Category: Uncategorized

My first impression of this site was… Great another Bush loving site… I have to say I generally shrug my noses at sites like that, but I can assure you I am not biased in reviewing the site. I understand there are different interests in the world and that is what makes America such a great nation. I did have a quick turn off from this site, and that was the pop-ups. I despise them, and recommend the authors of this blog to remove them from their system. The google approach is best if advertisement is needed, simple text on the side that does not aggravate the visitors. Other than that, I feel that the layout was clean and crisp and was interested to start reading what the other side of the democratic system of America had to offer.

The weblog is composed of many articles ranging in subjects. It is mainly a political blog speaking out the Conservative mindset. It has 2 authors who work together to produce the blog. It is hosted by blogspot with a basic blogger theme. I was impressed by their writings, they spoke how they felt on different issues throughout the democratic society and encouraged readers to comment on their feelings.

The design is a general red, white and blue theme with the background being blue, red being the title bar, and white being where there is text. They have a tag-board at the bottom right for simple chatting while on the site. The tag-board is what I suspect is causing the pop-ups. I would suggest actually purchasing the tag-board or writing your own code for it rather than using the free one because of the advertisements attached. I have used the paid version and it is very nice.

In conclusion this site is very well laid out and is for a particular party, in general. Persons with other viewpoints can read the blog, but I think they would probably want to spout out nasty comments, which is never appropriate. There were a couple things referenced on the blog that I was curious to want to know more about from their standpoint, maybe in the future. I would have to say overall I feel this blog deserves a 4.
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The first thing I noticed when I logged into this website was that the profile, links and other information had inadvertently been pushed to the bottom end of the blog; quite appropriate for a blog talking about life in Alaska! Whatever the case, as I began to read, I discovered an outsiders views on Alaskan living (originally from Utah).

This blog is worth a look just for the ice and snow. It is worth quoting Jill to give you a feel for it… “There were a couple new inches of powder on the road and I had to earn every pedal stroke – but it’s no worse than thick mud” regarding her ride through powder snow. The gratuitous Moose picture is also worth a look. Jill also usefully dispels a few myths about Alaska. Eg: Alaska is cold not frigid; Alaska is not full of hippies; Alaskans don’t shoot polar bears for dinner and so on.

This site is really meant to be a diary – somehow, as mentioned above, the old Blogger template has gone awry, nonetheless, the journalistic aspect is clear and the pictures are good. So, in terms of design of this site, no brownie points. Still, if you can find them, there are some links to other blogs, in particular those of an Alaskan ilk and some links to copy editors, Jill’s alter ego.

Obviously, Jill’s site is a personal, and an outsider’s initial discoveries of a new place, which lends it a possibly clearer timbre than that of someone who was born and bred in the snow. Whilst her web is technically of no particular interest, it shows promise for its sheer readability. I’m giving it a 3.75. NULL

I had to have a few tries at reading this blog to review it. Why? Because it’s so information dense. News blogs like these usually take a few readings from me before I feel I can write about them.

Initial impressions? Bioethics in relations to the female. This got me thinking that it would be quite a resourceful blog for those that are interested in bioethics. Me on the other hand, had a bit of trouble reading through the various entries and links in regards to topics.

There are various entries to this blog that raise eyebrows; the one that really got my attention was the “answer to welfare is marriage” entry. Most of these things I had no idea about, mostly because I do find the reading of such issues hard going, and partly because I’m removed from it, living in Australia means that things like this do not affect me personally.

The posts on the blog do correspond to the links to various news blogs & magazines, like the American Bioethics Journal, New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), New Yorker and even to the British Journal of Psychology.

I believe that there is only one author on this blog, but I’m not sure as there isn’t an about section for the blog or anything relating to who writes it. Although the author does seem to be able to find different things to write about so that most topics covered will appeal to different audiences.

The target of this blog I believe is to educate women on the ethical issues surrounding various aspects of our lives. I believe that the author is trying to appeal to a vast audience with the varying topics covered. The links & news items all are well thought out and written. The blog is hard reading at times, but I found some interesting and worthwhile things to read about, after I’d gotten through all the posts that I felt were hard reading. I would say that going to this blog for all bioethical women matters would be more beneficial than going to yahoo and doing a search as the author has carefully chosen the topics and I believe has kept it focused on the issues that are current and quite relevant with the links to various other news sites for further reading.NULL

When I first saw the title of this “blog”, I thought it would delve into webdesign secrets and offer tips on how to create a functioning website and spruce it up a bit. Unfortunately what I got was a lot different to that!

Looking through the site which looks to be of a primitive design (not a good thing, for a web design company) we learn that the site is maintained by a man called Darren who’s been running MediaMystique since 2001. The blog itself has some really neat features such as the ability to be able to download every post as an Adobe .pdf file which would be perfect if the site offered informative tutorials but unfortunately, the feature isn’t used to it’s full potential as the posts lack concrete information and help!

Everyone of the valid posts are all trying to entice you into seeking the expertise of the web design company that maintains the blog (MediaMystique). I say valid posts because I would not classify some posts which only state contact details and consultation prices to be part of a blog. The actual posts themselves do reveal some information which would help you and I was interested in some of the posts which were explaining the uses of a CMS. They all posed questions which would give you food for thought when creating a site. The blog is very young however and there aren’t that many posts. More worryingly, there hasn’t been a post since mid-November.

If the blog had more specific posts such covering a wide spectrum of categories such as CSS, PHP, HTML etc then the blog would no doubt be a success and would probably attract a lot more traffic to the site and therefore potentially more customers to the business. As it stands however, everything that is posted on this site could be found on other sites that would also got into much more detail! Although I doubt they have a “download as pdf” feature – something I still think is brilliant!
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Before I even started to read The Muttering Muse, I was already enamored by the site. It’s a layout recently created by the author. While it is the traditional two-column layout, it doesn’t match any of the over-replicated templates that are floating around the weblog world. The creativity the author shows in just her layout made me a happy camper. She also includes links to different portions of her site. This isn’t done nearly enough anymore, and it’s because everyone’s become so dependent on the generic templates that are available to them.

Who is The Muttering Muse? She goes by Kestrel, which is explained in the “About” section of her site. In the brief bio she includes on the main page of the site, readers can learn the basics about her. She’s a 25-year-old married grad student living in New England with her husband and dog.

The site’s pulled me in with its design and given me enough information about the author that I don’t feel like I have to dig for information about the person writing every day. Color me impressed.

The Muttering Muse has archives dated back to April 7th, 2004, but at the top of this entry, referring to the movie The Passion of the Christ, it was originally posted on the author’s old blog. I should have known from the get-go that this weblog didn’t exactly belong to someone who’d just picked up very recently. I just wish the additional archives were accessible somewhere for hooked readers like myself!

As aspect that turns a weblog from good to great, in my opinion, is how a writer/Blogger relates to potential readers. This author has no problem reaching out to a wide variety of people. She writes about her dog Oreo – being a new dog owner, I completely relate to the stories of the pooch, and I feel like many other pet people will do the same. The author is currently finishing graduate school and obviously mentions her trials and tribulations and she works towards her final thesis. These posts clearly reach out to other people going through the same thing. All of her posts that I read are like this. It’s refreshing to read a site with this much clarity, instead of one that random readers may be completely lost while reading. An average reader can jump right into the middle of The Muttering Muse’s archives and not be too terribly lost at all.

In addition to very well-written summaries of her days in general, the author also does a bang up job of breaking up the monotony of stereotypical “this is what I did today” posts. On a regular basis, you can find recipes, complete with pictures of the finished product. The author also consistently creates her own memes, giving her readers a chance to not only learn more about her, but also participate in the comments part of the site.

As I mentioned earlier, the design of the site is a uniquely done layout, designed by the author. She uses a few shades of brown in the two-column layout. The site is very easy to read with the colors chosen, and it is also easy to navigate. She lists autobiographical information, links that she reads on a regular basis,

I didn’t read through all 245 entries that the site stats listed in the sidebar have counted before writing this review. However, now that this review has been submitted, I may go back and read all of the archives on my own time. The Muttering Muse is definitely a site worth exploring.
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