Category: Uncategorized

This blog is a guide to fundraising for non-profit organizations. No particular kind of non-profit is targeted. This scattershot approach caused me to wonder if the author of the site, Sandra Sims, self-styled “fundraising coach,” was selling something–perhaps her coaching services? It turns out that Sandra is not available for consulting on fundraising events, which surprised me since she says, “…and I, as your Fundraising Coach, will be with you every step of the way!” (from the “About” section.) Elsewhere, under “Services,” she says something different, “For more personal assistance beyond basic questions, I would recommend one of several fundraising consultants….”

This left me a tad confused. Is she selling links? Getting fees for referrals? She offers a book and a newsletter, but both seem to be free. Further investigation reveals that she is selling a few things. You can find them under the “Products” link on the left sidebar.

This is a business site, not a personal site. As such, I did not find it interesting. I am not involved in fundraising and have no desire to be. The main page is a series of articles about fundraising-related topics, which are not presented in any particular order. You must click on the title of a post to read the entire thing. Some of the articles are written by Sandra Sims, others link to outside sites. However, you can’t tell which is which until you click through. The sources are attributed, but not on the main page.

The quality of the writing is acceptable. The tone is perky and encouraging. Grammar and syntax are correct and there are no glaring spelling or punctuation problems. It is entirely readable if not inspiring. The design is business-like and professional. The special features include a “forum” and a monthly newsletter to which one may subscribe. You can tell immediately that you are not visiting a personal site. It looks like this site is trying to sell you something–and it is.

I find it difficult to rate this site. If I were a fundraiser, I might find it useful, but only if I were doing small-scale, low-budget work. However, those doing professional development work won’t find it very helpful. I do not recommend the site to the casual reader, but if you are planning a walk-a-thon or a bake sale, you may want to take a look.NULL

The New School Geek Cynic(TNSGC) is a fairly clean looking weblog with a banner at the top that looks kind of sucky. “Sucky” is a technical word that us professional reviewers use that means the thing we’re looking at is not very good. A common example of usage might be “That Nebyah writes some pretty sucky reviews.”

Anyway, the author, NSG, has what he describes as a personal weblog, and before you all decide to just switch over to another channel let me interject here and say that there are very few posts of the “I think Cadburys chocolates are great” variety. There is absolutely no mention of relationship difficulties, or pet cats or any of that mindblowingly tedious stuff.

Rather what you’re going to find here is game reviews, movie reviews, TV show reviews, and some rants, mixed in with the occasional diversion into website design issues he may be having, or the merits of Cadbury chocolates. (And by the way NSG I am totally with you on the subject of mindless blogs.)

I cannot comment on the accuracy of his reviews, since I have not seen any of the movies or shows he mentions, or played any of the games. However the reviews seem to be well thought-out, and the writing is good enough, and entertaining.

The design is pretty standard Blogger fare, which is fine by me. As long as it doesn’t interfere with the content I really couldn’t give a toss about design. And anyway who the hell do these airy-fairy arty types thing they are, dammit. The web is for text, and all of this awful graphics stuff is just a massive bandwidth wasting con designed to hide the fact that most sites have no content whatsoever.

Ok, so here’s the thing. As a personal blog it is not very personal. As a movie review weblog it has far too many game reviews, and vice versa. So who should read it? If you want to read reviews of movies and TV and games… but then why not just go to IMDB for movies, and one of a million specialist game sites for game reviews?

I’m inclined to think that NSG needs to pick a topic, but what the hell do I know.NULL

Kai is a lovely name isn’t it? Its a kind of quirky, not your usual kind of name. This Kai is a 28 year old guy from Dallas and despite his non-biblical name his blog is pretty standard as far as blogs go. He has a flickr photostream to host photos, a straight blogger template and fairly typical posts about observations, complaints etc. The subtitle for the site is “A BLOG TO POST COMMENTS ON MY DAILY LIFE, MY OBSESIONS, DESIRES, PLANS, AND MY BAD HABITS”

There are some interesting posts, and I enjoy reading about how much worse the crime rate is in his hometown compared to mine as he discussed a rather scary looking map plotting of crimes near his place. He also talks a fair bit about what he is doing, who he is meeting and lengthy interpretations about SMS messages he is receiving. His latest post is about his drive to work. His writing style is almost like a casual email to a friend.

Kai is an analyst who has recently started a new job and moved into a new house. He complains about his neighbors, his work and one post about Thanksgiving alludes to his sexuality, which of course doesn’t change my opinion and if any, increases the interest factor of this personal blog.

Despite it all though, I just can’t get excited about Kai’s site. I think his friends and family (neighbors and work-mates) would probably find this online aspect of their friend rather interesting, but for the rest of us there is nothing to see here. NULL

I like weblog titles that have meaning. When I noticed this one’s title – “Duh & Nuh-uhh” – I had my doubts that it could have any meaning at all. As I read in the site’s first post, there is meaning behind this nonsensical title and I couldn’t stop reading once I started.

This site was started on December 7th. As of this review, there is less than a month of archives. Julie, the author of “Duh & Nuh-uhh”, is consistent with updating so far, giving the readers she’s gained so far a sure reason to keep visiting.

From the link to the Blogger profile on her site, readers learn that Julie is a 31-year-old attorney currently residing somewhere in the United States. While the exact information we learn is somewhat limited, her posts enable us to find out more about who Julie is and what makes her tick.

When this site loaded, I felt as if I had been staring at a light for entirely too long. The dots/spots that are used for the background honestly had me thinking I was seeing spots. Even now, looking away from the site and into a blank Word documents, I still think I’m seeing yellow and green blotches. Yikes. But, then again, that’s a Blogger template for you. Other than that, the site is easy to maneuver around when looking for the archives or other blogs the author enjoys.

As mentioned before, this site is still in the early stages. So far, Julie is off to a fun start. She shares humorous anecdotes of her childhood and her current life, which gives readers a chance to bond with her in one way or another. She explains people she is talking about, so readers don’t have the problem of wondering whom Uncle Ralph or “the other J” are when reading an entry.

Julie is the type of author who thrives in a weblog-type format. The way she writes is very conversational and is easy to understand the first time you read. She knows how to entertain readers in just a few paragraphs, and can still give her audience a complete idea of what she is writing. In time, this weblog will probably have an audience that continues to grow with each post that is made. I would recommend jumping on this site’s bandwagon now before you miss out on any future entries.

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Not another Dating Angst Blog was an interesting blog. I read through every post to date. It is a fairly new blog and I did not anticipate it having much content. I was not sure exactly what to expect for I didn’t know the meaning of angst. I did look it up and it simply means “existentialist dread.” I am not sure if this blog actually fits the description of the title. Another interpretation of the title is: “philosophical movement centered on individual existence.” Interesting enough I do feel the blog read more like a series of short stories.

The blog is simply about Joseph’s dating experiences. The topics covered so far are three girls: Laura, Ali, and a girl he had a 23 hour relationship with. He takes you for a walk through his relationships starting when he was 12 until the present. He is currently 21 and in college. So far all of his relationships he discusses are High School sweethearts. He tells a story about, Laura, a girl whom he practically drooled over for many years when all it came down to was him being put out to pasture. I would have to say I truly felt sorry for the guy, knowing the feeling of being shy and not wanting to specifically say the dreaded words: “would you like to date me?” He is currently just starting his discussion on Ali and I anticipate a lot more to come with this relationship. It appears that he learned from his first relationship and is not sure what to do at the moment.

The site has a very simple design. It has a pale yellow background with red and black text. I really liked his Title Banner, I felt it gave the site a personal feeling. He also has a picture of him on the site and a link to his blogger profile. On the right hand side, he has the same common links for blogs: recent posts, favorite posts, highlighted posts, and links to other sites.

I would say that this blog was interesting to say the least and some of the other readers of his site left comments about how good of a job he was doing describing his relationships. I feel there needs to be some more content, which I am sure he is preparing. His posts were well developed and read like a story. This blog is young, it only started in December of 2005, but it has been updated regularly. I feel his site is more of a personal reflection site. If you like reality TV shows or teen magazines, this blog might be for you. I rate this blog as a 3.75 for it does have a well developed theme and good posts using proper grammar and spell check, but I feel it needs more posts. It is still young and has great potential.
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