Month: January 1970

When I first reviewed “Living In A Bubble” (which is now Somewhere Close To No Where), I was very unimpressed when I first arrived at the site. The loading seemed ‘clunky’, you needed macromedia flash, and it took forever to load. Not so with the new edition. Gone are the bells and whistles, and broken links (there were only a couple before). What you see now is a super sleek, sharp looking site.



The weblog is updated much more frequently than it was before and the posts are well written. The author treats his blog as true journal, not a bunch of random remarks with quizz results. After you’ve read a few posts you really want to read more, its kind of addictive. I noticed the author is pretty much a positive attitude person, which certainly is rare in the blog world, and kind of refreshing.



I loved the new site design, easy to navigate, no broken links, loaded quickly in netscape and internet explorer.



There’s a really good bio section (I think some type of bio or faq is absolutley nessicary). The archives worked, in the last review they worked randomly and took forever to load, gone are those problems. There’s message board and a picture page (which is always a cool bonus in a site). I encountered nary a pop up as well.



I’m giving Somewhere Close To No Where a 4.5 because every single thing that was wrong with it before was fixed, redesigned, redone, and made better. How rare is that? I usually keep track of all the blogs I review and I have to say, when this one was redone I was very impressed. Four and a half stars, check it out.



Old review below

First impressions are everything when it comes to webpages, and with ‘Living In A Bubble’ I had what I would call an ‘okay’ one. I do not recommend going to this site if you use the Netscape browser, this is definatly best viewed through I.E., and you must have Macromedia Flash Player 5 installed on your computer to get the ‘full effect’.



Upon first loading this site I was impressed, you can tell immediatly that the author (even though he is humble about it) knows a few things about html.



I was happy to see pictures of the author immediatly when visiting the site and a ‘bio’ section which was very informative. I felt like I knew the author after just a couple ‘clicks’. I have to say though, that I was disappointed with a few things. First, when I visited the site I was hit with a huge pop up add, and the site took quite a long time to load through dial up and cable (I visited through both). There is an archive section but there is not a lot to it (some weeks only have a few entries) and they too, took some time to load and had a huge ‘pop up’ ad. I consider archives very important, when you visit the archives, you are visiting the ‘site history’. Some of the links in the ‘content’ menu I was unable to visit, using both I.E. and Netscape (I recieved errors on seven of eight visits). I did however enjoy the poetry I read, and I wish there were more. I also liked the enthusiasm in which the author wrote most of his posts.



I give ‘Living In A Bubble’ a 2.5 because after reading the ‘about’ section I really didn’t learn much more about the author through his posts, there weren’t many posts considering how long ago the site was started, and I just never felt like I made a ‘connection’ to the author. I do look forward to re-reviewing this site in the future, hopefully when I do review ‘Living In A Bubble’ again it will not take so long to load, and there will be more substantive posts. Living In A Bubble

One thing is for sure: you can’t accuse the author of (a)musings of being too brief or short-winded in her weblog entries. And for the most part, that turns out to be a good thing.



The weblog entries covered many subjects in detail. Everything from the guilty pleasures of watching MTV’s “The Real World” to detailed accounts of the arguments that took place with her husband over the timely purchase of tickets to a Barenaked Ladies concert. The author shows no fear in laying it all out for the visitor to read; a quality this reviewer admires. The posts are written well, and therefore manage to keep you entertained, almost in a voyueristic peek-into-someone’s-personal-journal kind of way.



The layout and design of the site left something to be desired, as there didn’t seem to be a common theme from page to page. The navigation was not the most intuitive I have seen, with different links appearing from page to page in different locations. However, I did like some of the images and photographs the author used to bind the site together. The random use of football play drawings as a tiled background was (a)musing.



Get your coffee and your bagle and read through (a)musings for some funny, witty, detailed weblog activity presented in an unabashed, wide-open manner. This is another good site that offers a different angle on life, and should be worth a second look.

(a)musings

In Between Naps is a fitting name for this weblog, as the author writes a lot about her children and the development and happenings they are going through. Mildly interesting, but definitely a unique flavor among the usual multitudes of teenaged bloggers out there.



The meat and potatoes of In Between Naps are the fervent weblog posts relating to religion, the Catholic Church, politics, and social issues. The author seems to comb the internet in search of articles to link to and comment on. She often points out the similarities and ironies that each article poses. I found this to be a refreshing approach to maintaining a weblog, not because such a news site has never been done, but because the angle of approach the author takes is a little different.



The site was based on a Blog Spot template, and lacked any sort of personal or artistic flair. I followed a few of the links, such as the one leading to the author’s main site, but was led into confusion and broken images, for the most part.



Happy to review a rare site that was submitted to us under the 25+ age group, I felt that In Between Naps was a decent place to stop for a new persective on things. Certianly some good content to be found, but nothing visual to hold it all together.







In Between Naps

This would be your average teen blog. There weren’t any archives so this all based on a few posts. Alex talks about her friends and what she’s doing, where she’s going and so on. From what she’s posted, she just graduated from high school and isn’t quite ready to head off to college and rather just stay back home with her family and friends for a while. She mentioned a few times about some guy who I believe is her boyfriend and her feelings about him and all.



She mentioned she was working on a new layout and her current layout isn’t all that exciting. It’s called “the simple things” that has a black background and white font. First thing I noticed and made me grumble was I saw her posts were all squished to the left-side, justified in a small font in a 1-inch space. The sentences are too close together and she should make it at least easier for her visitor to read her posts.



It’s an okay site. Nothing to really rave about. It would be nice if she posted a little more or had some archives.Hail! To the boy that lived! (terminally screwd) ver. Harry Potter

This is the second weblog I’ve reviewed and seen who’s author is a teacher and not just any teacher, but a high school teacher. This one however is a little different.



The layout is your basic Blogger template, but what I liked about this weblog is it wasn’t just posts discussing amusing situations that happen everyday at a high school of some nice little town where most of the students are well-behaved and everyday is a good day. Nope, you won’t find that at this site. The author is an English teacher at a high school in the Bronx. Or as the author describes it, “This school is like Fast Times and Breakfast Club with Boyz in the Hood all rolled into one.”



One post I found funny and it made me realize that just because you’re a teacher, it doesn’t mean you can’t censor yourself and be straightout direct with how you view your students.



“One of my asshole kids that comes to class to do nothing but distract every one and be really really rude, decided to open up a condom and blow it up. He was having a lot of fun with it until he had to spit out the spermicide into a piece of paper. Shmuck. This kid drives me nuts. I don’t know why he comes to class at all.”



The site has some pretty interesting posts and I think it’s great the author discusses their frustrations and even adds a little humor to the tough job of teaching kids who have probably had no structure in their lives.



Good site.A Bronx Tale