Category: Uncategorized

Wow Gardens Blog is an informational site with regular updates an a wide range of gardening topics. If you’ve ever tended a garden then you are probably aware of just how fulfilling and satisfying it is to grow and maintain your own flowers, fruit or vegetables.

The author anonymous author provides tips and suggestions for seasonal gardening and includes an easily to navigate variety of categories including tips, products, seasonal gardening, seeds, flowers, vegetables, perennials and is referenced throughout by acknowledging sources. This is a good thing, in that citing your sources is generally good writing practice however every single article starts with the unchanging phrase “In a recent article…” which may be a comforting routine, but seems a little dry after a while and the links to sources are not clickable.

The Wow Gardens Blog seems like an excellent new resource for American gardeners and collates news articles in a straightforward summary meaning keen gardeners can simply log in to the blog for a good round up of recent news. There is little color either in the language or the design of the site which is a shame considering the topic.

The site design is actually quite nice in its simplicity, like a minimalist Japanese garden but did not awe me for a few reasons. Firstly, there are posts but nothing else. No profile, no links, faq or linkback to the parent site which actually has a little more color. Secondly, the CSS was completely broken in my Safari browser and works only in Internet Explorer (I’m no expert but spaces in URLs, particularly the CSS URL is not good code practice). Being a gardening site I would like to have also seen at least a little color or imagery instead of the safe but dull black-on-white text.

This blog is a good news source for American gardeners and has the potential to be a better resource for readers but could do with a touch up to the template design. Updates are regular an informative but lack the inspiration a gardener finds in their garden. NULL

I’m guessing this blog is written by a malaysian schoolgirl. Not because it says so in her profile, I’m just getting good at this. “Soar like the Eagle, but laugh like the monk.” is a highly random blog run by a girl called Jen who exchanges in-jokes with her friends blogs and links (or pastes) interesting tidbits onto her site.

Now, its not that I don’t enjoy her writing style, and she assures us she does not speak like she writes, but there are certain things that detract from the readability. For example, “!!!!!!” and “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” are great ways to, um , exclaim but there are many useful words that work just as well. An adjective in the hand is worth two bangs in the bush. I just made that up, can you tell? CAPITALS ARE ALSO NO REPLACEMENT FOR EMPHATIC USE OF LANGUAGE.

Its not all bad of course, she links to some genuinely funny stuff and her blog is well received in a larger Malaysian community of blogs. The design is cluttered, but generally nice with lovely tones of brown and a great stock photo decorating the top.

The header phrase for “Soar like the Eagle, but laugh like the monk.” says “Cheesy, desperately trying to be funny and unentertainingly blog. I’m off to a good start, ain’t I?” I’m not even sure what that means, but dictionary.com assures me that unentertainingly is not a word. I could be wrong though, and so can dictionary.com, Jen’s blog is well loved and who am I to say otherwise. NULL

I read the first post on this site and immediately thought one thing – scandalous! The author, whose name we never learn, believes that he is gay. What’s the problem? He doesn’t feel as if he can tell anyone and can only live his gay lifestyle online. What’s this mean? Those of us that stumble upon his weblog, called “1Body2Souls – A Gay Confession”, are reading top-secret information that is not even known to the author’s friends and family.

The first thing I wanted to read was an about section – a link to a profile somewhere or just a couple of words about the person sitting at the keyboard when this site is updated. Unfortunately, I could not find that anywhere. Instead, I did what any obsessive blog reader would do – I jumped to the very first post, which took place just about two months ago. The beginning is a great place to start for this weblog; it gives readers the general idea of why this weblog is such a personal avenue for the author.

We learn through reading that the author is from India, where homosexuality is extremely frowned upon. Visitors to this site read about the vicissitudes of developing crushes on guys and being unable to do anything at all about his feelings. We read about the things he must sacrifice and the decisions he must make between being accepted by his peers or being gay. Reading the posts, it’s very evident that this battle is an extremely situation for him to handle. The author seems to be trying everything he can to pull himself away from the gay lifestyle that he feels like he really should be a part of.

The layout for the site is, with no surprise since it’s hosted by Blog*spot, a standard Blogger template. It uses a dark gray text on a white background, which makes the site easy to read. The two-column layout has the main blog posts in the bigger column, followed by the typical blogger fodder in the sidebar – archives, links, buttons, and statistical information about visitors. The author intermittently posts pictures of half-naked attractive men, which breaks up the monotony of the text.

More frequent than not, the posts are difficult to read. Perhaps due to living in India, the grammar and spelling in the posts is almost to the level of being atrocious. The spelling errors are things that can be easily corrected by running a spell-check in any word-processing program. It’s bad enough that it distracts from the writing a great deal.

The author has himself in a very difficult predicament. Does he enable himself to live a lifestyle that feels natural, or does he abandon his soul and feelings and feel trapped being someone he’s really not? Reading this weblog is the only way you’ll find out.

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The first thing I usually do when I’m reviewing a blog is go to the profile area and see who’s writing what. It really helps to get some background information on the author because then I can get a feel of how and why he or she is writing. Well, when I checked to see who was “Vincenzo” and why the author and his wife are chasing him, I was met with a charming anecdote. Apparently, there’s this really good Italian chef named Vincenzo who have graced their lives, even meeting the author’s wife a couple of times, serving something special on the side. But after each encounter, they are left with a closed (or open) restaurant, with no Vincenzo. The author has never met the man, but his wife has more than once and he thinks that through this blog, he might be able to once again find Vincenzo.

I was excited to read the entries. I mean, after the background information I read, I was certainly intrigued on what’s been going on during the “chase” of Vincenzo. I found, though, that most of the entries aren’t personal works detailing the chase. Instead, they were composed of informative articles about anything and everything entertainment. There are the books, the restaurants, the travels. But they aren’t impersonal copy-pasted articles. Oh, no. The author gives a full story on the what’s, how’s and why’s. He also adds how his experience went. If you visit, I’m sure that there are a lot of interesting things that will catch your attention (those Nation States sure did hook me).

The layout, overall, is nice. I thought it had a comfy kind of elegance. It’s nice. The other thing I found awesome was the fact that I can translate each entry into a number of different languages. I thought that was a great perk. The simple (or not-so-simple) things sure are amusing and certainly entertaining at times.

I give this site full points. I mean, it was just wonderful. It’s fairly new but what there is right now was enough to certainly entertain me. I suggest everyone give it a visit because there will be something that will catch your eye and hook you. The entries themselves are well-written and witty that I personally enjoyed. Kudos on the great blog. NULL

First off, I just don’t see this site as a typical blog. A blog to me is a personal thing and I just don’t see this one meeting that criteria.

The author, Lynda Keeler began her site as a way to share with other women info about websites, online boutiques and services which she liked. It’s a one-stop for everything a woman would ever want to know about and then some. And it’s about one of a million sites that do the same thing. That’s fine, but the problem is how do you know what will appeal to you if you don’t know anything about the person recommending the product? Personally I have to know someone before I’ll trust their recommendations on just about anything.

The style of the site doesn’t do anything for me one way or the other. I can tell you that I do tire of advertising especially on a site that wishes to be labeled as a blog. The ads for me remove any personal touch, they’re also intrusive and distracting.

Overall I don’t think her site is bad. She is offering a service that many women find helpful. Basically Ms. Keeler does the work so you don’t have to. I can’t say I blame anyone for wanting it all in front of them at once, searching the web can be a real where to start. I will say this, Ms. Keeler has a motto of “find, filter, and focus” which means that she is adamant about it being simple to find the real information on her site without a lot of other non-essential “stuff” to distract you. Her site contains a lot of info, a lot of text, colorful words and photos, but the thing is that sometimes it’s just too much information all at once. Sometimes getting everything in one place isn’t a great thing, but alas that’s what the web has become and if that’s your thing, fine. But if you dislike sites that have seem to be a thousand ad campaigns rolled into one, this one isn’t for you.

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