Category: Uncategorized

I wasn’t quite sure what to think when I first arrived at “Mondo Irlando”. I was hit full face by the colour scheme, and large garish handwritten graphics. Judging from the first page I could only assume that I had arrived at a review site, of films, music, and erm other things. It did not appear to be a weblog in the traditional sense, in that the first page at least was not organised chronologically. Then, of course, I discovered the Duke’s Journals.

Overall I found the site a little frustrating to navigate. I read film and music reviews, the journal, and something referred to as the articles. Its easy to access yes, but there is no organisation chronologically, and the overuse of graphical links was all too distracting. Much to my surprise I found the content largely well written, albeit more than a little offensive on occasion. I found he lost a great deal of my respect when he resorted to obscenities.

I found navigating the site a little frustrating. There was an article archive, and a review archive, but no journal archive from what I could see. There were no additional facilities there for readers to interact directly about specific posts, merely a guest book. I feel the site would benefit from the addition of some sort of comments facility, unless of course the author does not wish to promote reader response. There is a lot to see here – MP3 digest, and Mondo radio show I am sure will appeal to a lot of people in particular.

The design overall did absolutely nothing for me. It was black and red, with large handwritten graphics as headings and links. The graphics especially I found detracted from the content. I also found I developed eye strain after a solid hour of reading through the archives. Improvements in the site design would do nothing but benefit the site. I can appreciate that content matters above all else, but when a design detracts from content that is largely brilliant then a serious rethink is required.

Mondo Irlando has a great deal of appeal, just not for me. Its an interesting, and extremely well written review site. Its intended, I think, for a mature audience. I can see it appealing to film lovers and music buffs who would appreciate his honest and open style, and with improvements in the design and its navigation I can see real possibilities for this site in the future

Mondo Irlando

When first reviewing background noise, I was daunted by the fact that the blog’s archives went back for over two years. In hindsight, blogspot’s system of archiving posts on a monthly basis, coupled with the author’s knack for keeping his entries short, meant that reading two and a half years of Richard’s random musings was surprisingly effortless.

Background Noise is definitely one of the more eclectic personal weblogs out there – the brevity of most entries probably exacerbates this a little; one entry details Richard’s aversion for razors, while the next details his difficulties learning mandarin. Some days, even the entries seem fairly haphazardly put together, as seen in this entry about Dolly the Sheep and how people should pronounce the word ‘issues’. Nonetheless, the entries are consistently concise and well-written, however, which is always a plus. I particularly liked his entry on pandas.

While the site layout is by no means breath-taking, it doesn’t offend any aesthetic sensibilities either. Here again, we see the benefit of short entries – the front page to this blog seems a lot less cluttered than other blogs, if only because of the fact that it simply holds less content. I must emphasize, however, that this is by no means a bad thing, since brevity is really an undervalued commodity in blogging. Richard’s extensive archives also provide for a depth of additional reading material.

All in all, while this site is eclectic in its content, it’s also consistent in its output – Richard is a fairly frequent blogger, and he seems to churn out his entries at a fairly constant rate. The links featured on this site are similarly eclectic, but most manage to be reasonably entertaining. Thus, all in all, background noise is probably worth a visit. Or maybe even two.
Background Noise

I was immediately impressed with Busy Moms. Not only is the design spare and professional, the content is useful too. Ideas for Father’s Day gifts, recipes, and other advice on everything from soup to nuts.

The site describes itself accurately:

Busy Moms Online came about from my desire to help other moms who are as stressed as I find myself all the time. Many times we could use some information right now, but it’s so hard to find what we are looking for. Here you will find information on just about anything a mom could need: from parenting tips, to beauty tricks, to money matters, and more.

It does look like this site was designed to promote the book The Single Mom’s Survival Guide, but the ebook is reasonably priced and looks worthwhile. If you’re a mom, this site is definitely worth a look.Busy Moms Online

The title “Becka’s House of Glue” definitely piqued my interest. I think that’s what each blog should work on first: an interesting title. I mean, that’s the first thing a person sees when he goes there, right? That is, when he clicks on a link or whatnot.



Anyway, I have to say that I was hooked with the first word. Becka’s entries are certainly interesting. It’s mostly a rant blog with tons of opinions thrown at the side. Oh and it’s personal. But she write in such a witty way that even when I didn’t agree with what she said, I still enjoyed the time reading.

The layout is a bit bland but hey, no one’s perfect, right? And I think the posts stand by itself that the design doesn’t really matter too much. She also has pictures with some of the post. I think they add character to the blog itself.

Overall, I recommend everyone to go for a visit. Who knows, you just might get to be as hooked as I am.
Becka’s House of Glue

So, yeah, I guess the title says it all. Not that Adam actually rants about anything, but it’s a blog filled with personal posts (even though it’s under the entertainment category in the weblogreview thing) and it’s written – now, guess! – by some Adam guy.

And I say “some Adam guy” not as a way to diminish him, but because you cannot easily find any information about him. There’s no profile to be read. I know he’s Irish, I know he studies something and I know he’s been in love with Jennie. That he fancies jokes – blonde jokes and the kind, which you can read in separate pages he keeps – and babes. And those are the things I could pick up by reading his first entries and the last ones.

The layout is quite simple but very nice. All links work okay. There are some categories he came up with, but they are rather irrelevant in my opinion (well, they may be useful if you want to skip posts on babes). There’s an RSS feeder thing, which is cool. Uncool: “read more” link. You’re reading the post, you want to read more and suddenly you realize you have to click there to continue with the reading. And that takes you to another page, where there’s only one post and if you want to come back to the main page, click here again, mate. So… tiring. Or I’m just being picky.

I know I might made Adam sound sound like an uninteresting person –or at least made his blog sound like an uninteresting blog- , but he’s not. I wouldn’t say I’d read his blog often, but that’s only because personal blogs are that way. You either fall for the person at first sight or not. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad blog, although I can assure it’s not a wonderful blog either.
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