Category: Uncategorized

Mashby.com is a fairly typical personal weblog, with the particular bonus of having a lot of material to read through and extensive photographs too. The domain name did not give me any information about the site itself, so I didn’t ponder too much and headed straight on in. The design of the site is certainly functional- it’s a movable type blog which is technically sound- at least I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It could use maybe a bit more colour, or maybe a nice title bar to brighten it up, but it is certainly not inoffensive.

I was pleased to see an About Me page which I went to straight away and was given a fairly extensive life history of the author. This was a slight premonition of what I was to find later on in the blog- one thing that Michael is, is thorough.

On to the weblog content itself then and like I said before, most of the posts are very long and some could almost be short stories. The writing is very readable though and the posts make for a relaxing read. The archives are divided in to both categories and date, so I read the first couple of months and then dotted around the various categories. Michael has a lot to say on various issues- the bigger ones like religion and family life, as well as a lot of in depth technology postings, book and movie reviews and anecdotes about his everyday life.

All the posts are entertaining and interesting, some thought provoking. There are also loads of photographs to look through- Michael recently went on a cycle trip which was covered both with a travelogue and accompanying photographs. He also has a moblog for pictures taken with his mobile phone.

Although this weblog may not stand out from the crowd with regard to any particular aspect, there is certainly loads of material to be found here, all well presented and written, which will keep the avid blog reader happy for hours, maybe even days.mashby.com

My first impressions of Ms. Frizzle were the usual ones I have when I first encounter a Blogspot blog. I won’t bore you with the details as I am sure everyone is only too aware by now of the limitations of this system. Suffice to say that this is a standard Blogspot blog and template, with all that that infers. To her credit though, the author does (half convincingly) blog about this very subject, and claims she doesn’t have time to improve how her site looks and content is all that matters anyhow. Well, maybe, but the score for this review would have been higher with a better site design, nevertheless.

So on to this all important content then. Well I have to agree that the content is what makes this site worth visiting (and it IS worth checking out). The author is, as the title suggests, a science teacher in the Bronx. Most of her postings relate directly to her job, although occasionally she does drift off in to her private life a bit more. However, what comes across most of all is the sheer enthusiasm she has for her job- she always seems to be making her lessons more interesting, finding new and innovative ways to motivate her students and also posts up some of the amusing things her students say sometimes.

This blog would be particularly appealing to other teachers and there already seem to be quite a network of them linked to and commenting on it. However, I think the casual reader could get absorbed in to the content too- I know I did. I don’t remember much about my science classes at school, but Ms Frizzle seems to make them a lot of fun and brings across the subject matter in a very down to earth, practical way. She is teaching subjects to her pupils, some of which went over my head, which she seems able to convey to them quite easily. There are plenty of archives to get through too, with regular updates.

Overall then this is an interesting and informative blog, particularly for other teachers, but also for anyone wanting to get an idea of what a teacher’s life is like. The site could do with a makeover (and that “About Me” page which was mentioned in the archives) but in the mean time, there is still plenty of witty, well written and accessible content here to give this blog a bright future.
ms. frizzle

On arrival at creating space 101 now entitled ‘squeeze’ you are immediately presented with a fairly standard blogger template with but a few adaptations to colour, layout and with the edition of a rather large orange slice as a banner – the tagline reads ‘fresh, tangy ideas’. That sounded promising, and after reading the small about me section in the left hand menu I headed off in search of the archives.

Squeeze has been in existence since September 2003, and the vast majority of postings are of a personal nature. My initial readings were a little frustrating due to occasional character problems ‘today… it’s’ being just an example. I appreciate however this has more to do with the authors keyboard, and is not intentional, at least I hope not!. That aside, on the whole I found that the author’s style was simple and easy to follow, although not overly fond of the shift key it seems because capital letters are hardly ever utilised. As I said most of the entries are of a personal nature, generally describing life events as they happen interspersed with the odd meme. Now the vast majority of entries failed to grab me at all, but one or two did manage to stand out from the crowd – generally when the author really unleashed, let go of the shackles and got reflective. It wasn’t life changing stuff, but it was interesting in a learning about the individual kind of way.

The design is a simple adaptation of a generic blogger template, clearly the author of this blog likes orange – not only do we have a slice of orange as a central theme in the banner but all the graphic lines and fonts are orange too. There’s nothing seriously wrong with that if orange is your thing, the text was clear and easy to read after all. Some interesting links reside in the left hand column, some of which are worthy of further exploration.

On the whole Squeeze isn’t all that bad as blogspot sites go, it’s a fair enough contribution to this world we call blog – the design isn’t dazzling but has enough touches to make it truly individual, and the content although personal contains the occasional interesting post. It isn’t a blog I would frequent on a regular basis, but one maybe worthy of a look in every now and again. I do believe most entries are tailored towards people who reside in this authors social circle, as knowledge of the people who are mentioned here is essential to understanding half the posts. Not really spectacular but showing some potential for the future – 2.5creating a space 101

As soon as I go to the site, I had to look up one Bernice Clifton. Once I read that this was who Kai, our author, felt he was the illegitimate child of, I was done. I didn’t stop laughing from that point on, and the review took 2 days. thats a lot of laughing.

As for the site itself, it is hosted on Blogdrive, which I am becoming more and more impressed with. The only thing in this case is the placement of the ad distracts from the banner of the site, but I got over it. the layout of the site itself is clean and sleek, and I am really impressed with the use of images for links on the left hand side – something I took away as a tip for making my own site look nicer. It is easy to find everything you are looking for, including an About Me section!!!!!!

The writing within the site is very wry, sarcastic humour. It is some of the funniest stuff I have ever read. Kai is obviously well spoken and doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks about what he says. From writing new years resolutions for the stars, to telling off women in Wal Mart, he just says whatever pops into his head. I haven’t found anything yet that didn’t make me laugh.

Technically, the site is great. The links are all working, the little features like the message board function and I really didn’t hit any problems. one small annoyance was the fact the page auto refreshes – for the message board i assume. Drove me insane. But that is likely just me.

Overall, this site is fantastic. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages and over the course of the night shared the link with basically everyone I know. The only advice I have for you Kai, is don’t change a thing.Rambling Along

The B-Zone “world of bits, bytes, birds, bollocks and booze” belongs to Bjoern, and if ever a blog lived up to its tagline this would be the it. The reader is immediately presented with a colourful striped design principally in blue, beige, and white . I’m not sure whether it is intentional but it has a very retro feel about it, and against all my expectations I found it actually worked well with the content here.

A brief introduction to the author resides here, providing details about likes, dislikes and occupation in list format. What stands out for me is his hobbies, listed as “everything creative – writing, fine arts, photography, music; coding; dressing up & going out” – you’ll quickly learn that a lot of what you find on this site are arranged around these items. There is in fact a lot to this site, blog aside there’s freeware for downloading, exceptional artwork, and music. There is a section entitled coding, which unfortunately was offline the three or four times I visited this site for writing this review.

The weblog part of this site was added to an existing site in July 2003 for the express purposes of highlighting software releases and writing the odd titbit about his everyday life, and that is ultimately what you find on these pages. There’s a lot to see, and a whole range of subjects covered – obviously programming and computers is a central theme so I expect this site to appeal to fellow geeks such as myself. Bjoern writes well, short concise entries quickly becoming longer and more detailed as the blog ages. Not everything held my attention, but on the whole I did enjoy what I found here, especially the references to his programming endeavours. That is once I managed to drag
myself away from Solitairy Bjoern, which was strangely addictive.

The design as I said is based upon a vertical striped background. The colours work well together and despite my initial beliefs was not at all hard on the eye. It suit’s the content, and I believe the personality of its owner very well. The site is easy to navigate, with the added touch of a ‘top’ link on every post – a small detail but actually very helpful in navigating this site. All in all the design worked, there were no serious navigational issues and the only real draw back for me was the unfinished areas – there is nothing so frustrating for a visitor than finding an potentially interesting area of a site, only to discover “Content will be back within a few hours, please check later” especially when it happened to be significantly longer than a few hours – each occasion I visited over the span of a few days it was offline. It’s not really good design practice – if a section isn’t finished or is under construction don’t upload it until such time that it is finished.

There is a lot of see at the B-Zone. First impressions of the tagline led me to believe that the content of this site would be a little ‘laddie’ but this was not the case. Well written entries covering IT and everyday events, excellent examples of freeware for download, and really exceptional artwork all make this site a worthwhile viewing experience. Completion of the unfinished areas and this is definitely one of the better personal weblogs.The B-Zone