Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I do this every so often. I get bored and rebuild the site. All that white was bothering my eyes so I took some steps to fix it. I'm not exactly thrilled or disgusted by the current format but it works on Opera, Explorer, Netscape, and Firefox. I can't guarantee it will stay like this but I don't know when I'll next have time to mess with it. If you want to see my old formats go here and my favorite so far here.
I've also added a group of blogs from Truth Laid Bear and linked to a lot of the blogs in his top 50's. Mostly this is so I can glance through them from time to time but I do not vouch for their content. I eliminated a couple which had profanity in their titles and the page which seemed to be all semi-nude oriental women but just glanced through the rest to make sure they actually had blog content.
In further news, since I switched up to Opera 8 I'm using its feed reader to check most blogs. So, the fact you don't see me hitting you from my blawg doesn't mean I've stopped reading it.
The site is now getting about 350-400 individual hits a day (although I'm sure this post won't help those numbers). On the weekends this falls to 150-200. I have no idea how many folks out there are getting the Atom feed I set up a while back and no longer coming to the site. However, when ya'll do come you tend not to stay too long. The average visit seems to be less than 90 seconds.
Any suggestions to improve the site are always welcome. Personally, I'm thinking of going back to the old format which I've parked at Crimlex. These washed out bright whites and grays hurt my eyes after a while. Comments?
7 comments:
I actually do like this format, although the comments on the side is a little out of the ordinary and will take getting used to.
As far as the atom feed is concerned, I use that mostly - yet every now and then I will visit the site.
Just one suggestion - perhaps a link in the template to the main page, so if I click directly to a permalink, I have a way of getting to the main page instead of having to delete part of the address in the address bar.
Otherwise, as always, great blog and keep it up!
I like it.
However, you didn't fix the biggest problem I had with the old format: Links that are active or visited are hard to see, at least in my browser. The color is almost the same as regular text, so if you link to something I've already seen, all I see is a paragraph of text with no link at all, even though you're writing as if you've linked to something. I have to wave my mouse around and look for the pointer to change to find the link.
FWIW, you currently have 8 readers subscribed to the Atom feed via Bloglines (which only tracks itself, of course). If the other seven are like me, you almost never get a counter hit from any of us.
As a reader, I greatly appreciate your courtesy in sacrificing your site statistics for my convenience. But, I'll click through every day if it would make you happy :-).
I much prefer this format. Remember that many people read your site at the office and having something relatively non-descript is helpful when prying eyes suspect you slacking.
Just wanted to say that I like the new format. About the only thing I might suggest is that with all the links on the side, it might be easier (for you and readers alike) if you put them on seperate pages (but not using blogger myself, I don't even know if this is possible)
Keep up the good work, I read your site daily, even on the weekends ;)
I changed the color of the read links.
I made the "CrimLaw" at the top take you to the main page (since this seems to be standard).
Don't worry about coming here directly. Now that I'm trying one I like the Feed Reader's convenience.
Links on different pages? Not sure I want to do that. Other blogs / blawgs have been kind enough to list me on their front page and I don't think it would be fair to shunt their links off to a secondary page.
On the 90 second visits--you don't post nearly as often as I visit. So one ten-minute visit could be pulled down pretty quickly by several one-second visits, if it's a mean you're using.
Jody
Post a Comment