Month: January 1970

This isn’t a blog, strictly speaking. What we have here is a blog inserted into a Homestead website. I know about these, because that’s how I started out. For those not familiar with Homestead, they are a great solution for those of us uninclined to coding and more concerned with content. There’s a point-and-click interface which can give you a decent-looking traditional website, and your domain, hosting, visitor tracking — the whole nine yards, are all included in the price. The problem enters when you try to drop in a blog.

In my case, it took a full 16 hours to get my first blog going, and then my visitors hated it. That’s because the blog opens in another window within the site, giving you two sliders to deal with, which is confusing for those not familiar with this kind of configuration. Any links within the blog also open up in that little window. What I eventually did was to get my blog hosted elsewhere and link back from the free-standing blog to the Homestead site for the rest of my ‘zine.

The blog contains only a portion of their journal, which focuses on their travels across North America since May of last year. A link marked “Journal” takes you to entries on traditional website pages. Once you get in to the “Journal,” it’s hard to get back to the blog. There are also articles which are apparently not part of either the journal or the blog. The effect of all this back-and-forth navigation is that the reader is never quite sure where she is. The pages and blog look different, and the entries on both are written by two different people. A bit more cohesion and organization in this project would go a long way to help, because it has plenty of potential to be well-read and frequently visited.

I’d also like to know more about Geoff. He seems to contribute a full share of the writing, but I was unable to find out as much as I’d like about why he’s part of the project, or if he’s just along for the ride. Perhaps there’s something there in this maze of links I overlooked.

The writing in this ‘zine is excellent, of near-professional quality. I’ve done a lot of traveling myself and enjoy reading about other people’s trips. The content is never boring. It’s the kind of thing you can read in bits and pieces during a busy business day, and be transported to the wilds of Alaska or the Colorado River rapids for a little while. It’s very easy to like these kids and wish them well on their journey. The entries themselves almost make up for the technically-awkward presentation.

Shine a magazine of Adventure

I wasn’t sure, since this was listed under entertainment, but I thought it might be about Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of Whatever, but it’s actually by/about a guy named Wes Ferguson. Oh.

This is a plain Diaryland template, black background with white lettering, not much visual appeal. This is what he says about it himself: “Well now that I have the new page up, I don’t know what to write about, haha…Clean layout but boring! Hm, yah. Not good.”

I tend to agree. Diaryland’s beginning to irritate me, anyway. I’m pretty sure their original intent was to have a huge, active community of bloggers and make piles of money, which maybe they do, but unless you’re in on the way Diaryland works, you could be missing some good stuff on people’s blogs. These days people are wanting to “get out more,” publicize their work and attract more readers outside their online communities. What I’ve seen on Diaryland blogs makes visitors work too hard to get to the extras and that could discourage people from coming back. I did eventually find the webrings he belongs to and the author’s favorite blogs, and to me these are important in helping to figure out where a blog author’s coming from.

Most of the links here at fergie.diaryland.com link back to other blogs, also by the same guy. The home page also links around to the same blogs, etc. He’s got t-shirts with his name on them, too, by the way. After some hunting around I found the “About” section, which lets us in on the fact he’s written and developed website content, and also has a sex and relationship column for gay men I couldn’t locate at the link given.

What he’s got is a lot of diffused attention going on here. I’m not sure what he wants to accomplish with his little empire of blogs and websites. Now, presumably, since he’s a writer he’s probably using it to promote his work in some way. Unless, that is, he’s one of those writers who believes promotion is beneath him; or (yes, I’ve actually seen this happen) thinks everybody should magically already know about him anyway. Most often what happens with writers is that they just need the light to come on and recognize what they need to do themselves to advance their careers.

He’s often a darned good writer, from what I’ve seen in the entries for this blog — my favorite was the entry on the lost sock orgy. He’s got some interesting ideas on gay rights and other things that perhaps deserve a bigger audience. I just wish there was some more focus. fergie

Wars of Compassion is about as minimalist a site as it is possible to find. J. Ryan is the writer, though little more is known than an email address; there’s no about page, and the only additional content on the site includes the archives, dating back to the start of June, a message board, and a few choice external links.

Okay, so I’ve covered what there isn’t (design, extrablog content), so now for a closer look at what there is, and why Wars is worth visiting.

The entries mostly require your undivided attention; there are no one-line updates promising more updates soon; links to external sites are given but only in the context of longer passages and never as the reason for a post.

Mr Ryan is a spiritual man; he writes about God and religion and its place in modern society, discussing subjects like chastity and obedience. His style of writing is simple, clear and intelligent.

He covers other topics too, writing about music and relating personal tales. For example, read his entry at the start of August about Philadelphia – this entry perhaps more than most will give you a good understanding of the site. The narrator is not shy about talking about his private life, including areas that most blog authors are reluctant to cover. Whether or not you want such insights and access into the life of an anonymous other is something you would have to decide for yourself.

With a tighter design, Wars could really do well. It needs an image to bring the text and pictures together, to present the blog as something more than poorly photocopied musings. Haphazardly placed elements spoil the flow of the posts; with a little more thought (and really, these days there’s no excuse, with the number of high quality templates available) the site could really broadcast its content and make a welcoming read. As it stands, it feels half-finished, though certainly readable and at all times interesting.

wars of compassion

Messy, messy, messy. Informative, but messy. This “blogmanac” covers various items world-wide. The huge, and I mean huge, header section on the site basically says hello and asks you to be patient – and even on DSL you have to be patient. It was a good three or four minutes before the site loaded up for me and I shudder to think how long it would have taken if I’d been at home on my dial-up connection.

The content of the blog is provided by four people, and they do a good job of finding very interesting links (I did take the opportunity to check out a couple that caught my eye). The news items described on the site range from points of interest to political articles and the links are sourced from a wide range of websites and do not soley focus on main news groups like CNN, BBC, etc. My favourites were those about mythology and culture. There is also a large number indepth entries detailing the writers’ opinions of the links along with some extra information to tempt the reader into going to have a look at the link.

It really is a site that has lots to offer those who are bored or looking for something interesting to read during their coffee break – and it was during these times that I perused the site and the links. There’s lots of ground to cover and it’s updated several times a day, so you’re bound to see new things all the time.

Having said that, I personally feel that the site is poorly designed and would do a heck of a lot better on it’s own server using something like Movable Type, Greymatter or one of the plethora of personal publishing tools out on the web these days or organise it’s content. Wilson’s Blogmanac

When you first visit wars of compassion(woc), you can’t help but notice how simple and clean it looks. Empty, in a way, devoid of frills and decorations. Minimalism at its height. Some might find it a sign of the blogger’s incompetency or laziness, but others might, like me, find it refreshing.

woc is not your typical personal blog. There are less things-that-happened and more personal opinions and thoughts on a wide spectrum of things, from The War to music to sex. Another big distinction is that Ryan writes every entry like an essay by itself. He uses a more extensive vocabulary than most bloggers under the ‘personal’ category do, and the effect is at once stiff and formal, and also coherent and charming. The winning point of woc lies in the subtle, sometimes heavily veiled sarcasm and slight exaggerations of Ryan’s entries. He is a little quirky, he is straight-faced deadpan, he is cheeky in a sophisticated way. Occasionally there are pictures that may be related, some quite mysteriously, to the entries. Ryan never captions them. They make a nice distraction on the otherwise barren site, though.

As mentioned, the design of woc is bare, simple black and white. Even the title is just the three words spelled out in plain black font. The archives are located at the bottom of the page, along with a total of three links and a tagboard.

woc is not for everybody, certainly not for those wanting to take a glimpse into a person’s everyday life. It is good, intelligent reading, however, and will bring a chuckle or two.

wars of compassion