Category: Uncategorized

Traveler ? Check. Blog? Check. Flickr? Check. Rambling posts about the joys and the trials of traveling around the world? Check. Blogging while traveling has is the contemporary equivalent of the old dog-eared travel diary but without the same romantic appeal. Much like a regular personal blog, but with the added bonus of something to actually talk about.

Jim admits in his profile that he is looking to chronicle his journey in Spain and attempt to rise above the travel cliches by reviewing culture, day to day travel, conversation and interactions and anecdotes. Unfortunately these are all part of the cliche! Thankfully though, Jim is a very thorough author and succeeds all this in very lengthy posts that are not very regular. What he lacks in regularity is made up for in verbosity however.

He has ventured further than Spain though, and this travel addicted blogger exceeds even his own scope, easy to do in Europe with so many shared borders. The posts are good and probably very informative for family and friends back home, however in this case, less is more. In the latest post at the time of reading for example, I enjoy reading about Liverpool’s quirks, the music and even the endless drinking sessions along the way. I start to lose interest when he starts talking about what was on television while he had breakfast.

Generally though, the writing is good and the site design is a wonderfully simple wordpress template that is not overcrowded or self indulgent like a lot of blogs are, its not terribly original but its easy to view and navigate and the fonts are great. Jims photos aren’t professional, but thats the beauty of digital photography these days, and his shots give us a great unbiased look into the cultures he has visited, venues he has frequented, and drunken escapades he has facilitated.

A decent travel blog that unsuccessfully tries to avoid the cliches, and in doing so has created a blog marginally better than most of your average travelogues. Not too bad. NULL

First things first, – a name of Adults Exotica should easily imply that this site is for adults only. So you must be 18 or older in the US and I am not sure what the age is every place else. I think it is just tall enough to see the bartender… Wait that’s for booze outside the US. Anyways, fair warning, this site is totally NSFW and should be treated as such.

With that said, lets get onto the review. I knew right away that this was going to be an adult blog. Most of the adult blogs I have seen are in the form of here are pictures and/or videos now go click on one of my sponsor or sign up for this porn site. While these types of sites probably do well from an income point of view, attracting and keeping visitors probably not so much.

This blog is different. The posts are written by someone who has a sense of humor and likes to show case it. There are some posts which are total sales pitches, but for the most part, the author posts funny or shall we say interesting items.

The design of the site is nothing to scream home about. It has a green background with green highlights and white text. It is in the standard fill your screen two column layout and has an original logo. While the design does work for the site, I find it rather uninspiring.

The archives are an issue with this blog. The author has decided on the good old calendar method (pun intended) for keeping track of the archives. Personally I do not like this method and prefer all the archives to be linked via a monthly list.

Overall the site is entertaining. There are some good jokes in the site which made me laugh out loud. It is very easy to stay away from the sales pitches that are there, but they don’t happen that often. It is apparent that the author enjoys posting to the blog rather than trying to make a quick buck. A fix of the archive system and a fresh design and this site could do really well.NULL

The Broken Credit Blog is a clearinghouse of information specifically housed to help advise people with bad credit situations. The blog is written by individuals who register for the blog, and they share their stories and solutions.

Usually, these individuals are industry professionals, and not just random cranks who talk about how they stuck it to Bank of America with a protest letter or something. Although, there are plenty of first-hand experience stories from people who had a very nasty time with creditors.

The site is incredibly easy to navigate, is updated frequently (I reviewed the page over the course of two weeks and there were almost daily updates to the site). There are tons of archives, and the information is helpful and interesting. The site is not flashy, a very simple white background with easy to read navigation, archives by month and by category topic, and an RSS feed for those who wish to subscribe.

The Broken Credit Report blog offers a link for obtaining a free credit report, a form for users to generate their own dispute letter, a huge help center, and online seminars. There are tons of archives to go through too, which is great because there are so many blogs that I get to review that have … six entries. Hard to review six entries folks. Here, they offer interesting bits of advice on how to raise your credit score, advice given to clients on how to clean up credit, comforting and encouraging bits about identity theft and dealing with that problem.

All told, the advice and the first hand experience stories were all a pretty interesting read for what I thought would be kind of a dry topic, or a complete and total “shell” of a blog hawking someone’s business services. Obviously there is a business behind this website (located in Las Vegas…), but it seems that they are willing to share a lot of information that normally you would think would cost you an arm and a leg. And that’s pretty cool… considering that so many Americans get into such horrible credit situations, and can use all the free and honest advice they can get.

The About page cites the New Testament with a quote from the Book of Matthew:

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

I believe our blog authors ascribe to this philosophy and present the information in this blog with a generosity that only grows from someone who truly wants to do good works for other people to glorify God. So indeed — Hats off to the authors for being generous with their content. I hope this kind of generous business practice blesses them with actual clients that can keep them going and generating this service for free.

I would highly suggest that in addition to the words of Matthew, our authors include this quote from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet:”

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

While it is necessary to borrow money for mortgages (because really, who has $500,000 in the bank to just up and buy a house these days…) it is important to not dig that hole too deep. Lord Polonius was right in his advice to Hamlet — be honest, work hard, and do the best you can. And you may not find yourself stuck with bad credit in the end.

I give this site a 3.5, because it was chock full of information and not a shell to suck me into a business sales site. I think it is incredibly helpful to people who need to learn how to clean their credit house, and would highly recommend it to friends struggling with problems which are addressed here.
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OK, so what have we got here, huh? “Falling through the World”. Some travel blog I suppose, may turn out to be interesting. But, what’s this? http://peopleremember.blogspot.com/ address… “Blogspot.com” address – no money invested – less professional blog? Let’s not cross it at the beginning, just because it has got an ordinary address (not connected with the blog’s title too).

So, the blog loads quickly and what can we see? A blogger template! Oops, it doesn’t make a good impression. At least there are pictures added to some of the posts. But, except a photo of the author, no more graffics involved in the design.

Well, let’s take a closer look at the blog’s content itself then. We can choose from the main page and… that’s all. No ‘about me’ page. Not good. All we have is a sidebar with some links, archives and adsense ads, not even and RSS Feed button… awesome, you may get lost.

But, let’s focus on the real deal, the essence of every weblog – the posts. The author, Mike Danger Bain, tends to write a lot. This means at least twice a week and rather lenghty posts. However, I wouldn’t call his blog a ‘travel’ blog, ash he suggests in a subtitle. It is a personal, very personal and just personal weblog. Good or bad – it depends on what you are looking for. Anyway, the content is about his work, his friends, some thoughts – simply everyday life. The style is… ordinary. Of course, he doesn’t make grammar mistakes (although some spelling errors do occur). The style is not bad, but also not brilliant. Just normal. It doesn’t make me throw up, but also doesn’t engage me too much, make me can’t stop reading.

As you may expect, there are not many additional features of the blog. It looks like the author was running a kind of foundation, raising funds for his backpacking travels, ‘Sponsor A Backpacker’ it is called. Interesting – it has a dot-com address, while the blog itself doesn’t. It wasn’t very successful so far – it didn’t raise more than 15 pounds. No more bonus features.

Well, time to finish. I am afraid I can’t give you a good mark, mister Mike. Your site just looks… poor. And lacks in any content apart from the posts. However, I respect you for writing so much (without having big readership), I recommend you to do some work on the blogs design, some more advertisement and wish you good luck!
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The title of this blog gives away the contents. I knew that this would be a blog about weddings, and I really didn’t have my hopes up for something that great. After all I have been married for 5 years and never really saw the need to have an extravagant wedding like some of my friends have had.

But this blog surprised me. It wasn’t about having the best of the best. Instead it was about all the little things that you either forget or remember last second and how to plan them correctly. This blog covers it all from wedding planning software to how to pick out shoes to the men’s ring. And it does it in a way that is entertaining and captivating.

I half expected to see advertisements all over the place so this guy could make some money. But there weren’t any. Then I checked the outbound links in each post and again, they were direct links, no referral bonuses coming his way. With such great content I am very surprised that he isn’t making money off of this blog.

The design of the site is simple and elegant, just like you would expect a wedding to be. I am not sure if it is a default template that has been modified or not, but whatever it is, it works great. A standard two-column layout with the main content on the right and taking up most of the screen. The navigation column is clean and clutter free. It really is a great design.

Overall I cannot find a fault in this website. I went in thinking I wasn’t going to gain much, but I did enjoy it. I have this bookmarked as a site to give to my friends who are all about to get engaged (it is the holiday season after all) and I am sure they will find it to be a great resource.NULL