{"id":5304,"date":"2011-04-24T09:52:59","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=5304"},"modified":"2011-05-08T08:08:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T13:08:53","slug":"hiking-blog-review-meanderthals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2011\/04\/24\/hiking-blog-review-meanderthals\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiking blog review: Meanderthals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Blog<\/strong>: Jeff Clark’s Meanderthals<\/a><\/p>\n

Niche<\/strong>: Hike reports from mainly western North Carolina, with a few diversions to the American West.<\/p>\n

Nitty gritty<\/strong>: Clark is a consummate hiker\/geek: a retired techie whose Internet Brothers<\/a> site has gobs of tech-related gems. His operative quote — “If you are gonna be dumb, you better be tough –” defines hiking in North Carolina: The trails are rugged enough, but if you get it into your head to venture off trail, you’ll either a) become rugged or b) become mangled in the attempt. <\/p>\n

Stuff I like<\/strong>: Jeff has the blogging form down pat: Clean design, thorough blogroll, well-defined scope of coverage (veering off course only for once-in-a-lifetime outings like attending The Masters golf tournament), and icons linking to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and his RSS feed. <\/p>\n

Jeff’s hike write-ups are utilitarian: an introductory paragraph describing why the hike matters, followed by a box with all the key details of the hike, then a Google map with GPS track, then a write-up of the actual hike, and a photo gallery at the bottom. This, frankly, is the most intuitive, useful format for a hike write-up. (Bear in mind, fellow blogger: most popular hikes have already been covered in such fashion, which is why I don’t fret over whether mine has the most useful\/intuitive format. Having a blog is about doing it your way.)<\/p>\n

Annoying unsolicited advice<\/strong>: I had a little trouble figuring out where the “blog” portion of Meanderthals lives — the navigation menu across the top is elegant and subtle, but also nearly invisible. And hosting a site with a distinct title underneath top-level domain with a totally different name (internetbrothers.org<\/a>) is confusing — though understandable in this case; it’s dot-org kin to Jeff’s Internet Brothers dot-com<\/a> domain. <\/p>\n

Jeff has a keen grasp of what needs to be said about a hike — key points of interest, advice on dangers, insight on the biomes he’s hiking in. I want more active verbs and less passive voice in his writing, but I want that from everybody (so badly that I devoted a new business<\/a> to the concept; I’m just a tad obsessive on this point). <\/p>\n

Not the last word<\/strong>: Jeff demonstrates what I wish every blogger did before diving in: spending some time to figure out what must done to make a blog worth reading. It’s about making your blog consumable instead of disposable. If Jeff quits blogging tomorrow, he’s still left the Web a bit better than he found it by posting useful, authoritative descriptions of local hikes. We should all aspire to that. <\/p>\n

(Addendum: Jeff took up the “profile a hiking blog challenge<\/a>” and had his review of Two-Heel Drive posted<\/a> before I finished this one. I realize this looks like some kinda quid-pro-quo but I can assure you it’s just a coincidence. It’s not like he could’ve known I’d be reviewing his site.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog: Jeff Clark’s Meanderthals Niche: Hike reports from mainly western North Carolina, with a few diversions to the American West. Nitty gritty: Clark is a consummate hiker\/geek: a retired techie whose Internet Brothers site has gobs of tech-related gems. His…<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[35,433],"tags":[430,429,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5304"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5450,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions\/5450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}