Category: Uncategorized

Gavin’s weblog, “Natural Physique Development” has a tagline which states that ‘It’s not about where you are right now, it’s about the direction you’re moving in.’ This is a good job really, because where his site is right now is somewhat limited in its scope and we can only hope that the direction he is moving in will improve on things somehow.

First impressions of the site are, well, that it isn’t actually a weblog at all. This is only a half- truth though because it DOES contain written content which is organised in date order, archives going back to the year 2000, some photos to enhance the entries a bit and links at the bottom to other relevant sites. So yeah, technically it’s a weblog.

However, this is the first weblog I have come across which contains only one weblog entry per year. In fact not even that really, because the first entry actually covers 2000 and 2001 (according to the entry title) and actually has 2002 bolted on the end as well. So, with the short entry for 2004, there are a grand total of three entries for the whole weblog. The archives aren’t linked to at all because, er… they all fit on to the main page anyway. In fact, bearing in mind the lack of a template and the fact that all the entries are written in the past tense I would suggest that the author must have put the whole site together during a spare afternoon, content and all.

Ok, so what is actually in the content then? Well it basically offers weight training advice. Throughout the twenty minutes it took me to read the site, I was always looking for the “catch” – what it is the site’s selling, what is its purpose, but I must admit the content does seem fairly genuine. There a few endorsements of other products though, and people are becoming more and more devious in their attempts to sell things to unsuspecting people, so don’t hold me to this. I have some knowledge of weight training issues and the advice given on this site doesn’t seem unreasonable, though it is often very unclear exactly what the specific exercises are which he is doing and the directions occasionally seem contradictory. In my experience, joining a gym and consulting a professional is by far the best way to learn- after all you can’t go wrong with professionals whereas you probably can with some guy’s rather dubious weblog.

In conclusion, this is a rather poor attempt at a weblog and all I can suggest is that, if the author is genuine, try looking at some of the high scoring weblogs to get some inspiration as to why yours only scored a 0.5. To be fair, I realise that weight training is not a short term project and there are some improvements to the site promised for March. All I can hope is that his skills as a weblogger improve during that time along with his physique.Natural Physique Development

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting when I decided to review this blog, but when I clicked on the link, I found myself more on a “splash” page than the intro to the blog. And even after I found myself clicking on the “blog” link you get a choice of only a very small handful of entries. I’m hoping that the few entries that do exist are interesting.

I find the layout of the entires to be quite amusing. It’s different in that he uses pseudo html tags to label different sections of the entry. It’s cute as well asn helps to me keep things a little more organized. The author’s sense of humor is evident in a few of the entries. I adore the English accent I hear in my head as I read through is entries. The blog itself is very, what’s the word I’m looking for, vast. There are literally only a handful of entries that span over the course of 2 years or so. The author, MaFt, is a music fan and you can tell by how often he talks about music and the various different concerts he’s gone to. He makes Bingo sound like wonderful fun, and driving to seem dependent on the weather. For the most part this blog is funny, however, there aren’t enough entries to make the time spent worthwhile.



The design is functional, but a little on the boring side. There’s not much going on, but it doesn’t hurt my eyes to read it. It’s a bit of a pain in the butt to have to go back a page in order to read the next entry, but you deal with the little design idiosycrasies because the entries can be somewhat amusing.

For the most part this blog is cute and somewhat funny. It’s more personal than anything else, with the occasional mention of an idea, thought, theory or music group. It’s definately not updated nearly as much as it should to make a bit of a bigger impact on the reader. Most people who might be interested in this blog would come, read for a little while, and then might disappear into the realm of bloggers. Why? Because there aren’t enough updates to want to keep coming back. The author has a great sense of humor and wit, even if there’s a mention of stupid Americans a couple of time. It’s a shame that this blog could easily have scored higher with this reviewer if there were more to read.a new thing

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