Category: Uncategorized

An unfortunately stereotype I’ve started to make while reviewing weblogs is that a good number of blogs hosted by Blog*spot aren’t really ones that can stand out from a crowd or draw in more new visitors on a daily basis. I was so glad Gizmo’s (Non)sense didn’t wind up in that category. Without so many stories involving his pants somehow getting torn or mysteriously removed, I was entertained the entire time I read.

As I always do with a site using Blogger, I clicked on the author’s profile. Pete, who refers to himself as _gizmo, is a 27 year old IT professional living and working in Dublin, Ireland. Reading a blog by someone my age halfway around the world sounded like it was right up my alley.

Oh, Pete’s a geek. I mean that in the sincerest way possible, but it was just blatantly obvious from the start. Being a closet-geek, I was able to easily proceed from one of his entries to the next. He writes about new technology and their pros and cons, links to specific programs Pete finds useful, and even his experience attending the launch of new software.

To off-balance his geekiness, Pete recounts numerous stories of how he’s so prone to absolute embarrassing disasters. As I read these posts, I could empathize with the level of embarrassment he would have had to felt as he’s running out of an office building with nothing put a t-shirt wrapped around his waste to hide the fact that his pants have completely been ripped off. On the other hand, I could also do nothing but laugh hysterically at the thought of Pete and his boss half racing and half hobbling out of a server room with blood dripping from both of their backsides.

I hate ending a review on an uncouth note, but that’s what happens when Blogger templates are used. For some reason that I couldn’t figure out, the content of the sidebar doesn’t actually start showing up on the sidebar until the posts that fill the main portion of the site are complete. For readers, it makes it hard to locate things like the archive links or the author’s Blogger profile. It only distracts from the site when readers need to access the archives. Other than that, the colors are fine and don’t wreak havoc on my eyes like some of the templates I’ve seen.

While I hope Pete won’t run into a problem of locking lips with an Irish Army General again, I would certainly visit this site again to indulge in some of this author’s self-depreciating humor. After all, if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Well… in this case, you can always laugh at Pete.

NULL

When I first arrived at this blog, I was slightly confused. The first post is in Swedish… the rest of the posts on the page are in English, but the fact that the first one wasn’t caught me off guard and started the review off on a bad foot.

We get to the second post, since I lack the ability to read the first, and it’s skewed over to the right so I have to scroll to read it. This could by chance be just my browser and resolution (since I’m in Opera, which isn’t a commonly used browser, and I don’t have my resolution set at what most people do), but it made it slightly irritating. Then he starts the entry by telling us what he’s going to be blogging about in that entry. Bad… don’t start with summaries.

The design isn’t very aesthetically pleasing. The entries aren’t lined up at all, and there are three separate instances of Google ads. There’s a floating-like banner ad at the top of the page, part of which is covered by Google ads and another part is covering up what I’m assuming is the navigation.

There are way too many extras on this blog, too. There’s no reason to have clusters of 80×15 banners mixed in with links (that’s right… clusters. Not groups; random clusters at the bottom of the page…) Along with the Google ads and various javascript links, this blog is way too busy.

In conclusion, I really wanted to like this blog, since it seems I’ve been really harsh on blogs lately (many low scores coming out, it seems), but I just couldn’t. I may be being too nice by giving this blog a 1 out of 5.NULL

I click the link to get to mooncolors and I notice that this isn’t a regular word blog… it’s a photoblog. A quite nice one, however. There was only one post that I saw up, but with a little scrolling I find the archives area where I can view one other photo at a time.

The pictures are beautiful. They’re taken and edited to look like they were painted (at least that’s what I gathered; there wasn’t much description to them) and done quite well. There aren’t very many posts, and there’s practically nothing to read except for the rare comment or two on pictures, and most of the pictures aren’t explained at all other than the title given to them.

The layout is very simple, black and purple, and the only extras there are to speak of are links, either internal or links to the photographer’s Cafe Press site for the most part. There’s a blog band in the top for Make Poverty History… I guess the blogger is somewhat of an activist.

Basically, there isn’t really enough content on this site to discern it as being good or bad. It’s definitely just starting out and could potentially become a wonderful photoblog if it stays up, but for now there really isn’t enough to keep anyone hooked.NULL

The very first or rather the latest post I read on the weblog caught my attention. I thought the post was funny and continued reading through the other posts. My efforts were definitely not wasted.

The weblog is mostly about funny situations, funny anecdotes or just things found funny. You can also find some posts more of a personal nature which you can still find funny. The humor in the posts are inherent in the writing style. So you will find even the mundane posts interesting and worth reading through. The writing is not confined to any particular topic but encompasses a variety of topics.

The design of the site is good. It is well designed with few irregularities. The links and other imbedded scripts are on one side and are pretty organized. There’s even a tagboard where one can leave messages.

This is one site I am going to give full marks for ingenuity and wit and of course keeping the reader interested. If you are looking for something funny to read to start the day, or during the day or to end the day, this is definitely one site for you.NULL

When I first came across this Journal/site a couple of months ago I thought it was too personal to be a weblog. Since then I have changed my outlook of this site after reading through.

This weblog is about a tragedy that happened in the author’s family and how it has made a great impact in her life and in the community near her place. I am not getting into any details here about it here. However, to many people this weblog/journal has become a place where one can share similar experiences. The amount of emotional support shared between many of the readers and author is quite fascinating. Some of the posts look very researched and with documents to support both sides of any argument.

The design is very good. It has been designed professionally with great taste and has subtle inference to what the site it is about. Hence, the design suits the journal quite perfectly.

In short, this is a well written and well designed site. As a blog/journal it is updated frequently and well maintained.2 With Spirit