Review 2658

AWesome. An interesting title. Awesome has reasonably exciting connotations, as words go and it reminds me of “Bill and Ted” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and surfer types (none of which are even remotely connected with this blog by the way). An interesting little capitalisation of the AW was also noted – the plot thickens. I clicked on the link and launched myself in to the weblog. I was first hit by a somewhat gaudy coloured Typepad blog – various shades of orange never seem to work on screen somehow. Technically, it has an About Me page and some photos of the author’s child, though these seemed somewhat out of context as the child (or any other personal content) is barely mentioned in the blog. The ubiquitous links, webrings and other sidebar buttons and boxes are all present and correct too.

Ok, enough drivel. The blog looks ok, but nothing inspiring. It contains what it needs but little more. So moving swiftly on to the content…and swiftly back off the content too if I can help it because I found it INCREDIBLY dull. Now, before I upset the author too much, I say this with one reservation- it probably isn’t dull at all to anyone who is interested in a program called ActiveWords. The AW of the title is suddenly revealed! This program creates shortcuts within windows and is a pseudo programming language from what I can gather. The thing is, I am in rather a difficult position because I am not here to review ActiveWords (which may very well be the fantastic program it is portrayed to be on this blog). I am here to review the weblog itself and I am ashamed to say that, despite the weblog only going back a couple of months, I couldn’t bring myself to read all the archives. They were written in a very “techie” style – which is probably appropriate for a subject such as this, but makes for incredibly difficult reading for someone who is not familiar, interested in or currently making practical use of the subject matter.

The point is that those users of ActiveWords out there will probably find this helpful- there seems to be a lot of good, practical advice which is explained methodically, with pictures and downloads too. Just don’t ask me what any of it means.

The comments also seemed supportive – “great blog, really useful, keep up the good work”, that kind of thing. So for the community of users, I am sure this is a helpful resource. The author also is able to give support over IM and email, which I thought was good of her.

So I am really perplexed how to score this blog with regards to content, as it is one of the most black and white examples I have ever come across. Either people will (presumably) love it and find it useful (i.e. other ActiveWords users) or will find it irrelevant and move swiftly on (i.e. everyone else). So um….3, I guess.

And in case anyone is wondering, no I won’t be downloading ActiveWords and giving it a go myself, at least not today. It seems like rather a lot of unnecessary fannying about, if you ask me.AWesome