Category: Uncategorized

This was one of the few blogs I really liked the sound of, with the very first post I read. I was rolling on the floor (figuratively speaking) from the first post and couldn’t help myself from reading through most of the previous posts too. The style of writing (almost like reading a good story or a part of a novel) was one of the very first impressions I had on this weblog.

This weblog is a first person account of life in a call centre/customer service center. It is about the humorous incidents one comes across in this job. Mind you, it’s all anonymous and not about bitching about customers. But it does make one understand how a customer service agent feels when talking to a difficult customer. There are numerous incidents with snippets of conversation and general banter that make good reading and a good laugh.

The design of the site is neutral with no blaring colors or irregularly placed links. The design is not a great piece of art, nor is it pushy with ads and junk links. Navigating through the site is very easy with less links to choose from and not confuse the reader.

Unlike many other weblogs this one actually caters to humor in a very real sense. It is related to real-life incidents which add more color and importance to all the posts. A good read for a good laugh any time of the day.
My Worst Call of the Day

What first impressed me about this blog was the simplicity of the design. A graphic of a strip of lawn tops the page just below the one line tag: “Poking pop culture’s soft white underbelly with a sharp-witted stick.” It gave me the (accurate) idea that the blog would contain the author’s reflections on pop culture.

The blog contains the author’s opinions and reviews of movies, tv and music, combined with some personal anecdotes and a few political rants. I agree with the author’s politics but these posts don’t seem to . On the front page (as of July 2005) there is an exceptionally long and comprehensive overview of Randy Newman’s career, complete with descriptions of all his albums and links. It was an interesting and well-written piece. Digging into the archive a bit, I found a few other “Complete Idiot’s Guides” to different artists. These entries are different from his other posts and might be gathered together in the sidebar for ease of reading. The music reviews are interspersed with reflections on politics and an amusing tale of bad roommates (I found this the most engaging piece on the blog). There are also occasional time-limited downloads from the author’s extensive MP3 collection.

I enjoyed the author’s self-deprecating sense of humor and no-nonsense writing style. Almost all of the posts are well-written and well-thought out. You know where you stand in relation to the author and what his perspective is (at least after reading a few posts). He does not purport to do anything other than offer his own well-honed opinions, but he does so without reserve or second-guessing.

The design is simple, easy to understand and emphasizes content. The sidebar has a search box on top followed by categories, archives, links, and a flickr badge. (There is something called “Themes” on the sidebar that appears to be a heading but nothing follows it.) The content is on the right and takes up about ¾ of the page. The design is intuitive and easy to navigate. An “about me” section might make it easier to get oriented. You do have to register if you want to leave non-anonymous comments (why?). There are two Google ads placed unobtrusively at the bottom of the page. I found html problems through March 2004. The entries show the html language rather than hyperlinked or formatted text. These issues are resolved after April 2004 but it makes reading the archives a cumbersome task.

This is an interesting site with an emphasis on popular music. Music posts are interspersed with personal stories. Movies, tv and politics are touched on but music is the main focus. If you read the blog regularly you will get to know Jeff, the author, and something about a few of his favorite musicians. I recommend the blog.
jefitoblog

When I first read the title of Bertha The Earthtruck I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what this site was going to be about. I thought maybe its about a car that had this weird nickname, maybe it was about a woman the author knew, or maybe it was just some words thrown into a hat and pulled out at random to make me spend over five minutes wondering what world I would be entering when I read this site.

The first thing that caught my eye was the mini description of the site below the title. The author calls the site a BLOOK – a combination of a book and a blog. And because it is so, he suggests that if you are a new visitor you read the archives in chronological order (meaning very first post to today).

The blook as we will call it is the story of Mark’s life in the 70’s. Ok, maybe not THE story, but a definite chapter in that big of a book. We start off with Mark and his friends pondering a trip for all the sporadic reasons to just go on a trip. Looking back they aren’t the best of reasons, but they are the reasons that started this trip, and that is all that matters.

The design of the site is very simple and clean which helps to keep our interest in the blook. There is no unnecessary clutter, and this further keeps our interest in the blook at its max.

Two things I should note before I finish this review up. One, I can’t stand book or movie reviews that give you all the details before you even embark on the journey. Because of this, you won’t get any more details of the blook out of me. Two, it is very rare that a blog can actually captivate an audience by requiring the posts to be read in order (by default they are anyways), but more specifically read the archives in order. Mark has done this, and done it well.

The only thing that is preventing me from giving this blook a perfect score is that it is a blook. Oh who am I kidding? I enjoyed this story so much and I cannot wait for more. Remember how I spent over five minutes wondering what world I would be taken to? Yeah, I was transported to a different time, one in which I wasn’t even a part of and yet I was right there with Mark and his friends. What about Bertha you ask? Well she was an ex military ambulance that they all rode in to begin the journey.
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When I traveled over to computer security I was expecting to read articles about current internet security problems. Instead I was disappointed. I ended up reading about how to setup a firewall, how to install anti-virus software, etc.

This site is a good site for the typical home computer user that doesn’t know anything about the dangers of being plugged into the internet. I would recommend most home users to check out this site for it tells you the useful information without the scare tactics tied to it. If you are an advanced computer user, this site is not for you…

The design was nice. It had a tan background with dark writing. Easy to read.

There is not that many posts right now, I would like to see more in the future. Maybe talk about issues that can put the non-computer person at risk. Like not locking down their wireless network they have setup at their house, or not updating their anti-virus software. I think information on phishing and pharming schemes would also be good information to give to the typical computer user.

Overall I would rate this site as a 3.5 for it is a good reference for the inexperienced computer user.
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This site has four posts. That’s it. September 9th, September 12th, September 13th, and November 14th – these are the days Jeff, the author, has posted on his weblog, Spaulding Bogosian.

For starters, I don’t know what or who Spaulding Bogosian is either. I tried Googling it, but only came up with a comment or two that Jeff, the author of this site, had left on a movie review website. Jeff lives in New Jersey, after some time in New York and a stint in the Midwest. He’s a stay-at-home dad for three boys. Moreover, once he gets on a soapbox, there’s really not much you can do to get him off – this is a great reason for him to have a weblog.

Design-wise, the site is hosted by Blog*Spot, and features one of the several popular Blogger templates. Jeff uses the pink version of this two-column layout. He keeps the information in his sidebar very limited – a link to his Blogger profile and his archives, listed by week and by title. Each post is very wordy, but to break up the monotony of so many paragraphs, Jeff throws in a picture of something that can somehow be tied to what he is writing – a dad (perhaps the author?) and three boys dressed up for Halloween, Martha Stewart, an indescribable image that caused me to laugh out loud, and my personal favorite, Dr. Sue Johanson from The Sunday Night Sex Show.

He covers topics that a lot of people can relate with. Thanks to his current lifestyle, he can easily write a humorous comparison to his life as a stay-at-home dad with that of a typical stay-at-home mom. It’s unquestionably worthy of note to read the take of a man’s opinion on so many things related to women, like most of his four posts are wont to do.

Obviously, the site is just getting off the ground. Once Jeff begins to post on a regular basis, I think traffic will increase for the site. As soon as that happens, it will be interesting to read the response to some of his opinions. Jeff does a good job implementing humor into his expressed opinions, but it’s the kind of humor that could easily offend some people and, on the other hand, just really crack someone up.

It’s hard to rate a site this early on in the game. From what I did read, I can see this site will be a hit once it finds it’s niche in the blogging world. Like I mentioned earlier, once Jeff starts writing consistently, there’s definitely an audience out there for him.
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