Author: admin

Balikbayan Box… There is something I have never heard of before. What is this type of box? Is it something important? Does it have meaning? Or is it just a name? All questions I had before I read this blog.

Thankfully there was a nice little piece on what a Balikbayan Box is. See to send things to the Philippines you either A) have to have a lot of money, or B) use a third party shipping company to get the present to the right person. And a Balikbayan Box is one from one of these third party companies that ship stuff. I hope I got this right as it wasn’t made very clear on the blog itself.

With this knowledge in hand, I had a good idea of what this blog was supposed to be about; sharing ideas, thoughts, and daily life with others. And the name of it is somewhat symbolic as to how it is delivered.

Getting through the archives was a chore. The blogging tool is using the good old calendar method to go to specific days worth of posts. The tool makes up for it by having a previous and next link at the bottom of all the pages to go backwards through the archives. The other problem with the blogging tool from what I can tell requires that you use their hosting. A lot of times I had problems loading the page and I also had a hard time loading the blogging tool’s page.

The blog itself is just average. There are a way too many “Monday Madness”, “Friday Five” and those sort of posts. While those are good for filler pieces, using them as a majority of the blog is not. The spots that do not have a predetermined format (question and answer) are where the true gems lay. Talking about what is going on in the daily life is very important.

The design of the blog is very out of control. For starters there is a background image that tiles (as it should with HTML) but is somewhat annoying when I have my screen set at a higher resolution. The colors of the blog are to match certain colors in the picture and at times I had a hard time reading the text on the background color. There is a script that creates these flying pixels around the mouse which was turned into crosshairs instead of the pointer. This was really annoying as I had a hard time figuring out what were links. Finally the author has disabled right click and copying of the text. This was bad considering there was so much going on with css and javascript tricks that some of the posts would not load properly unless I refreshed the page (or read the source).

Unfortunately there are no extras on this blog. There are a lot of off site links, and a small section about the title and about the author. I really wish the about section was expanded more to learn more about the author.

Over all this weblog has a lot of potential. Get a much cleaner design to make it easier to read. Get rid of all the javascript tricks to make the weblog less busy. Finally I would get rid of all the filler posts and post only the normal posts. I hope that the author of this blog will look at my opinions in here, and apply even some of them to the weblog. Just changing one of the things I recommend will vastly improve the weblog. After the author makes some changes, I encourage them to resubmit there site so we can see how much the blog has grown.
Balikbayan Box

The Daily Post… With a name like this I expect a lot of news stories. Some political, others entertainment, and every now and then one of those strange but true type of stories. Unfortunately and thankfully this site was not a news recap sort of place.

What we have at The Daily Post is a group blog. While there are only two primary people who post, there are others who will drop in with their own opinion. With all group blogs I either expect a lot of interaction between the members, or hardly any at all. This site defies both of those and has a nice mix of it all.

The posts themselves are not based around what others have posted about, the comments are. And the comments are mainly left by those who are authors of the blog. The posts have a nice mix of things from politics to daily life to books being read. Nothing stood out with this blog except for the blogathon section which we will get to in a bit.

The design of the site is a very simple two column design. The information you would expect in what is typically called the navigation column is all there. I wish there were links to outside places – more specifically if the authors have their own personal blog a direct link would be nice.

There is a nice about section which helps to glue some of those missing pieces together as well as individual pages for each author. The blogathon section looks to be an interesting one with a theme of what I am assuming is “What would you do if you were world leader?” Should be fun.

Over all I think the site is just average. Nothing is drawing me into this site to want to keep going at it, but at the same time nothing is pushing me away from it. This is a good site to read when you need to just sit back and kill some time. Not a daily read, but one you want to check out.
The Daily Post

Have you ever sold something on eBay? How about purchased something? I know you have at least heard of eBay and you probably have looked at it at least once or twice. Where was this site two years ago when I got scammed? Oh yeah it wasn’t alive yet.

The idea behind eBayFever is simple. One ebayer who has bought and sold a fair number of items is telling it like it is from his perspective. All the ups and downs and news to report with eBay.

The design itself is somewhat lacking and is not that consistent through out the entire site. The main page lists featured items on eBay though I am not exactly sure how one gets their auction listed there. There is a discussion forum which is a good place to visit to talk about eBay.

The blog itself is very well written and does a good service. I enjoy the fact that he is talking about news with eBay and personal stories of how he has gotten scammed in the past. The only downside is that the blog is still in its infancy. But don’t let the infancy deter you from reading this site.

All in all we have what will be a very good and informative site for everyone, not just people who eBay. I think the site could use a more consistent design and maybe a FAQ section and it will be one of the better blogs to watch.
eBayFEVER.com

You know that anyone that can point out a typograhpical error in a Harry Potter novel (found in the entry called: “a muggle’s appreciation of HP”) isn’t going to be the type of person that throws a ton of incorrectly spelled words or obtrusive grammer your way — that’s always a bonus when reading any weblog.

An entry I found right smack in the middle of “The Daily Post” sets a very somber mode for a person that decides to start at the beginning and work up to the present. In a post that very seriously deals with alcoholism, one might think “The Daily Post” will be nothing but very personal, serious topics. That’s not the case at all, and you find out by reading the next topic at hand – “e-mail behaviour”. I’m sure anyone reading about the different kinds of email behavior will be able to relate to one of those. Personally, I know I was able to pinpoint several different people to each of the four varieties of behavior.

Each entry isn’t some profound statement about philosophy or current events. There are the stereotypical test results and an update on regular ol’ daily life from time to time just like other weblogs. As the number of people posting to the site increases, the variety of topics that are touched upon grow, too.

In only four months time, the number of Daily Post-ers has grown from two to six, and this is what gives the site the tagline: “A group blog with an international flavour”. You find out a bit more about those participating at the site by clicking on the “About” section, and by clicking on each author’s name, you’re subject to a new way of writing an autobiography on your website: the Alpha-Bio. That alone would be a great incentive for joining the team at The Daily Post.



The layout isn’t anything spectacular, most importantly it works for the site. The chosen colors blend well together, and the entire site is very easy to navigate. It loads quickly, it’s easy to read – not a negative thing to say about the visual appeal of the site.



The overall feel I get of this weblog is that it’s been created to form some type of a community, where people can throw out their feelings and not be attacked if they happen to be different from the next person’s ideas. Group weblogs seem to be a popular trend recently, but I think this is one that will definitely outlast the rest.

It’s got a good start thus far, and if the same writers stay with it, people will be coming back because they like reading what these folks say. They know what they want to say, and just say it. I like knowing how much potential this site has and can’t wait to see it explode into how big it can really be.

The Daily Post

Early this year I had the privilege of going to Thailand. One of the many things to do in Thailand is to visit different temples and talk to monks. I had the honor of meeting with a a guy who used to be a very well known monk (he gave it up after twelve years). He spoke slowly; not to make sure his point got across, but to make sure you felt the calmness and energy that he had.

Indigo Ocean reminded me of this. From the first words I read on the blog to reading the entire blog, I was reminded of him. The posts are calm and collected. You get an amazing sense that this guy is very happy and is very spiritually connected.

The posts themselves are not preachy, but rather just simple notes about what was done that day or what will happen. Personal things pop up like him wishing he could wind surf, then a month later actually getting a rig to do it really add to the quality of this weblog.

The design complements the writing style: simple, clean, and peaceful. I like that there are no javascript tricks or flashy images. Everything fits perfectly within this weblog. I wish that there was an about section to learn more about the author, however I am sure that given more time, the weblog itself will provide more than enough information about him.

Overall this is a great blog to come and read if you just need to cool down. Just take a deep breath and then start to read this blog and you will start to feel more at ease. Amazing how words have this ability to create feelings for us, and Indigo Ocean does it very well.
Indigo Ocean