It’s time for another free review, and this time it is for Thou Shall Blog, a blog that describes itself as a ‘beginner’s blog for beginners’ and says it’s there to document a ‘personal journey in the blogosphere’.  

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a great start to me. I’m not really fond of newbie blogs about what newbies need to know, much like I don’t like MMO blogs that don’t actually MMO! But I was prepared to give this one a chance because you can’t judge a blog by its niche.

First impressions of this blog, and please remember that it’s first impressions that count, is that the template is boring. Everything is white, grey, or a teal which is suspiciously close to grey. It’s certainly easy to read, but it’s not at all eye-catching. Even the RSS icon is black and white! I realise some people may consider this style to be ‘refined’ but I will always consider it to be just ‘plain’. The layout really needs something extra.

The content is easily browsable from the front page, with a few sentances  of each post visible at the same time. Some people will insist that it should be full posts or nothing, but I don’t really care either way. At least you can browse a wide selection of his recent posts, and hopefully find something that interests you.

Speaking of interest, I wasn’t particularly engaged by the content on offer. It’s certainly very informative, even including samples of code where they’re appropriate, but they’re just not interesting unless you’re desperately seeking help with something. That’s no fault of the blog, just a product of the niche that means casual readers aren’t particularly engaged.

Also, this writer seems to enjoy saying “Content is King but Traffic is Queen”.

Overall I’d give it a …… hmm, that’s a tough one. The blog isn’t bad as such, it just isn’t the sort of things I look for in a blog. I suppose it should get a 5 out of 10.

DownUnder Update has requested a review, so the only honest thing to do now is to give them one!

First impressions of this blog is that it’s very simple. The layout is clean, but not at all eyecatching. Although that emu looks at me in an accusing way, the header in an aspect that could be utilised for much greater effect with a new design. The three columns of the layout are not used for great effect, although the top of hte page looks fine, scrolling down sees the sidebars finish long before the bottom of the page. Having two columns instead of three would make the length of sidbar more consistent with the length of posts. Or, filling the current sidebars with more things, perhaps twitter, or if Susanna wanted to monetise, then ads could also fit in the sidebard to lengthen them. Pages of older entries match up neater, whether this is because only older entries are shortened to fit nicely on the page or not isn’t clear.

The other disconcerting thing abouthte layout, is that it’s not all in English, which is off-putting to a plain-speaking bloke like myself.  You notice it under the title of each post, ‘comentarios’ instead of comments, or ‘entradas anteriores’. There’s that foreign tongue in the footer too. Is it French? Spanish? It isn’t Aussie, that’s for certain and doesn’t fit with the distinctly Australian feel to this blog. If it’s part of the template, then some editing is in order.

But what is actually written in this little blog? Wonderful things! The very first post left me with a hankering for quiche jam and cheese, and the rest of the blog is filled with equally good articles on stories about our culture and our life. It evokes a touch of nostalgia, and a sense of pride.

Overall, I would have to give this blog 6.5 out of 10. I feel that the layout lets down its charming content, bt I will keep looking back on this one for a good read.

Oh, and it has entrecard too if any droppers out there are reading today.