Blog Design Changes at Nerve Endings Firing Away

Changes at NEFA

Thanks to my tinkering this weekend, I finally managed to work on some issues that hopefully makes this blog a better place; to surf around at least. But a little tip to those wishing to play around with their templates and are not well versed in CSS – make one change and check it before making any more. Trust me, sounds obvious but it is hard to resist the temptation to do more at one time:

The horizontal scrollbar finally disappears as I managed to find the offending line in the code (Chetan, I swear I had tried it before).
The Google AJAX News bar – see below the header. Currently, the keywords are India, Mumbai, cricket, Bollywood, and WordPress.
~~The Asides category has been removed from the main feed. If you wish to keep a tab on my ‘linking park’ links, you have to subscribe separately to the Asides feed.~~ The Feedburner Replacement Plugin doesn’t allow for separate feeds so Asides are back in until a fix emerges.
Google Adsense replaces Yahoo Publisher Network. Also, in addition to Text Link Ads, another text link service Advolcano lets you buy text ads on the cheap. I’m giving Adbrite another chance [see lower left sidebar] although for an advertiser the rates are higher than Advolcano.
Using the ‘more’ tag causes the posts to be cut short in the feeds [WP 2.1 issue]. This has now being fixed using the Full Text Feed plugin.
Direct subscription buttons for Google, Yahoo, Newsgator, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Bloglines, MyAOL, and Rojo have been added. See the Subscribe section on the right sidebar.
If you haven’t noticed yet, check out the Recent Readers [provided by MyBlogLog] on the left sidebar. I’d love to see you on there.
On the backend in addition to Mint, I am testing a beta version of an impressive stats service, Reinvigorate on this blog. Also on DesiPundit.
Regarding responding to comments, my responses will be added on to your comment in order to supress the comment count with my replies. Also, I think it makes for better follow-up. So check back if you’ve commented. Or let me know if this sucks Thanks for letting me know it does. Back to original style.
I have uploaded my design image at Review Basics where you can leave feedback on the design using annotated notes and comments. Let me know if you want an invite.

Any other comments, the space below the post is always open.

“Changes at NEFA” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=1888] was published Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 6:00 pm by Patrix, filed under Weblogs, and tagged as blogs, Design, Internet, plugins, theme, WordPress. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

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http://shripriya.com/blog Shripriya
How are you responding within their original comment? By editing their comment or with a plugin of some sort? If you do that, will “subscribe to comments” plugin work?

Patrix replied: Yup! By editing the comments. And I thought of everything except the ‘subscribe to comments’ plugin. That’ll probably not work if done this way. Another option is threaded comments but that gets too unwieldy if the conversation continues.
http://kyun.org Prashant
Interesting that you chose to reduce the content part of posts on your blog to ~25% of the width above the scroll on the first page.
It doesn’t matter to me since I get to your blog almost solely through Google Reader but I’m wondering what kind of a response you’re getting from other regular readers.
BTW, got any invites for Reinvigorate?
Patrix replied: I am aware of that, Prashant. I am trying to insert the adblock bw the post title and the content that should be visible only after you open a single page while remain hidden on the front page. Unfortunately I can’t get that to work with a K2 theme. This was the best I could do. But I fixed the partial feeds issue for the Reader.
And sorry, no invites for Reinvigorate. I just dropped my email in their box and got an invite one day.
http://shripriya.com/blog Shripriya
Well, since I can’t reply within my original comment box, as soon as I post a follow up, the “conversation” has ended, right?
I am a huge fan of letting users subscribe to comments, so I vote for that over this new idea :)
Also, just FYI, I have issues posting to your site via Firefox. Works fine on Safari (there are couple of other sites I have this problem with), but just a heads up…
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
Yes, the hzl. scroll bar is gone. Just nice now.
..I swear I had tried it before
The cache usually plays foul, giving you the impression that it didn’t get fixed. Web Developer Toolbar (Firefox plugin) helps.
I wouldn’t do the inline reply. The author should reply in his name. Looks structured. Plus, if you enable, author highlighting, it helps stand-out as replies.
http://pikeyspeak.wordpress.com The Piker
I love getting and customizing my blog templates. Unfortunately wordpress.COM does not afford such luxuries. I considered hosting my blog, but Yahoo is far too expensive (8 bucks a month!) and I need to attract far more hits if I really have to pay for my bandwidth. Still looking for cheaper (though reliable) options though.
And btw, is the Agloco thingy really good?
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Shripriya, I see your point and also I agree with Chetan. I’ll be replying in separate comments even if it inflates my comment count. Also, I am not sure why you are having problems with Firefox. I use it and have no issues. Check your extensions if anything is interfering.

Chetan, thanks and also, I guess one change at a time helps.

Piker, trust me, we underestimate Google searches. Most of my traffic comes through Google searches and if you have Text Link Ads, they pay for your hosting and more. But of course, if you blog just 1-2 times a semester, its not really gonna matter :)
Regarding AGLOCO, I am not sure. The viewbar is not yet released so will know more once that is out. But I’m now increasingly skeptical.
http://www.retributions.wordpress.com confused
Yes, good Pat. Install the subscribe to comments plug in. Please.
And seriously, this separate thing is much better. Why worry about inflating comments. Ah! Do the big ad companies perform due diligence before offering those one-click-two hundred buck ads?
:P
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Confused, I’ll get the ‘Subscribe to Comments’ plugin. It didn’t work at DesiPundit. Poor readers who subscribed couldn’t unsubscribe when they wanted to and had to wait until the comments closed after 21 days. Prolly a WP version problem.
http://pikeyspeak.wordpress.com The Piker
btw, yeah my blogging freq has definitely gone up a few notches. question of maintaining it. let’s see
http://www.retributions.wordpress.com confused
Hmm, maybe it’s because DP automatically closes comments after 21 days? Also, the manage subscription thing(if you are the author) works only with version 2.1. DP is on 2.1, rt?
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Piker, noticed that! After the first semester, the ‘sincerity’ for acads diminishes :) So now you can imagine my state!
Confused, Updated the plugin at DP and added it here. And yup, upgraded DP to 2.1 couple of weeks back.
http://riotofreasons.blogspot.com Riot
Wow! Ads galore! You are really serious about making money, aren’t you :) Beware of ad blindness though
I did notice that your site takes a lot longer to load now. Especially the AJAX google news bar and MyBlogLog.
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Riot, that bad, huh? I’m just trying out different layouts…will cut down some but then better get on the feedreader and drop by to comment. Ads are primarily aimed and also clicked by Google visitors so blindness may not be a problem. Noticed the Google News bar delay…will knock it off if it continues to do so.
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
I just noticed that your Asides feed redirects to your main feed. I.e., you can’t actually read your asides via a feed reader (because of the FB redirect plugin, I think.) This is one of the reasons, I have stopped using FeedBurner and the plugin (even if that’s an extreme measure.) They restrict the select use of my feeds like choose a separate category, etc. There are ways to go around it, but that’s another topic.
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Chetan, crap! I guess you are right! The Feedburner plugin might be to blame but I’m not sure I want to stop using it. Might just include the Asides again. Don’t post that many anyway. But shouldn’t Feedburner be working on it?
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
I wrote about it in-depth here. I actually realized it while playing with Yahoo! Pipes.
I realized that if you tie yourself to a service, you’re letting-go part of your freedom of data (even if it is specific data, specific category feed), for just some stats. I wouldn’t have it that way.
(I can easily count my feed traffic in Analytics — although, it’s not a very rozy picture, I do get the number correct alright, and I’ve spent considerable amount of time correlating numbers between Analytics and Feedburner, they add up roughly correct.)
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
And yes, it’s a catch 22 situation. If you don’t redirect, you never will get your full count. And if you do, you lose some data-freedom. FeedBurner can only work that way. Segregating by category may be too much of an ask and a burden on their servers (additional data processing) for a free service.
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