Category: Uncategorized

Good Blimey! What a great phrase to title your site with. I have to admit I was half expecting a UK site (.co.uk) from this phrase, but Matt is not from the UK. He in fact lives in Florida.

Matt is a self-taught web designer. The blog is here to ” provide him a place to post his thoughts ranging from web design, technology, gaming, and personal insights. It also serves as a nexus to upload and share photos taken with a digital camera.” This was great for me as I shared an immediate connection with him. We both have similar interests and I knew that this would be an enjoyable read.

The weblog is about what he said it would be about; his everyday life, thoughts on stuff, and of course photos. I had a nice trip down memory lane with certain events happening while reading Matt’s blog. Everything from the kid who got suspended for doing a netsend of “hey” to the EU’s fine to Microsoft is posted. I especially enjoyed reading about his cooking and the recipies that he provided.

The design of the site is crisp and clean. My only complaint is that it looks too much like a “standards compliant” blog. All to often a programmer gets caught up in coding for standards, and the site looks like it. This can be resolved with a simple banner at the top instead of just the phrase Good Blimey! But other than that, I have no complaints about the design.

Overall I enjoyed my time at Good Blimey. I think that Matt has found what makes for a good weblog and is sticking to only posting the good stuff. I will continue to follow up with Good Blimey to see where it takes me. Good Blimey!

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

The ‘Genuine Blog’ certainly makes a powerful first impression, with a striking picture of a moonlit castle in the header and a medieval theme througout. It’s one of the more visually appealing weblogs that I’ve seen. Kudos to the author for creating a fun, impressive, and professional-looking site.

Speaking of the author, I was a bit disappointed to find no ‘About Me’ page available — after loading the page, I was eager to learn more about the person who’d taken such care with the design of their site. And, of course, I wondered about the castle, and the knight peering back at me from the sidebar. Hoping for these answers and a bit of context, I dug into the archives for a look.

Happily, the archives didn’t disappoint. The ‘Genuine Blog’ has only been around since March of this year, but what it lacks in longevity, it makes up for in volume. On the first day alone, there are five posts, ranging from online quiz results to Genuine’s conversations with his kids to, yes, the origin of the author’s moniker and the weblog’s name. (Though nothing on the knight and castle motif — maybe Genuine’s just a hopeless romantic, eh?)

Even better, the posts have kept coming in recent weeks, and Genuine shows no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, he seems to be finding his voice of late, adding extras like a photo area and original chapters of an in-progress romance novel. The entries typically include anecdotes from his daily life, writing updates, web links, and interactions with other bloggers. In general, Genuine seems to be doing a great job of finding, entertaining, and keeping his audience, while having a lot of fun in the process.

There’s a lot to like about the this weblog. It has an original, imaginative look, and Genuine has dedicated himself to making the visit interesting and enjoyable. I’d like to see a bit more information about the author, why he writes, and where he hopes to take his site, but I give the site a well-deserved 4.5 out of 5. Have a look at the ‘Genuine Blog’; I think you’ll find something you like. And I mean that. Genuinely.www.genuineblog.com

My first impression of the site was of a competent simple, professional effort. It has white text on a blue background with yellow titles. It looked good. The design was very simple. The name doesn’t suggest much and is not explained anywhere. There are a couple of blog related adverts and a simple previous posts side bar including an archive list. The list of previous posts ran by name and in posted order until you hit one then the archive list is lost and what appeared to be a randomly generated post list appears. This is guess work. I couldn’t really work out what was going on. The link to the latest post didn’t work from this menu despite several attempts at trying.

Kim sets out her agenda in her first post and it makes sense to use her words.
“(She will} attempt to enact essays, stories, speeches, quasi-plays, jokes, profundity, Creative Lyin’ Writin’, photo’s, seriouso observations, MP3’s, and general, overall stuff.”

The site is new, starting on 23 May 2004. The posting is prodigious however. She has posted over 27,000 words in one short week over several posts a day.

She has pretty much kept to her initial list plus some. Homework, amusing anecdotes about her work at a hospital and visits to the dentist and the gym, a eulogy, a patronising view on being homeless, her sons’ attempts at driving and a mix up over Jesus’ real name. Yeshua I believe. I like her punchy and at times vernacular writing style. There are some spelling mistakes, but hey. There was also an audio post which worked well.

She sounds like she is having a lot of fun getting this site together and it is still very much a new venture.

There are no links within posts or the use of a comments facility.

I have to be careful in summing up here as she is very much into the Right to Bear Arms and I don’t think she is referring to a disputed access way to a public house. She has posted a lot in the first week and a lot are long posts. Although a great deal of it is enjoyable, there is no end of words to wade through. I’m not sure I would have bothered if I hadn’t been reviewing the site as much as I enjoyed reading some of it. So my advice would be slow down…. However I think she is interesting enough and skilled enough to make an interesting web log here. I’d give it a 2.5 out of 5 for starters with the impression that things will get better over time.

Ktraveldan Network

I must be mad. I’ve just a horrible experience reviewing a comedy site and here we go with another one. But hey, it couldn’t be as bad… surely. The self deprecating comments in the banner hint at something a little wittier.

I liked the look of the site. A simple design with a left side panel. A nice blue, my favourite colour and easy to read black on white text. The usual about me, why this site and other links sit in the panel along with a working calendar that ferries you to and from posts. My only gripe here is that the calendar returns to the latest month when you access a particular post. That aside the links work. There is also a comment board which is cool. The banner is a home page icon which is always useful.

There is the occasional use of pictures and links which all work. There is a comments facility and this sometimes generated some interesting and occasionally funny moments. These interactions were particularly good when other comedians offered advice and assistance to the young man.

The author has just made a decision to think about making a decision to pursue a career in comedy as a writer. He is too shy to perform. His web log is a mixture of his thoughts and feelings about making this decision, his disbelief at being able to write funny material – he is a comedy magnet for good ideas (his words!) and his material. Comedy is so subjective, but I was pretty much mildly amused throughout. His comedy is situational in the Seinfeld, “what’s the deal with…” mould.

Some of the material was a little underdeveloped and could do with working on, but there were some real high points. Boxing got me laughing out loud and the Victory Q is a great story well told.

The site has been up and running since January 2004 and although he isn’t a prodigious blogger he has posted regularly enough since. There is a wealth of material here should he finally take the plunge and get up in front of an audience.

I’ve enjoyed this second comedy experience. The web log is reasonably well designed and written. At times I laughed out loud and have enjoyed his journey towards the bottom rung of the show business ladder. A three out of five.
I think I want to be a comedian.