Category: Uncategorized

Heatdeath sounds like some horrible ancient torture ritual, but the sadistic among you can give it a miss as this site is described by its author as being about music and culture. There is no explanation for the title, which I’d have liked as it is an intriguing one.

This site is relatively new on the weblog scene, starting out at the beginning of March. So far there is very little content but what I’ve seen looks promising. Heatdeath boasts good writing style and music reviews that wouldn’t go amiss in NME. It is currently focused solely on music, but with the author talking about bringing in political posts that could all change. I personally think it works best just in music mode.

The layout used is a basic Blogger template in white and grey. This simple layout takes nothing away from the writing but adds nothing either. For a specialist page Heatdeath needs more structure. A content list would be very useful, so that a reader could instantly jump to a subject or band that interests them. Also, a template that involves music in some way would add a lot. This is a site that is worth going to, but it needs some improvements to keep you coming back.

With the quality of music reviews and writing this is a site that could easily gather a good following. The author has already begun experimenting with HTML, so give this weblog time and it could become a first stop for all those with a keen interest in music.
Heat Death

eternal autumn is a site where you have to really, really concentrate in order to see things from the author’s side, what with the tiny font and the chosen appearance of the links, which are verging on invisibility.

From the information on the site, we know that eternal autumn is penned by a twenty-year-old American girl. Blog contents focus mainly on movies, concerts, TV, her friends, and her pets. In short, a twenty-year-old American girl’s life.

There’re plenty of interesting entries of the ‘what happened today’nature. After all, how dull can a twenty-year-old’s life be? However,
action-packed as her life might be, the reader’s interest might wan after a number of entries. It would probably make a much better read if the
author could blog down more of her thoughts, feelings and mental reactions to her life instead of just recording moments and instances as
they are. Everything that happens to any one person can happen to someone else; it is reading about an individual’s unique thoughts and outlook
that will hook readers.

As for the layout, there is nothing wrong with the bluish site, except the font and its colors. Navigation is somewhat hampered because the
links are hard to read, as mentioned before. The title, eternal autumn, comes as a bit of a surprise after a survey of the site, because other
than a strip of a brown tree, there is nothing that suggests the implied melancholiness of the title. In fact, there are some cute graphics on the site, including an adorable cat mood indicator.

eternal autumn is not a bad blog, but it is somewhat bland and lacking in personality. With some changes to the site, it can be a lot better. I look forward to a re-review.

eternal autumn

When I first visited Premshree’s blog, I thought it was a tad spartan. First impressions can be deceiving, however, and despite a marked lack of glitz and glamour, I found this to be a thoroughly delightful site. It serves a dual purpose; giving us the benefit of Premshree’s technical articles, software code and it allows us to become acquainted with Premshree the person.

Despite my initial relegation of this site into the “Computer Geek” pile, I found the glimpses of life in India to be fascinating. The useful technical tips, code, and links to Premshree’s articles were well balanced by into what life is life for a young college student in India.

If an American college student designed, developed, and wrote this blog, it would rate a 3.5. It’s slightly above average, all the links work, but similar files, code, links, etc., can be found elsewhere without a lot of searching. The unique part of this blog is the foreign element, which introduces just enough newness and intrigue to earn this site a solid 4. I look forward to coming back occasionally and catching up with Premshree. I think you will too.

Premshree Pillai’s Journal

So who is Kotigre? Frederic is a Vietnam war orphan, raised in Canada and Memphis who ended up working for Coca-Cola and who eventually threw down his shirt and tie and went travelling.

I have to move on now to the layout, because I found it actually impaired my reading. The background is black, which doesn’t work well with the dark font used for the links and archive list. The white font used for the weblog is better, but is against a checked background. Above each page and frame there are GIFs. Dogs twirl, dragons writhe, birds float past, sayings loop round and round. All of this is a strain on the eyes, and takes away from, not adds to, the writing.

Finding it so difficult to focus on the words meant that I actually focused on the real gift of the site. Currently residing in Costa Rica and sharing a house with a selection of unwelcome lizards, Frederic provides a fantastic photo travel log. The pictures aren’t always clear or well lit. In fact, quite a few are blurry and hard to make out, but it was these very human photos that kept me moving through the pages. They were what made it worth rolling my cursor across the dark and muddled screen in search of the archive link.

Of course, the photo page is well worth visiting. The family photos page tells you more than the ‘about’ page ever could. There is a very interesting story to be told here and Frederic tells it not through the writing, which is more of a day to day journal, but through the photos.

There is definitely a future for Who Is Kotigre? and one I’d like to follow. My only hope is that the future includes a clearer layout. Until then, I suggest bracing yourself against the GIFs and heading over there anyway.Who is kotigre?

“The Evolving Word” struck me at first as merely another “links to other sites” type of site, with very little actual content of it’s own.

How wrong I was.

After looking through the first couple of posts I became aware of how very coherent and intelligent the entries are. The author is obviously broad minded as his posts range from toilet humour (May 27th) to a detailed history of the way the Incas communicated (June 23). The posts are divided up in to 15 different topics (though two topics have no posts allocated to them yet) including language, sports and music.

There is little personal content about the author and what there is tends to be slightly over-analytical (June 16th), but this is not really a bad thing due to the variety of the content and the exceedingly entertaining and informative manner in which it is written. The author also states that he wanted to avoid the more personal aspects due to its ubiquity in other weblogs.

Some postings are long and in depth, some shorter but very amusing, all of which contain relevant links to a variety of sources. There is multimedia content in many entries too which is a nice touch (especially as they enhance the posts and are not just for show) though I guess this would slow things down for dial-up readers.

The layout of the website is also very good. The posts on the main page are shortened, with the opportunity to read more if you want to (which I often did), as well as the opportunity for commenting. The archives are easily accessible, with a number of statistics included.

My only gripe really was the need for registration to view the photographs and to leave comments with your name attached (they are anonymous without registration). I am sure the registration information would not be used for nefarious purposes, but I am still not sure why it is necessary.

Apart from that, this is a thoroughly entertaining, intelligently written and wide ranging weblog.

Editors Note: the site use phpNuke software as the blogging tool. While phpNuke can be used for blogs it is more of a full CMS and that is why there is the registration requirement for certain aspects.The Evolving Word