My first thoughts on visiting Riri’s Brain Dump were infuriating ones. At the top of the page, next to the links, is a picture of a painting that I recognise but cannot recall either the title or the name of the artist who painted it. Still fascinated by pre-Raphaelite art, even all these years after finishing school, I was drawn into reading further to see if the identity of the woman in orange is revealed anywhere in the blog.
The weblog itself is relatively new to this world, having only been going since February 2003. The posts are a strange mix of personal diary-style entries about the author’s life and technical musings, fitting the title of the blog perfectly – Riri clearly just types what’s on her mind that day. Although it took her a while to get going there is now plenty here to read but, although it is well written, nothing really held my attention for very long because the main subject matter (software developing and motherhood) is not really of much interest to me. Still, that’s just me.
The overall design of the site is simple and the colour scheme works well, with the vibrant orange of the painting in the header perfectly set against the soothing greens of the template, but the page did take a while to load. This is probably due to the number of photos and pictures scattered over the sidebar and in the posts, but this does help to give the site a nice friendly feel.
Aside from the blog, archives, links and 100 Things About Me, there is not much else to the site. It’s a weblog in its purest form – no added extras, just a pure journal. There are some nice bits in the sidebar, like the weather pixie and a Google search, but nothing much to distract you from the site’s main purpose.
All in all, I’d say that Riri’s Brain Dump is a reasonable site. Unfortunately, it may have limited appeal due to the subject matter, but weblogs are a very personal thing and all do find their audience eventually. This one’s is technically minded women with kids, I reckon. I may just stick around a bit longer though, just to find out who the lady in orange is!Riri’s Brain Dump