor (e.g. Being a studebt…err I mean student is the life of riley) as well as the regular type.

In case you were wondering why the blog is so called, you can get some of the explanation here(topmost entry).

The design is just OK. The problem with the entries going downwards which I mentioned in the beginning is some template problem, about which RM knows and hasn’t done much about.

All in all, this is one of hundreds of college-student-blogs that you come upon. You might be more impressed with it if Canadian politics interests you.

Drivel, Blasphemy and other unrelated magic

Tookiewana jumped out at me right away with a clean, professional look. The layout and style reminded me more of a threaded forum or collaborative link site like LinkFilter than a personal weblog. To me, this gave the impression that each entry would stand on its own, with little relationship or cross-referencing between posts.

Before I dug into the posts, though, I checked out a few links in the header to find out about the author. (I like the header a lot, by the way — it’s similar to a Windows menu bar; very intuitive and space-efficient.) I learned that the site is written by Chad, a master’s degree student at West Virginia University. He’s been writing since late 2002, so I dug into the archives to see what Tookiewana is all about.

Many of the posts center around Chad’s thoughts on current news and interesting events in the author’s life. There are also anecdotes, audio and video clips, and short personal entries, as well. The posts are a bit sporadic, with just a few each month; I get the impression that Chad puts more time into the appearance and functionality of his site than on sticking to a strict, high-volume posting schedule.

That said, the functionality and ‘extras’ on Tookiewana are impressive. Among other things, Chad has provided several ways to syndicate the site (including a mailing list for updates), a webcam (apparently of an intersection in Clarksburg, WV), audio versions of each post, a poll, and links to several sites of personal interest to Chad. The usual blog features are also here — comments and trackback, archives, and more.

I get the feeling that Chad is a very capable blogger, and has taken a considerable amount of time to provide a site that’s easy to navigate, easy on the eyes, and very feature-rich. His writing style is straightforward and engaging; however, most of the posts are rather short, providing somewhat less insight into Chad’s opinions and personality than I might prefer in a personal weblog. I’d also like to see more frequent posts, to help build a sense of interaction and community.

In short, I think that the technical aspects of Tookiewana are top-notch, and found the entries that are there fairly interesting. But in this case, more would be better — more content, more often, and more of Chad reflected in the writing. For now, though, I give Tookiewana 3.5 out of 5.tookiewana

Imark manages to make a good first impression. It is a beautifully put together simple and tastefully designed template which adapts well to the even the smallest screen resolution. There are several pages useful in establishing a profile of this author, in particular I would recommend the Interview with imark and the 100 things list. An added bonus for any reader is the fact that this site is actually ‘skinnable’ – a whole range of stunning templates is located under Variations on a theme, and of course in the pull down menu on the index page. All of which show the same simple elegance of the default template.

The author of imark writes very well, his posts are interesting and show more than a modicum of wit. If there wasn’t an about me page here you could learn a lot about this author purely from the content of his blog. The archives go back to September 2003, the largest percentage of which are personal postings. There are plenty of stories from his day-to-day life but they are delivered in such a way as to never fall into the trap that grabs so many who begin posting every dull detail of their lives. There are also plenty of musings on wider subjects, and again they are written in such a manner as to be both thought provoking and engaging.

As previously stated the template is the first striking part of this weblog, it’s a classy design, and it’s immediately apparent to any viewer that this was designed by someone with a real attention to detail. My favourite template out of his range however had to be the default, although the others were equally well put together. The site was very easy to navigate with a good hierarchy of links, and no over-abundance (all too frequently found on weblogs).

There is in fact very little to find fault with at imark. It manages to bridge the grap of displaying both a good design and appealing content. He writes very well, frequently thought provoking, engaging and with real evidence of wit. In fact he makes even the most tedious subject sound fascinating. For me, this is a 5/5 site, easy
navigation, flawless design and good writing. It may be one of many personal blogs out there, but Imark stands out from the crowd for me.
iMark

My initial impression of this blog was good. Very good. The crisp, clean layout was a very welcome beginning to my time spent here. The second thing I noticed was the incredibly proper grammar. Yet again I’m reminded of how we here, in North America, have butchered the English language. It was obvious from the start that this blog was not written by a North American.

The content of this blog isn’t anything overly new, different or out of the ordinary. However, it managed to keep me completely interested, to the point that I had to force myself to stop reading in order to write my review. iMark, the blog’s author, is witty, funny, observant and descriptive. The combination of these results in a wonderfully friendly reading experience that makes you laugh, smile and think, which is always a welcome side-effect of a blog, in my opinion.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the ‘100 things’ page, as well as the ‘interview with an iMark’ page. I laughed out loud on several occasions while reading that one. The option to skin the site was a nice addition, which, admittedly, I played around with quite a bit.

All in all, I found this site to be flawless. No design, spelling or grammatical errors to detract from the content. iMark obviously takes great pride in his blog. A pride refelcted in every little detail. I absolutely loved reviewing this blog, and I will most certainly be returning.

iMark

They say honesty is the best policy, but sometimes I just dread being honest , but here goes.

When i first entered the blog “Deletetheweb”, my first impression was “Yet another dull one”. The posts were in the center and the links on the left hand side with very little design to the page.

Along with the links on the left hand side was a link to “100 things about me”. This is where I learned that the author was a 30 year old male from London. I learned a lot about him from reading that section.

I then proceeded to read his entries. Starting with his main page , then into his archives. He wrote about a surgery he has had, he wrote about his blog, his work and just other everyday happenings in his life. After I got halfway through his main page, I started to feel depressed. His entries were actually depressing me.

I thought maybe they would get better if I kept reading. It just didn’t happen. This guy doesn’t even seem to have any confidence in himself. Apparently he doesn’t even seem to think that very many people are reading his blog. Here is an example of a couple of lines he wrote.

I attacked Blog with the digital equivalent of a feather duster today, mercilessly clearing away several months worth of accumulated cobwebs. In an attempt to be friendlier to new readers (not that I have any, but a blog can dream, can’t it?),

I just couldn’t get deep into the posts. To be honest, I enjoyed reading the secton of “100 things about me “, more than I did the entries. There is even one entry where he is talking to his blog. Maybe it was supposed to be funny/amusing, but it just didn’t make me laugh.

In conclusion, the writing is good. Very neat and very easy to read. Maybe if the author could brighten up the design a bit, and spruce up the posts a little so they won’t be so depressing, his blog could have the potential to recieve a rating of 5.iMark