Month: January 1970

So the title of this blog sounded all chatty and fun. I mean, How’m I Doing–consider it–rather flippant, dontcha think? But wait, there’s more…

This is what the tagline says: ‘People routinely greet one another with, “How are you doing?” But when you have cancer, they really want to know how you are doing. This blog will contain posts that try to answer that question on as regular a basis as I can.’ Okaa-ay was my reaction. Firstly I was a little nervous about reviewing the site of someone with cancer, because you know, what if the writing wasn’t good or precise? What was I going to say?

Tim Cooper has lung cancer. And the purpose of his blog is to keep his friends and family up-to-date on his health. It strikes me as a little odd, that a blog such as this one should be up for review, but I suppose we all need validation.

What I liked about his blog was the fact that he’s managed to keep his sense of humour. There are no ‘self pity’ posts that I could spot, and he evidently is relying on faith and prayers to get himself and his family through this. I can’t make a judgement on the content having never undergone this myself, but the writing is readble… not too many “technical” details. I only wish his archives were larger or that he posted longer, because I can barely get a feel of who he is, what he likes etc.

The template is a common Blogger one and the sidebar is plain and uncluttered, even by the usual blogrolling links. How’m I doing?

Pulling up On Second Thought I thought to myself, “Ah, something visually different”. The main page of the blog isn’t your typical blogger, typepad or Livejournl layout at all. The design is simple and easy to navigate. The blogger has his business card right there for everyone to see and everything was what it says it was. I tried the blog out in three different browsers and the only thing I was uncomfortable with was the lack of space between my tool bar and the top of his layout. It just sort of looked out of place. Other than that I was very excited to see what this blogger had to say.

The author of On Second Thought is Dano. He has a very comprehensive “About” section that gives the reader just enough on what brought him to blogging. Dano’s posts are all very short, but are also to the point. His posts range from movie reviews to his lack of financial stability. He has a great post entitled The Green Menace that had me laughing for quite some time after I had read it. Dano is clear and to the point. He seems to have a rather original and refreshing view on his world and he works hard not to blend into the blogging masses.

The design of this blog is based upon the author’s own tack board at home. The template is CSS based and XHTML coded. Dano admits to having OCD so I am sure there will be many tweaks before we see the final layout. He also made mention of a new layout come Christmas. The design is very original and user friendly. There are no hidden surprises nor are there an unsightly amounts of useless extras. The layout in this case is a perfect image of this blogs author.

On Second Thought is a well put together, utterly original, and an altogether well written blog. This blog is a perfect read for those in their early twenties attempting the struggle of getting out of their own small town. This blog is also great for those with short attention spans that like to get a laugh in a small about of time. There are no epic meaning of life posts here I assure you! Dano even succeeded in not blogging about the US Presidential Election, which was almost impossible for thousands of fellow bloggers. This blog is a great example of working really hard to make things look really simple.

On Second Thought…

This site is written by a woman. I have no idea how old she is or where she lives. The template of “Wainbows” is pretty basic, navy blue and white. A photo of what I assume are her feet is the only hint of her in the sidebar. Under “Bio” it says “You don’t deserve to know a thing about me.” (Seems a bit odd for someone who has put her blog up for the world to see. Not to mention for review by The Weblog Review)

Let’s not forget, however, that although she doesn’t want you to know about her, she does have cats and photos of them on her blog. I sometimes wonder if cat owners start blogs just so they can talk about and show photos of their cats.

Her entries all seem to be caffeine induced. They are all a mash of free-flowing thoughts, one not really connected to the next. If she’s like this in ‘real life,’ she may very well be one of those people who never ever stops talking. I’m guessing that in real life she’s a bit shy and/or quiet. Blogs sometimes let the inner non-stop talker come out in full force.

Take for example this post. If you can get past the non-stop, nonsensical chattering and finish the post, you won’t be any more satisfied that you know anything more about this person than before you read the post. Most of the posts are like this. However, some are very insightful and amusing. The insightful and amusing posts get lost among the posts on speed.

She never uses capitalization. This bothers me. A lot. I won’t let it affect my overall review rating of Wainbows, but come on, your readers deserve the rules of grammar to be followed. It’s a sign of respect. And it would make your caffeine-induced posts much easier to follow.

You and Me and Wainbows

Before venturing into any site I like to try to guess what is going to happen at the site I review. On Second Thought had me thinking. What could this be? My main guess was that it was going to be about decisions that were made and the author was going to present both sides.

When I first got to the site I was impressed with the design: totally original. Then I realized some limitations to this design as it has the text in a mini box in the center with its own scroll bars. This would be nice if my up/down arrows, or my spacebar would scroll this box, but it didn’t. Still props to the design, as it is very slick.

The most recent post talks about how the author doesn’t post much about his personal life, and then goes on to talk about it. More interesting is that almost every post is about his personal life but I don’t think he realizes it. Some examples of this are his “Saturday Night Law” post where he talks about staying in, his constant Photography posts, and my favorite which was “Rise and Shine”.

The navigation is a bit harsh for this site. When one clicks on the archive link you are given a list of all the titles, not a monthly break down. This makes it harder to read the site, especially with the text being in the little box that it is. The other bit is the lack of scrolling which I talked about earlier.

Overall I thought this site was pretty good. The design is very original and the writing is well done. After some tweaks to make the navigation easier this site will be a lot better. I think you should go check it out, even if it is just for the black and white photo gallery. On Second Thought…

Jenny doesn’t like Bombs Mr. President and I don’t like Jenny. I thought this site was going to be an anti-Bush site and man was I very wrong. Enough of my pre-thoughts as they were all political based, and this blog is not that.

Ok the page loads and it is all dark grays, black, and oh wait light gray. Nice. The design seemed like a template, but I am not sure if it is or not. It reminded me of a design I did back in early 2000 back when this was all the rage.

The blog itself is just as boring as the design. The posts are all a headline and 1 line of text. I was going to post some bits from the site to give you an example, but then I remembered the April 20th post which reads:
Your blog sucks dude. Its filled with inane posts. That’s the point.
So the author is going for the sucky posts route? Well in that case I should score this site a 5.0 because it accomplishes what it is trying to do. But no, I provide a service for people to find good blogs.

I may sound a little harsh, even for me, but this site did not do anything for me. Something is wrong when I spend more time thinking and writing my review than it did to read the entire site. The site is so random and chaotic, I don’t know where to begin, so I will just end this review. Jenny Doesn’t Like Bombs Mr. President