Category: Uncategorized

First impressions of this site? The design is crisp, clean, and well-done. Even better, it is easy to navigate and I found myself immediately wanting to dive into the actual content of the site.

One of the first things I noticed when I started reading the weblog is that the author never capitalizes his sentences. With most weblogs, I would view this as detrimental to the overall content, but here it worked. This textual style goes along with the overall tone of the weblog – carefree, unburdened, and pretty much liberated of excess junk. Who needs to capitalize? I say this without the slightest hint of sarcasm – the author truly writes his impressions of what is happening around him. He blends funny, insightful, and interesting ideas into all of his posts. I was searching for an ‘about’ page when I came across his first post, where he says “i’d have lots of pages detailing myself and my life, but i don’t want that.” In my opinion, he doesn’t even need an ‘about’ page – as you become more enveloped in his posts, you learn a great deal about this 18 year old man from the UK.

In terms of design, the site complements the content perfectly. Orange and gray are the primary colors, and they blend well together to create a layout that is easy on the eyes. The navigation bar has the typical links – contact information, sites the author likes, and the archives. The ‘rate me’ link was unusual – it gives the reader a chance to input their opinions on the author’s site. The only thing, albeit a minor thing, is that the links on the nav bar load up in the same window – I would recommend having them open in a new one so that attention isn’t drawn away from the site.

Should you visit this site? I can definitely give you a big YES. You will probably find yourself as I did after reading several posts on someonecalledjames – laughing your head off and curious to find out more about the author’s insights and opinions on life. someonecalledjames

Let me introduce you to Vector Matrix. A 19 year old male living in Canada whose goal is to get into show biz in some aspect. Ok, now that the introduction is done with, lets move on.

The page loaded up and I am given a lot of information to deal with. A three column layout is presented, with Navigation on the left, the blog in the middle and a news reader on the right. The first time I visited the site I admit I was taken aback. But with a repeat visit I was able to figure out what was going on.

The first entry of the site is used as a guest book so to speak. This threw me off because I had not seen anyone do this before. At first I thought it was the most recent post, but then after looking I noticed it was an older one.

The posts are about a lot of subjects, all of which the author likes. These range from personal life, to Buffy, to Star Trek, to movie reviews. Pretty average stuff for a teenage male who likes computers and all the stuff that follows.

Vector Matrix is a very talented writer. He has this ability to describe a situation as if you are watching it there in person. On some of his posts I felt as if I was the one going through the situation as it was described so well.

Of course I did have some complaints about the site. The first being that there isn’t a clear explanation as to what each part of his site is. There are so many internal links that I almost go lost. However after going through most of them I realized that he was categorizing his entries and then has direct links to those. A clearer explanation of this would be nice. Second, 95% of the post itself is not shown on the main page. There is a link to a “read more” which typically people use for a second little blurb but it also brings us to the comments. His posts had a short blurb on the main page, followed by essays in the read more. While it is nice that he keeps it so tidy so we do not have to scroll past lengthy posts to get to a post we are looking for, it is also a pain as I had to read the post, click the back button, read the post, click the back button. There should be a more fluid way to read the posts. Final complaint is that the date is posted inside the “Read More” section. On the main page I had no clue when each entry was posted.

Vector Matrix has a very good site and is a good read. The difficulties with navigation and lack of explanation of aspects of it take away from it. I think that with a better design, defined sections of the site, and some sort of improvement to the “Read More” section, he would have an amazing site. Even if there was just a way to read the weblog itself (without all the other links) and without having it sectioned off would be a good thing. Long thought out posts are nice if the author is able to write. Vector Matrix is able to write.
vectormatrix.net | ramblings of a teenaged canadian

You and Me and Wainbows. Interesting title. I have no clue what to expect about this, other than it might reference three people (You = the reader, Me = the author, and Wainbows = some random person). But with that in mind I launched myself into this weblog.

Normally I like to pace myself when it comes to discussing a weblog. Some good points, some bad, all mixed together. I really only found one bad thing with this site, and it was the design. I like the images of the cats at the top (reference to the author), but then the rest of the design has gone to hell on the main page. Stuff is misaligned and it just doesn’t look good. Going into the archives we have yet another design, and this one is much better, but not original. So that is the bad part.

Everything else with this weblog is amazing. You cannot find another flaw in this site. The writing is outstanding, funny, and thought provoking all at the same time. Of course the first post I read was a very misconstrued version of an email I sent to her about reviewing her site. But it set the tone for the rest of the reading.

Recently she is posting about her trip to Spain which is pretty cool. She is going into a fair amount of detail for what she is doing there. I imagine that the weblog combined with pictures she has taken will make a good memory.

One of the more interesting things I noticed is that she really re-reads her weblog. Almost as if she is a reader herself, and not an author. Then she likes to comment on it. Personally I think she should just let it flow and only go back to read the comments.

This site should be nominated for the “Best kept secret” weblog with the bloggies next year. It has everything that an enjoyable blog needs and then some. I really hope that she does not take it down as she is thinking about doing as this truly is a diamond in the rough.

You and Me and Wainbows

I tend to be leery anytime I see a site at Xanga. They structure content so rigidly that it’s hard for me to focus on the entries themselves. I was even more startled when I looked at Jim’s website (linked to from his Xanga profile) and found an apparently live webcam image of Jim with no clothes on. I’m no prude, but it was a bit more than I was expecting – his Xanga page shows him wearing a shirt, after all. Once I recovered from my initial surprise, I realized it’s just another part of Jim’s personality.

I was immediately pleased to see that Jim differentiates between a journal and a weblog – he keeps a LiveJournal site for his diary, and his Xanga site is strictly a blog. But if a blog is supposed to be links to sites, Jim’s got it wrong. He seems to be mixing up his Xanga blog with his MT-powered opinion site, The Naked Leftist Liberal. For that matter, a number of the Xanga posts are about his own sites, as well as his past experiences. It also seemed kind of incongruous to see Jim’s claims that he has one of the oldest sites online – since 1982 – when he admits that he’s still learning HTML and site design. I also found it odd and a bit out-of-timeline, given that the very early web precursor ENQUIRE was first tested in 1980, and CERN’s first hypertext-related proposal was published in 1989. All this kind of made me a bit suspicious of Jim, but he also admits that what he started in 1982 was a BBS (“one of the first BBSs in the world”).

I’m not trying to undermine Jim’s credibility here, but it does feel kind of strange to see a blog that’s mostly about the author’s various experiences with webcams and e-mail viruses. If that were the blog’s purported content, that would be one thing…but then occasionally there are posts about Bush, the war, etc. I read back through a few months of Jim’s entries, and I couldn’t tell how far back I had gone – all of it felt the same. I guess the colors are pretty enough – kind of remind me of my local Redskins, though Jim doesn’t seem to say how he chose them. I do like his opening quote, too, which explains both the nickname for Missouri and the name he’s chosen for his webcams.Jim Howard’s ShowMe

www.thebwit.com is a dedicated site by a dedicated person. Its layout is frequently redesigned, and the webmaster self-checks for originality and, well, dedication. Plus the latest layout features an entire sidebar dedicated to TheBwit’s dedicated exercise routines which is part of his dedicated plan to slim down and tone up. Whew. Now that’s dedication for you.

First, lets get all the bad points out of the way. While this frequent re-vamping of the site’s appearance is good and heightens reader interest, it is a nuisance when you click on the archive links to find out that you can’t read some parts of it because another layout was used when those archived posts were blogged. For example, the current design has a divider between the exercise blog and the main blog, which means the main blog is somewhere in the middle. For older posts, there was no exercise blog and thus the blog was aligned to the left. So now we have a black line running through the text and a huge emerald buddha (current design) obscuring words and being eyesores when we read archived posts in the current layout. Also, there are quite a few sprinklings of misspelled and misused words on TheBwit, which sometimes hinder readability.

Now, on to the good parts. This site features quite a lot of discussions about the blogging world, with comments back and forth by readers and friends of TheBwit. The discussions are usually insightful and illuminating, though sometimes the talk gets a bit too ‘insider-y’ and the casual reader gets lost. Another good point is that TheBwit maintains a nice mix of posts about his personal life and posts about his opinions and views about the world (both real and virtual, with more emphasis on virtual). This way, the reader does not overdose quite that easily. Also, there is a very long list of all the DVDs TheBwit owns on the site. I’m not sure what it’s there for, but it does look mighty impressive sitting there. Perhaps if TheBwit started reviewing movies it would be there to lend some credibility.

In summary, other than the inconvenience caused by template changes, there is nothing wrong with www.thebwit.com. Content-wise, although engaging and informative on a whole, it would appeal more to blogging and programming enthusiasts. For those who want to know what it takes to be a dedicated webmaster (TheBwit runs several sites, including I Own These), head over right now.

TheBwit