Category: Uncategorized

“Rant”. It seems to be the buzz word in the blogging community at present! Nearly every second blog I come across these days has the word “Rant” embedded into it somewhere only to dissapoint with posts that don’t resemble a rant at all! This was my main concern while I was waiting for this site to load which it took a long time to do!

Once the page started displaying I could see quickly see why it took so long! The scrollbar on the right of my browser window was rapidly shrinking – almost to the point where I couldn’t see it anymore! This blog is big! After a quick scroll down a pre-installed blogger template page, I counted only eight different posts, three of which were extremely brief leaving five incredibly long posts.

On the sidebar we learn that the author is one Scott Hudson who lives in South Dakota. I apologise that that state doesn’t mean much to me because this humble reviewer resides in Ireland. Not having any local knowledge slightly hindered my ability to understand what was going on in some of the posts in this blog but thankfully it didn’t prevent me from enjoying it because the posts are clearly well thought out and they accurately convey the author’s strong feelings towards certain issues. As I said earlier, this blog is big and I suppose this is a suitable time to question the blogs title which is “Rant-a-BIT”. I think “Rant-a-LOT” would have been much more fitting title!

Staying on the subject of the content, I was happy to see that the blog isn’t all about serious issues and Scott often offers his own spin on light hearted and humorous issues which is just as well because I don’t think I could handle rant after rant after rant! If there’s one bad thing that can be said about the blog it’s that once you’ve finished reading one page, there is no “Next” or “Previous” link. Instead you have to scroll all the way back up to the top of the page and click a suitable link in the archive section of the sidebar which can be incredibly annoying for anyone who wants to read back through the archives which span all the way back to March of 2003 where the posts were just as vast as they are today!

Overall I can say that this blog is well worth the read especially if you like long posts which offer a great insight into the life and personality of the author. If you prefer short and snappy blogs then this blog just isn’t for you! Personally, I enjoyed reading it and will probably add it to my growing list of quality blogs in my bookmarks!NULL

Let me start off by saying that this site is amazing! Riri is the author and she has done an excellent job of catching your interest from first glance with her creative and stylish template. I loved the way she listed an index of links to different pages on her blog. Once you click on the link to her “about me”, you instantly get a bird’s eye view of who this blogger really is. She gives you four photos that pretty much lay out who she is, a programmer, a mother, a wife, and a quirky, fantastic human being.

After I got over the initial euphoria I checked out the posts on Riri’s blog. Each post, though some might seem like ordinary ramblings, offered more insight to the author. Riri has the ability to make even the ordinary seem magnificent. I checked out some of the archives and was amazed each time I clicked on a different post. Riri can be funny yet still manage to come off nothing short as inspiring.

There are a lot of extras on this blog from the links across top of the page that will take you to her photo blog where you can see her amazing photography talent, to the ‘random entry’ link that takes you to a random post on her site. She also breaks down her entries into categories along the left-hand side of the page which makes it easy to navigate your way through her thoughts. I especially liked the Riri quiz which tests you on how well you think you might know her…I must make a mental note to try my hand at this once I’ve consumed a few more of her posts.

I gave this site a rating of 5 because I honestly think it’s one of the best blogs I’ve seen around due to it’s format and content. Riri has made it to my own blogroll where I’ll be visiting her daily.

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“Rhubarb is Susan” has a note at the very top of the site instructing readers to read the disclaimer before continuing. Not being one to break rules, I did and I am very glad that I did. From this disclaimer, readers learn a lot about the author and the weblog before even reading a single entry. I love this in a site. A compact section that answers the questions of who, what, and why is a great addition to any weblog or any website for that matter.

Simon is the author of this weblog. He lives in Chicago and has a true passion for reading and even writing poetry. It somewhat offsets his career as a postdoctoral researcher in astrophysics, I guess. As learned in the previously mentioned disclaimer, he reviews poetry in his entries on “Rhubarb is Susan” and is very selective in how he does this.

The layout, for starters, is one of the infrequently used Blogger templates. It’s a classy one and actually flows well with the content of the site. There is just something about the text being on what looks like parchment paper that kind of fits in to the whole poetry theme of the site. Neato.

Simon goes about posting his reviews in a very courtesy manner. Each post contains the poem he’s reviewing and his thoughts on the work. This can obviously be somewhat lengthy. To save readers the hassle of having to scroll through so much text, he posts a couple of lines from the poem and then provides a “full review” link. If readers want to scroll quickly through the site looking for a particular review, this is much easier.

These reviews go into specific detail. In his own words, Simon goes into what the poet means, what could have improved the poem, and even sometimes touches the technical aspect of the piece of work. His passion and understanding of poetry clearly stands out in each of his reviews.

I can’t dance. My limbs are lethal weapons. Innocent people got hurt trying to teach me to dance. Same goes for me and trying to understand poetry. It’s never a pretty scene. Simon, however, does a superb job of explaining the poems he reviews. While they may not be pieces of work that I had ever read or seen, I still felt like I could learn a bit of what the poem meant.

Is “Rhubarb is Susan” a site that everyone will understand? Not at all. It is one I would recommend, though, for people willing to open their eyes to something new. For me, it made poetry seem like less of a daunting experience than I had previously thought.
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My initial feeling on Pewari’s Prattle was that it had a very simple and inviting layout. It had the “to be expected item” of a blog roll on the side bar. One thing that really caught my eye is how the author found a discrete way to link to the sites archives without stretching this huge list of month, year down the sidebar as well. They were in a simple dropdown menu for quick and easy access.

The blog was created in April 2003, so there is a lot of content on the site. If you select a month from the archives list you will see a brief excerpt of the articles the author presents. This makes it very handy for a reader to see if he or she would want to finish reading the article or move on to the next. The author posts regularly on the site, which always makes for a good blog. It has a green header with the title located in it. A simple white background, where the articles are presented, was used with an olive/green color as a border for the site. The site uses simple black, white, and green text for an easy read. A neat feature built into the site is a blog of the week. This area has a simple screenshot of the blog and a link back to the blog of the week site. Along with the archives drop box, another box appears in the sidebar. It contains category information.

This blog has a lot of personal information built into it, but it does also pose information to women. In the archives, I found a post that lead me to many other posts that were interesting… The top searches for 2005. Being male, I found one of these rather disgusting to read, but I was interested just to see how women talk about tampons and that dreaded “time of the month. The author was surprised that it made the top searched pages, but if you are a woman and you want a review on a mooncup, here is the place to read. Many things are discussed in the blog: husband, child, friends, etc. I feel this is better kept as a personal blog.

The site was designed well and she posts frequently. I would have to say that she has started taking her blog to a new level and developing her posts more than the archives show. Most of the posts are short. She is now starting to pick topics and write about them, as you can see, in the latest post on Feminism. I feel this blog has great potential just for the simple fact that the author does communicate through her blog to her readers. She is always responding to comments on her site, and I feel this helps to make a blog great. She appears to have some frequent readers. Some of the readers post comments to many posts on the blog. I rate this blog as a 3.5.
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Symbian Softwares Review is a blog based site for posting reviews of “Cellphones Games, PDA Games, New Symbian Softwares, Symbian Softwares, Pocket PC Games, Smartphone Games, etc”. The first thing that strikes me is that the word “software” is known as a zero plural word, that is it has the same form in singular and plural without needing an “s” at the end.

The second thing that strikes me is that even at my relatively high resolution, the whole first screen is ads. A massive google ad in the middle, and ad search bar under the title, 2 referral ads on the right hand side and then a directory under this whose first link is “viral marketing”. The site is a tidy package otherwise with the regular blogroll, button clutter on the right hand frame. Color coordination is fine with a distinctly light blue theme.

The content is, as you would expect from the title, all about mobile phone stuff. Some of the reviews are quite thorough, but all is not what it seems. I took some of the text in one of the reviews and googled it.. sure enough it is a straight copy and paste from the vendor website. I’m sorry my friend, thats not blogging. One review that did look original is the most recent post about a “snake theme” but it was only one line long, which hardly constitutes a “review”. Sure enough, the line “A cool snake theme for your phone. It will surely send shivers down your spine.” was also ripped from the theme author himself.

Sigh, if you read my reviews you will find I am pretty diplomatic. But I cant award this site any points. Blogging is not about copying and pasting. Free blogger services make it easy to create a blog, but the idea has been tainted by the rise of the splogs reaping revenue from ad clicks and attracting searches by copying other peoples hard work. NULL