Author: admin

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

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

My first impression when I first seen this blog was not a very good one.It looked like so many other pages I have seen as of late, very ordinary..
But as the saying goes, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover”. In the case of “Irrevelent Press”, the above phrase rings very true.

At the top of the page in the right hand corner, is a photo of a teddy bear which apparently is supposed to be the author . The author’s name is Roo…(aka. Roo Bear”) The first thing I looked for was an “about” page which I realized at that time that there wasn’t any. But then again, I really didn’t expect to find one because the author is posing as a 7 eyed teddy bear.

The writing was very easy to read, and the page itself was very neatly laid out. The only problem I had, was the template looked like so many of the other templates you see , plain and boring.

On to the entries. Roo started his blog on February 11, 2004. Once I started reading, I basically had to pull myself away from the blog in order to do my review. It was obvious that Roo’s entries were thought out before he started writing them. Roo talks about several topics that are very stimulating to the mind and will really make you think. Take for instance this particular entry.. Roo wrote….

So last night I had this not-so-amazing thought about the amount of buttons in our lives. I actually considered waking up this morning and counting how many buttons I push throughout the day for the sake of blogdom. Remotes, cars, computers, phones, the list goes on and on. It seems we have a fascination with pushing stuff. I think it all comes from the earliest moments of being a child when you get all these toys with things you can push, or toggle, or pull. I am reminded when I first got my car and my little 2-year old buddy sat on his mother’s lap in the drivers seat to check it out, and the first thing he did was start pushing every button his little fingers could reach. Is there just something satisfyingly tactile about depressing a piece of plastic and making something “happen?” Truth be, you can NOT go through your day without pressing some kind of button. Try it! You wouldn’t be making any phone calls, typing any emails, making any fruit smoothes – nothing. How devoid would your life be without using buttons?

Now this is something I have never thought of. But it gives us something to think about. I found each and every post very interesting and entertaining. On some of the entries, Roo adds a bit of humour. Roo’s posts are very well written . What is interesting to some, may not be interesting to others. But I for one, truly enjoyed reading Roo’s entries. I will also be book marking his site,.

To conclude my review, as I have stated, Roo’s blog is a very interesting and entertaining read. Maybe he could just work on the template a little bit. Add some more design to it. He has several photo’s added to his posts which give it a very nice touch. Work on the template a bit more, I am sure it would have the potential to get a rating of 5. Irrelevant Press

My first impressions of Pistalwhipped.net were very good. It has a really clean site design with a nice cartoon logo at the top. It is a simple design too and I like simple- no long blog lists or other unnecessary gubbins usually found in blogs. There was a menu at the top which led me to a rather superficial FAQ (an “About me” page basically) and some other potentially great features too. There is a Tutorials page, although there is only one at the moment about some simple Javascript, which seems well written. There is also a forum (forums for blogs are hardly ever used in my experience and this one is no exception), a large DVD list and some downloads.

One of the advantages of this site is that the owner hosts it himself with his own server. This means that he has posted up a lot of pictures, video clips and even an MP3 which can be downloaded. Some of these can be found in the download section, some can be found in the individual posts. I was also pleased to discover in the FAQ section that the site had been running for a couple of years now, so I expected a fair bit of content.

Having perused the site generally, I was pretty impressed- if the content could match the site design and extras, I figured we could be looking at a 5 site here. Unfortunately the score was slowly whittled away by a number of disappointments encountered once I started reading. The first few posts were entertaining enough I suppose, though there wasn’t much actual content to be found other than a few superficial observations about his insomnia or some movies he had seen. I have used the word superficial twice now and it sadly sums up all of the content really.

Before I go further, a word about the archives. There is no link to the archives on the main page (or any other page for that matter.) To access the archives, you must click on either “[link]” or “[comment]” and then click the “archive” link which then appears at the top. Either that or go straight to http://www.pistalwhipped.net/archives/. A glaring oversight and an inconvenience, especially from someone who seems to have put so much work in to the site’s appearance. So what is in these elusive archives then? Well again, more links for stuff to be downloaded (usually relating to celebrity scandals, US politics and occasionally technology) and um… not much else. I read through all the archives and learnt very little about the author. Except that he watches American Football, drinks beer and has learnt how to swear quite a bit. Bearing in mind the site has (supposedly) been running since 2001, I was also disappointed to find the archives only go back to January of this year. I guess the previous archives got lost somewhere along the line.

Now I would like to think that I am not a prude and I understand there is a need for quality sites which expose celebrity gaffes (albeit gaffes which involve them taking their clothes off) or satirise US politicians. Unfortunately though, this isn’t one of those sites. I feel there needs to be more analyses or observation about whatever is posted up here – I don’t think the quality of the pictures/ video clips are high enough for them to hold their own without something being added. The occasional personal posts also need to be either scrapped altogether or embellished significantly. The general lack of direction is frustrating and it suggests a certain apathy. Putting up “controversial” videos to download may improve the hits rating significantly, but to improve the blogging quality, more effort is needed, particularly in the written content. Pistalwhipped

“Inside My Head”. Upon entering this weblog, my first impression was just o.k..
It was just one of those plain , boring “Blogspot”, templates which seem to be so popular now a days. The difference was, this template had some color to it, which made it look less drap (so to speak).

The entries are posted in the middle of the page, sectioned off very neatly. She has several links on the right hand side, some of a very interesting nature. There are several tidbits about the author posted there as well , in addition to “100 things”
link.

The title, “Inside My Head”, speaks for itself. It totally relates to the weblog. Jennifer(the author) is a wife and mother of 2. Almost each entry gives you an in depth look at the person behind the writing. Her posts do let you get inside her head.

Jennifer’s weblog was created around January, 2004. In her first couple of entries, she starts by introducing herself, and giving out a bit about herself. It ‘s like curling up with a good biography. The entries become more intriging as you keep reading , and you don’t want to put it down until it’s finished. Jennifer writes about her husband and when they first became married. She writes about having her children and as they grew older. She also writes about her father, her job, and her goals and dreams in life .

Jennifer’s weblog is worth paying a visit to. However, she does admit (in her own words), her page looks like a big mint. The color is basically a mint green. Well maybe Jennifer will work on the template in time.
But her entries make up for the lack of the template appearence. Jennifer’s weblog is one I know I will be book marking.Inside My Head