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could this post be any more boring
by mg at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2001
I mentioned this only a couple days ago, but it seemed to get buried in the sea of subsequent posts, so I’ll mention it again. Bad Samaritan is looking for new authors. If you are interested in joining the team and getting yourself exposed to thousands of readers a week let me know. Opportunity is knocking for some lucky and talented people out there, and all you have to do is get up off your ass and answer the door.
So far, I am loving Moveable Type and would have switched by now, if not for two simple reasons. One, I’m thinking about switching hosts and I don’t want to do all the work of getting properly configured if I’m just going to have to do it again in a couple weeks. Two, I’m much too lazy.
I guess those are both the same reason.
Anyway, I’ve got an almost final design done for BSv5.0 and would appreciate feedback on it, especially from those of you who had difficulties with it last time around. The problem is that I don’t want to implement the new design until I switch to Moveable Type. And I can’t switch to MT until I switch hosts. I’m in this big spiral of inactivity and I’m not sure how to break free.
Actually, I may implement the new design before then. MT is generally a cool little weblogging tool, but what is above and beyond in the coolness category is the ability to import archives from GreyMatter and Blogger. The only problem is that it doesn’t import the comments.
Now, I write here mostly for my own benefit; the fact that anyone comes here to read the site or bothers to comment on posts is a wonderfully amazing added benefit. I love when people comment. But I’m torn between wanting to make my life easier (not having to update ten sets of templates every design change) and wanting to keep all the fantastic comments people have made over the course of the past year. I’d love to hear your opinions on that.
In other news, we are still suffering from a search engine cold shoulder (at least in comparison to the last couple weeks). However, there are some residual hits from lots of new friends who’ve been kind enough to link us. In fact, with a little less than half the month gone, we’ve already almost doubled the number of hits we got last month. If this keeps up, we’ll have way more than 100,000 hits, in just October alone.
So thank you thank you thank to everyone who has linked up Bad Samaritan in the last couple weeks. It means so much. And while a link is nice, how about some email? I can’t acknowledge you and thank you properly if I don’t know who you are. And I will, eventually, get around to acknowledge and thank you all, either with sexual favors or a nice reciprocal link, whichever you prefer.
I had one more stupid piece of site news to report, but darn it all to heck if I can’t remember what it was. I guess it just wasn’t that important (compared to everything else in this post, which is just sooooo damn important and interesting).
At any rate, click here if you are interested in joining Bad Samaritan or have linked us up recently, and here for feedback on design and the “to keep comments or not to keep comments” question.
comments (18)
I love it! I could almost hate you for being so good at this if you weren't so fwuffy and bunnylike. I feel inadequate - but at least I don't own cowboy boots :)
by suey at October 13, 2001 2:53 PM
Yes, mg is definitely a fwuffy widdle design stud bunny. The new look rocks, it's amazing.
by kd at October 13, 2001 3:04 PM
I dig it. It's very clean and quite intuitive.
As to the comments, is it really all or nothing? Isn't there some way to keep the old design(s) and accompanying comments for older posts? It'd be a shame to lose all of those.
If it means setting up Greymatter as well as MT, well, I suppose it's not worth it, but maybe the MT people will add saving comments in as a function. They seem pretty responsive to users' needs.
by Muad'Dib at October 13, 2001 3:22 PM
breaking the solid color bars on the side of the main text box resulted in removing the slghtly oppressive heaviness of the last version of this design, and the text is easier to read on the white background. how would you know how to please a diverse audience if it wasn't for the comment function? it is more immediate than e mail, and less painful than a note tied to a rock.
by bobthecorgi at October 13, 2001 5:49 PM
Very very nice.
by Charles at October 13, 2001 8:36 PM
There are considerable differences between Netscape and IE versions of the page. Sheesh. I used to be such a netscape kid, but as time passes I'm more and more into IE (even though it lets you get away with atrocious code.)
There's something about the comments class that bugs me. I think the FFFFCC may be a little too light. You might also consider putting in a & nbsp; on the beginning and end of the boxes that are bisected by the lines (headlines, author/time, karma block, comment block) to give a little more breathing room.
Might also try changing the hover color on the right box to something that goes with the blue bg; the cc9900 hover goes with the 993300 bg, but not with the 000044. Maybe somewhere along the lines of 3366CC? Try it and see.
You could also try adding a little spacing between the copy block and the right & left bars.
I also think I like the date with the headline, but that could just be me.
Love how you're rockin' the pixellated theme. See, you don't really need a logo; you already have an established wordmark.
by snaggle at October 13, 2001 9:13 PM
I love it like I loved the other. I am easy [to web please], so it looks really good to me. Now the comment thing, that has to be. I mean I e-mail you right? But e-mail takes forever if your like me trying to weed through (or thru? Why do drive THRU's use THRU?) it and respond to it! So I say comments must stay, but that is just my two cents. (WE LOVE TO TALK TO YOU MG!) However, I am sure you will work it out, I have no doubt. :-)
by Pristine at October 14, 2001 2:57 AM
Wordmark? I think you mean logotype.
by MrBlank at October 14, 2001 3:09 PM
I'd keep the comments.
You can start fresh with MT and keep an archive of the old GM HTML posts in an archive section. Just don't allow the old posts to have new comments. The big problem with that is the design. Do you redesign the old GM posts to match the new MT posts or do you leave them in the old design?
If it were me, I'd use a plain, generic, simple design for the GM archives and only worry about designing the MT pages. After it is all done, I'd delete the GM cgi files and free up some space since they won't be needed anymore. BUT BY ALL MEANS, back up your original GM site before you tinker with it. Don't want to lose it all.
by MrBlank at October 14, 2001 3:19 PM
I'm with MrBlank about the comments - don't want to lose them. I think his suggestion about the archives - you could even keep the basic look and color scheme, but simplify things in the header and sidebar, just providing ways to navigate and search the archives.
by kd at October 14, 2001 9:10 PM
Hey, MG, how do you get the paragraphs to indent without using the & nbsp; tag?
Nice design. It might be good to add to the cell padding of the sidebars to give the links some more room. The yellow color in the comments and the light blue hover color on links seem a bit odd compared to your main color scheme. Overall, much easier to read. I really like your little icons. I'm glad you're keeping them.
by MrBlank at October 14, 2001 10:08 PM
I can't stay away. OK, now that I am at work, I can view how much the mac can screw up the new design. I took some screenshots for you MG. I use IE 5 and I think I'm the only BS reader who uses a mac. Poor Netscape.
http://www.missouri.edu/~jcn8d1/formg/
by MrBlank at October 15, 2001 9:51 AM
Wordmark, logotype, whatever. Cut me some slack; I'm only first semester graphic design. :) I always thought a logotype implied a prominent graphical element, whereas a wordmark more implied specifically styled text.
But I could be wrong, as I often am (I'll admit!)
Paragraph indenting: text-indent CSS attribute to the P.
by snaggle at October 15, 2001 1:15 PM
Well, there's a lesson (for me at least)in all this - that while CSS layouts are way cool, the various browsers on various OSs breaking them in varying ways would drive me even more insane than i am now. I know "tables are for serving dinner", as the CSS gurus say, but they apparently haven't seen my dinner table...
by kd at October 15, 2001 2:36 PM
nice
by brutalside at February 26, 2003 8:46 PM
vamos la gente boa
by martinsdesouza at May 30, 2007 12:05 AM
vamos la gente boa
by martinsdesouza at May 30, 2007 12:06 AM
animebr.no-ip.biz
by martinsdesouza at May 30, 2007 12:08 AM