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.

There’s a lot to be said about people with a sense of humour. You can say things like “He’s not all that funny really,” or “Go on, tell us a joke then,” or “I don’t get it.” Or you could just have a chuckle and think no more about it.

But ocassionally you come across a few sites that make you wonder whether or not that writer would survive in  the Aussie bush and the farmlands. I mean, we’re all people here, but we’re most definitely not the same.

This fellow for example, a spanking monkey, has been having a whinge about a fart. Not just the fart, but his own inability to respond to it in anyway.

I had to laugh. This fellow definitely couldn’t work with cattle. When you’re working with cows, and you have them held tightly in the crush they have three means of defending themselves from anything you might have to do. If you’re up the front end, then they can try to thrash. If that doesn’t work, they can sit down and make everything more difficult for you.

But if you’re round the back end for any reason, then their most effective form of self defence is their digestive sytem. They will attempt to urinate on you, with force, and if that doesn’t work they will keep shitting until you let them go. But they can and will fart as well, with splatter and a very yeasty smell.

You get used to it and stop thinking about it after a while, but I couldn’t help  but wonder about this monkey-man’s reaction if he ever had to get milk fresh from the cow himself. A good light read, if you have the time to read his somewhat lengthy posts.