Category: Uncategorized

When “Suburban Turmoil” loaded into my Internet Explorer window, it immediately grabbed my attention. The design is very unique. The title fits into the layout, which is very well done. The visual appearance of the site instantly drew me in and I started reading this site from the beginning right away.

I read through the eight months of archives like I was reading a book I just could not put down. Lucinda, the author, is amusing, insightful, compassionate, and more importantly to random readers like myself, she’s real. She blogs about her life, giving so many different aspects of people a chance to connect with her through her daily experiences. It’s no wonder each entry she posts has several regular readers interacting with her via the comments section of the site.

For parents with young children, the author can entertain you and sympathize with you when she writes an entry about discovering the true meaning behind her toddler’s obsession with the word nose or how to turn the luxuries her little girl has had into luxuries for adults. I’m all for a Big Bjorn Bouncer or an adult-sized onesie! As a stepmother of two older girls, currently 12 and 15, she educates the public with her fine teen-spying skills that insure she pretty much doesn’t miss much in the ways of the arguing.

Even those people without kids, like myself, will be able to appreciate the humor Lucinda shares in each of her entries. Who doesn’t find it amusing when a baby blurts out the f-word? She even entertains the geek side of us when she writes about the search results her stat-tracking program provides. It’s not everyone that can appreciate being the #1 Google result for “wheelchair, diaper, grunting, poop”!

A link on the sidebar of the site leads readers to a different URL where they can read 100 things about Lucinda. Here is where those as curious as me can find out a bit more about the author. Quite a bit more about the author, actually. What readers don’t learn by reading through her posts, they can certainly find here.

The layout, as I mentioned earlier, is great. Even though Blogger hosts her weblog, she has gone to great lengths to alter the layout to perfectly fit the title of the weblog. It’s the classic two-column layout, but Lucinda uses different image headers in the sidebar that draw your attention to the other sites she readers or some of her own favorites posts. It’s conveniently easy to navigate and it looked great in any browser I used.

It was hard for me to find something wrong with this weblog. I hate rating sites this high, because I’m never sure if the author can handle living up to so much pressure. But I digress. From reading her site, I get the impression that Lucinda can handle the expectations that might come with such an amazing rating for her site. In all seriousness, Lucinda is a great writer and has a way that easily involves her readers. I’m bookmarking the site and plan on continuing my obsession with reading all of her entries. I would highly recommend the same for anyone else looking for a weblog that will, on a regular basis, provide you with some entertainment throughout the day.

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The site is called “Not Another Dating Angst Blog”, but guess what? Well, it is.

Joseph Jacobson, a college student, is the author of this weblog that details the past several years of his dating habits. Since the site is still so new, these dating habits include to girls during his time in high school. The entries are short and easy to read, making the site very easy to jump right into at the very beginning an read until the latest entry.

I’m a big of the layout for this site. The header graphic was made specifically for this site, and it livens up the appearance of the entire design. Normally, the pale yellow background wouldn’t be very high on my list of colors to use on the background, but Joseph coordinates the color of his entire design quite well. The layout is the very popular two column layout, where the author includes the typical blogging material – contact information, archives, other links.

The reason this site didn’t score higher is based solely on its content. Yes, it’s a content-driven site, which is wonderful. However, instead of a current weblog written about things happening in the present, this site focuses, quite obviously, on things in the past. While the subject matter is interesting, it read more like a short story, rather than a blog.

The site has great potential. It is very early on in its life in the blogosphere and the author is certainly at the age where dating can be entertaining. I’m hoping with time, Joseph begins posting about his current dating woes. Regular readers may start sticking around for a while once the content is something they can currently relate to, instead of reliving their high school dating days.
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When I read the title “Jim Abroad” I knew exactly what this blog was going to be. It was going to be about Jim and his travels outside of the US. Why he was traveling, and where he was traveling to, I had no clue, but I knew this was one of those blogs about his traveling.

When I got to the page, I knew I was right in my assumption of what the blog was going to be about. The design of the site has a “poloroid” picture of a building in Spain and the logo Jim Abroad has a plane in it. Outside of the header the site is using a two column layout with the left column being used for navigation. I was pleasently surprised that he has kept his side bar to a minimum to allow his posts to shine.

The posts are lengthy recaps of what/where he is. Jim is traveling all over most of Europe though he is staying mostly in Spain. Some stories will make you laugh, others will leave you wanting more and some I could have done with out. As I was reading the blog I was wanting to know why he was traveling. There was a bit on the navigation about his first trip ever, but nothing about why he was traveling. Then I found the about Jim and all was made well.

This blog took a little bit to get into, but once I did I couldn’t stop reading it. To clarify I have been to this blog about 5 times in the past week and it wasn’t until about the 3rd time that the site really clicked with me. I suggest randomly reading the posts as it doesn’t really matter which order you catch up on them in. This is a good travel site and I look forward to see where Jim goes next.
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Casino Pulp is a blog geared towards those who enjoy table games such as Baccarat and Poker. The layout of the site is a standard blogger template with archive pages that make it easy to get around to the historical content. The site isn’t very flashy or thrilling, with a very simple and straightforward stick figure card player adorning the top banner.

Several of the articles are in Spanish, which made reading impossible for this monolingual reviewer. The “About” page is absolutely useless in learning more about the author and the source(s) of the content. However, I did learn how to play Baccarat thanks to the “About” page. Sweet. Now I can go rake in some money at Foxwoods!

The bulk of the pulp is casino news, industry news, insider information that doesn’t really HELP the novice or n00b player get in on the games and how they’re played.

I found the site boring and borderline useless. The site has archives for April and May so there is not a vast amount of content to read and review. I am not sure what the mission of the site is, or why it is even there, in English or in Spanish, and honestly couldn’t even recommend it as a resource for anything to friends who actually are WSOP fans or card players. I give this site a 2 rating. NULL

Webcasting Business Model is a site dedicated to the business models of webcasting. Obviously quite a niche market, but the author attempts to corner that market. The biggest problem is the lack of content. Looking through the archives shows that the entire site only hosts thirteen articles since 2005. Beyond the sparse content however, there is quite a bit here for those interested in business models in general. Mostly in the form of links to related sites, but there are also book recommendations, videos and even a small glossary/dictionary.

I don’t admit to being an expert on business models, but the authors seem educated and well written. Each article is concise, topical and interesting. The authors touch on everything webcasting and business models from trends and predictions to straight-up news. The blog is also meant to be a place to provide updates for a book edited by two of the authors.

This blog is hosted by Google’s blogspot, and uses one of the basic designs. So, there’s not much to look at when reading this blog. On the upside, that can be seen as a strength so as not to detract from what content is there.

My overall impression is that this blog is more of a side project for the authors. It feels unfinished and in progress. If I were interested in business models or wanted to find out more information, this would be a good starting point. I wasn’t blown away by this blog, but certainly not turned off either.NULL