Category: Uncategorized

What are/is Foma? They’re harmless untruths, according to this weblog. I looked it up in a dictionary, and since Merriam Webster didn’t list it, and Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access and Fuel-Oxidizer Management Assembly were the only definitions dictionary.com could provide, we’re going to have to go with this author’s definition. The first entry he’s made on this weblog, in April 2005, goes into a bit more explanation as to how he defines a Fomas. Although after reading the entire site, I’m still not sure where the Foma bit comes into play.

Design-wise, the site is a Blogger template that I’ve seen 2098 times before. The site’s hosted by Blog*Spot, so the only author profile I get is the one this blogging tool’s site provides – the author is married with a teenage son and lives near Baltimore, MD. Occasionally, the author will provide us with a bit more about himself through the actual weblog posts.

From April to July 2005, the posts are very sparse. Then, in August, he begins to update regularly. His son is back home from an emergency appendectomy, and the author’s life is startling to settle down a bit. His content-focused posts are good. They’re not posts that will appeal to everyone, but those who follow comics and the liking will very likely follow these posts with great provocation.

A post he makes in early August called “What Makes a Good Blog?” makes a very good point about blogging and what makes a site worthy of regular visitors. The author writes: If you can’t get your point across in three paragraphs, you have lost the random surfer. And if you don’t have something fresh to say, no one is going to bookmark you and come back. This author, whose name I never think I learned, does a good job of following his own rules here. While his content may not be interesting to every reader, he tends to keep general posts (about tracking his blog’s popularity or about the internet in general, for instance) to his previously mentioned three paragraphs… or at least short paragraphs that don’t require a lot of thought to process what’s been written.

There are other posts that stood out to me, too. A popular meme among many, many bloggers is the list of 100 things about the author. I’ve seen this a ton of times, and also participated myself a time or two. The author of this site, however, puts a different spin on it. He gives readers 100 things about this dog. As a new dog owner, I think I’m going to have to give that one a whirl sometime. And personally, I really loved his proposed candidates for the open Supreme Court seat after Harriet Miers had withdrawn her nomination. I’m a big fan of Judge Judy holding that position.

This site grows on you. If you start at the beginning of the site as I did, it takes a while before the site actually clicks with you and makes you want to read more. Once the author hits his rhythm, FOMA turns into quite a fun site. He still talks about his comic book interests and has quite a following about those posts. It’s also very obvious that he finds his comfort zone with blogging and begins to share more things with his readers – pictures, personal antecdotes, etc.

This is one of the few weblogs that I’ve found that may be more appealing from starting in the middle of the site. The author’s blogging shoes seem to perfectly fit now and from here on out, I think this site will definitely find a regular group of readers.
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The Beauty Addict Blog – not exactly my cup of tea, but sometimes blogs that aren’t down my alley end up being the best ones to review. They lead me to open my eyes and give new things a chance. I was hoping for that as I opened up The Beauty Addict Blog, but my hopes were quickly dashed as I started to read this “daily fix of news, reviews, and more”.

The leopard print background, while a nice color for interior of Tarzan’s car, doesn’t really do a lot for the site visually. Perhaps it’s something that’s incredibly popular in the fashion industry, but the colors the owner of this site uses become distracting when seen against this pattern. Thankfully, the entries show black text on a white background – a classic combination that never goes out of style.

November 30th is the first post on The Beauty Addict Blog, beginning with a post on shopping at H&M and explaining a few of the ins and outs of the clothing designer that sell their clothes there. Other review-type entries follow on almost a daily basis, ranging on topics from lip gloss to reality TV and from aerobic striptease DVDs to the resurgence of black on the runway.

The typical post is only about a paragraph long and doesn’t contain that much information. People following the fashion or makeup industry may recognize some of the names and brands that are mentioned, but for a neophyte to this topic, I found myself becoming lost as soon as proper nouns started to pop up.

There are a handful of different authors that post on a consistent basis, and each of their writing styles all seem to flow somewhat similarly. It’s clearly a site where the appropriate research has been done and the amount of knowledge the writers have is well explained. It’s just not a site for someone that doesn’t have the appropriate background information and/or interest in the world of a beauty addict.
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I hate going to the doctor. It’s not a fear that keeps me from going, it’s that I’m too busy to take time out of my day to sit in a waiting room for 982 hours just to be diagnosed with a common cold. I’d much rather take care of it on my own, if only I had the knowledge. “Know More About Homeopathy” certainly piqued my interest and I was excited to see what I could learn.

This weblog, like many others, is still in its infancy. The first post was published on December 11th of this year and gives a thorough explanation of what Homeopathy is for those people that are not aware of exactly what they’re reading. The rest of the posts follow in a similar manner by just relaying information about homeopathy and the history behind it.

The archives on this site run three days – December 11th, 12th, and 13th. While the site is informative in those three days worth of postings, it is nearly impossible to get a solid idea on how the site will develop as times continues. It’s been over a week since the author’s last post, so already consistency has become a problem with this weblog.

A standard Blogger template is used for the design of the site. There’s nothing special about it. The insipidness of the design matches with the text that seems to come straight out of a textbook.

I cannot justifiably rank this site very high, simply because there is not much to the site. It’s fact-oriented and I’m sure the facts are correct. But it’s something that can be found in a textbook or on any other Homeopathy-related website. For it to get a higher rating, the site needs some originality and some consistency… and some more posts.
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Lightenment.com admits in its “About” page that it’s just an extension of other gadget review sites like Gizmodo or Engadget. The site is very new, so it obviously hasn’t been given the opportunity to take off like the author’s favorite gadget review sites, but there’s always room for that as time goes on.

The layout of the site is simple. The white background, black text, and blue hyperlinks as straightforward are appreciated in a site that’s keyed towards informing readers. Anything flashy or gaudy would just interfere with the site’s function, which is to “review the latest gadgets”, as the image header says.

The reviews that the author writes are ones based on his own personal experience. It’s just one guy, buying things for his own personal needs, and explaining to those on the World Wide Web how he feels about them. It’s a very simple objective and one this author accomplishes quite well.

From the new versions of the iPod to a very nice digital TV, his reviews are all based on his own use. Reviews like this are the most honest ones around.

With only seven days of worth of reviews that have been posted, this site still has a lot of room to grow. A review-based site such as this one is nothing to new to the ‘net. In order for the site to achieve a higher rating from The Weblog Review, it would need something that distinguishes it from the other many gadget review sites that are out there.
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The “Eye of Smoog” is brought to us by a 30-something Canadian woman, who describes a life epiphany involving a brain tumor, though the blog overall doesn’t tend to dwell on this at all and this fact is dwarfed by the scale of the rest of the content. The author’s profile is a good summary of her life including the brain surgery and like the rest of her site, is very, very well written. See what I did just there? I had to repeat a word to describe the quality of the writing instead of taking the time to decide on a fitting adjective.

Smoog is an odd online psuedo-nym, but our author is decidedly odd, and happy to admit it. Her oddness lends itself to some fantastically devious posts full of wit and sass that are a pleasure to read. She mentions that in real life she has a slight speech impediment and a kind of ”verbal dyslexia” which is hard to believe reading the articulate posts, she should be writing for television, this stuff is gold.

Her latest post about religious tolerance (and intolerance) is great, and sums similar feelings for me of rampant evangelism and futile attempts by traveling faith peddlers to offload their wares to good-old-fashioned scientifically learned people. She goes on to describe her sarcastic Flying-Spaghetti-Monster retort to an unsuspecting god-botherer. I love this girl!

The site itself is neatly packaged with a rather odd looking logo of an eyeball in a nest as the site header. The only thing that distracts me is the vacant space in the top right hand corner which just looks like something should be in there. Overall though the site reads well and is really, really (I did it again!) genuinely funny. Well worth the read, a highly recommended site for readers who like their blogs spicy. NULL