Review: The Life of A Would-Be Designer

Blog reviewed: The Life of A Would-Be Designer

Layout /Graphics - Black for the homepage and other colors for following pages shows good sense. Layout is clean with more than enough blank spaces.

Content - Was expecting more than a few snatches about design. This is more like a contact site with some paragraphs on party and club life. If you're in design school, Vivek, that'd be interesting to hear about, wouldn't it.

The cyberabuse pages are really relevant. Most of us don't know what's legally online abuse and what isn't.

Style - Asian teen.

Recommend - You could post some design sketches to show where you're at. And change the header to a non-photo graphic because you already have this beautiful blowup on the homepage. Otherwise leave things as they are, the blog's off to a good start.

Rating - 8.0

Review: Atomic Girl

Blog reviewed: Atomic Girl

Graphics/Layout - Don't care what they say about purple, the lavender skin grabs me! So does the big bold color headline. And ads above the headline feel better than those below. Less anticlimactic.

Contents - Some links feel like City Hall where you're shuttled from cubicle to cubicle then asked to come back an hour later. But this is better than having large ads splat in your face.

Contentwise, we wish there was more substance here for those not in the blogger's circle of friends and family. For what it's worth, the blog is a window into the mind of someone who's been prematurely shunted into a major life change. And disappointed at having some dreams compromised, but trying to bounce back.

Recommend - Go easy on the pics of friends and family even if they're your support system because nobody besides you cares about them.

You could focus a little more on general-appeal content.

Rating - 7.5

Review: The Transformation of America in the 21st Century

Blog Reviewed: The Transformation of America in the 21st Century

Graphics - Easy on the eye, the clean layout uses colors to go with the subject matter. No ads is a relief, so if the blogger decides on some, we suggest he keep them low key. The absence of pictorial elements seems deliberate.

Content - Bulletins and features on US and overseas political developments, posted for 'entertainment'. Topics could be for conversation over a drink, but they're not presented this way.

Style - American news and feature writing you can get in any newspaper or news site/channel, without the visual extras or variety.

Recommend - Try a header size about an inch bigger. Speak more in the first person. If entertainment is the object, after every news item try and add some opinions that may be aggressive, light, sarcastic or humorous. Show audience response for a more interactive feel.

This is to try and even out on the 'heaviness' of the topics chosen. This blog wears such a long face, and people go online to lighten up after the day's battles. For instance, Fox News would appeal to a wider audience than CNN because of their more frequent fillers on topics such as the latest in skin care, pet care and minute by minute developments on who gets Anna Nicole Smith's loot.

What about photos, political cartoons, videos and other items you can post and the audience can send in?

Rating: 7.5

Review: The Original Me

Review: The Original Me

Graphics - Black is dramatic, alright, Ramo, but could you heighten the color contrast between the white letters and black background? Low contrast is a strain on the eyes. Your header's a knockout, is the good thing re your graphics.

Content - Essay type pieces starting with impressions of life in India up to the blogger's first few months as an office worker inthe US, laced with a gay's schoolgirlish fantasies about sundry movie star images, and some political and religious commentary thrown into the soup.

Otherwise, what's of some significance here are his feelings about bowing to his culture's marriage tradition (the parents get a matchmaker in India, don't they?) even if the opposite sex draws a blank on his emotions. Dutiful Ramo plays the devoted hubby in India, but starts feeling that he might get the chance to be himself in the more open society of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Fate steps in with a declaration from his wife that she has no plans to leave her job in India and join him in the US, so let loose the cannons, boom boom boom! Will the first stop be a lingerie shop, Ramo?

Style - College sophomore essay from the Brit school system they have in India. Not altogether bad, can sound elegant or archaic depending on your mood. I ratha feel like some tea and scawnes, your lawdship?

Recommend - A color scheme that doesn't leave all the regions of my body squinting and straining. And some effort to remove two words from my mind - "pious geek".

Rating - 8.3

Blog Review: Wentle's Sojourn and Thoughts

Blog reviewed: Wentle's Sojourn and Thoughts

Graphics/layout - A little bare (still under construction?). Not much of a header, no blogger's info, etc. The blog displays only a few personal posts recently started. The staging will need some serious attention from the blogger, before your eyelids will lift a millimeter.

Content - Another mishmash of entries with the grand theme of 'how my week went' segueing to 'how my weekend went' replete with whining, gasping, and squealing.

Style - Fourteen year old manic attack?

Recommend - Change display ratio of brain activity to: 70% left brain, 30% right brain. Get a friend to help with your site, if things are that hectic.

Rating - 5.

Blog Review: Gibbs Cadiz

Review: Gibbs Cadiz

Graphics - could do better if the ratio of ad and content visuals were changed to: ad visuals--30%, content visuals--70%.

Content - One of the best Pinoy blogs online catering to music, theater, film and books, it writes up a storm to keep you on to the buzz. Are some items reprints? Whatever, this site actually takes blogging a notch higher as a literary form.

Style - A bit gushy sometimes, but you can see Mr. Cadiz' mastery of contemporary feature writing.

Recommend - A resize of the right column to about one fourth the page could make reading the posts easier. And no ads under the header would do wonders for the layout.

Rating - 9.8

Review: My New Life In Canada

Review: My New Life in Canada

Graphics - Black goes with introspection and everything else, as Zhu's color scheme shows. But 365 days of doom and gloom can't be you, Zhu. Any second backdrop tints?

Content - Mostly a chronicle of the blogger's settling into French Canada, her adopted homeland. At this point only a few segments tell of her 27-country odyssey from her native France.

Style - Diarist and insightful, somehow the posts manage to entertain. For instance, the 'interviews from hell' piece conveys the tension of a phone job interview.

Recommend - Spill some deep dark secrets about those places you've been to, Zhu, that the travel agencies won't whisper about.

Rating - 8.9

Blog Review: The Philosophical Bastard

Blog Review: The Philosophical Bastard

Graphics, Layout - Minimalist-cum-pics of the day. (can a blog be minimalist?) Goes with the blogger"s writing style.

Content - A short-fiction buff, the blogger publishes his output here along with day to day snippets on the life of a young urbanite. Good practice at other forms of writing that can pay the bills.

Style - A vanishing breed of pinoy male writing that comes across masculine. Now and then he tries to sound stupid to steer clear of the nerd herd.

Recommend -- If you could mind your grammar p's and q's, Paolo, and get some training, you could be our pinoy Steinbeck. How about coming up with material for a wider audience?

Rating - 8.8

In focus: Charles' Thoughts and Blogs

Blog being reviewed: Charles' Thoughts and Blogs

This five-month old blog is one guy's personal catch-all bin confessional that takes readers into his work routine, highs and lows, etc.

Graphics: mostly album photos of travels and excursions. Could be interesting if I knew the people in them.

Content: The blog starts out fun. The items on politicians were really entertaining. Later there's a shift to "true confessions" but he's no serial killer or grandma rapist, so what's new? We want tabloid dirt!

Dong, all of us have lost phones, so we could use like, a really electrifying new angle on this, you know, the old human interest bit? Johnny Depp's or Brad Pitt's publicists work harder than that, k? The good news: Like all Cebuanos, you'd be a hit at political commentary.

Recommend -- Change your blog theme to : the real bottom line ugly stinking truth about your fav politicians and celebrities. Let us know when!

Rating: 8.0

we thought a straight blog review format would be blah, so...

At some point many people get the itch to be the great writer/journalist/TV host-- then they get swept in other directions. Blogging gives the feel of journalizing without too many deadlines, and we thought we'd take a crack at blog reviewing.

To add graphic interest we're sharing some budget home design, furnishing and decor ideas, and you can upload your own home idea pix showing your decorating genius on a shoestring budget.

To give the hum of the old newsroom we can edit your gobbledygook (English, up to one thousand words only, please) . Just drop "edit request" in the comments area with the date and your usename. This name should appear in the mail/attachment with your text, sent to unica_hija77@yahoo.com.

To get your blog reviewed , just add its url to the comments section and we'll do the rest.