So now that you’ve all had a chance to see it, we hope that overall you like the spring cleaning changes and upgrades around here. Personally, I like the pop-up window format…although, if you don’t, then you need only click on the “time of posting” link rather than the “list of replies” link and you’ll get full screen.
First and foremost, Glenn says a large acknowledgement is owed to Patrick Nielsen Hayden over at Electrolite for assistance in setting up certain aspects of the blog. You could do a lot worse that spend time visiting his blog, or his wife Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s blog, Making Light. And I’m not just saying that because they’re editors at Tor, for whom I’m working on a new novel.
Other changes you’ll notice are along the sidebar, including:
- A calender of posts.
- A vastly improved search capability.
- Recent comments.
- Recent entries.
- Recent entries from Kathleen’s No Strings Attached (did I mention that Kathleen has a new blog? No? She has a new blog) and Glenn’s View From Above.
- Archives for But I Digress… and Cowboy’s Pete TV Roundup.
- And a link to a PayPal button for donations.
Yes, the link to the PayPal button was already there, but Glenn just blew his weekend converting the site over. And that’s not even counting the time spent recently having to unsnarl the place after trolls hit. This site gets pretty time intensive, not to mention the expenses this place incurs ranging from set-up to ongoing fees. If you’re at all interested in helping to keep it going and support it, take some time to donate via Paypal.
And Glenn will be paying attention to all comments regarding aesthetics, but first priority over the next days will be concentrating on improving functionality.
For those of you that have asked about our listing email addresses: you can hide your email address from the general public by putting in your URL. If you don’t have a URL of your own, then pick some worthy website to promote. We recommend the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, http://www.cbldf.org.
Thanks for the continued support, and be sure to hit the tip jar on the way out…or in, for that matter.
PAD
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Personally, I like the new blog.
But how come every thing (calendar, etc.) will appear down the right hand side of my computer terminal at work, and NOT my personal computer at home???
Overall rating: Two thumbs up!
I love the new site, and not just because I’m a Movabletype pusher! Though I do miss the links at the bottom of the page for the most recently referred from sites.
Lee, what computer are you using at home, what OS, and what browser? Are they different from your work computer?
I like the new look okay, but the previous was okay with me too.
I also cannot see a “sidebar” on my computer at work (haven’t looked at the site from home yet), but there is a very looooonnnng “bottombar,” if there is such a thing, at the end of the front page after all of PAD’s current posts. This bottombar does list everything PAD mentioned, but I have to scroll all the way down the front page to get to them. My work computer is a PC running Windows NT (a Novell server) using Internet Explorer. On the old site, I could see the sidebar.
Glad to see the names at the top of the posts again.
A slight modification to my last post: I just maximized my browser window, and TA-DA! I have the sidebar info back in place. Usually, I have the window fairly small (to be able to move the mouse to other areas quicker), and at least for some sites, that means I get a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom to slide back and forth to see everything (I do NOT get the scroll bar on PAD’s new site). Anyway, mystery solved…for me, at least.
“For those of you that have asked about our listing email addresses: you can hide your email address from the general public by putting in your URL. If you don’t have a URL of your own, then pick some worthy website to promote. We recommend the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, http://www.cbldf.org.
“
Or you could just make up an email address.You might be a public person PAD, but I’m not. At least not yet.
The sidebar is a “bottom bar” for me too, both at home and at work. My display is set at 800×600. If I change it to 1024×768, that fixes the sidebar, but that makes everything way too small.
Corey
Nitpick: Do you know the link to Gleen’s blog is actually pointing to Kathleen’s?
Like the new setup, but I do miss the \\italics\\ and **bold** from the old setup.
On the front page, everything appears at the bottom for me as well. I’m using Windows 98 SE, and Explorer 6 for this site. I have the browser window opening to full screen.
What about the quotes and bold settings as in the old days?
It’s a shame Glenn had to get blogged down in these details…
(Remember kids: the pun is the most fundamental form of wit!)
Nice revamp. Sadly though, I notice that your blog is no longer “Fair and Balanced!”
Oh, well. 🙂
I, too, am liking this latest upgrade. Along with others I also miss the ability to use italics and bold print. Make no mistake, though. That won’t stop me (or anyone, I’ll wager) from throwing my 3.5 cents (inflation)into the mix. I mean, aside from PAD there is only one other celebrity for whom I am a fan that will respond to direct questions. For that PAD and “Mr. Petersen” have my undying gratitude.
Off Topic: Is celebrity even the right word in this context? Not to diminish PAD’s accomplishments, but it occurrs to me that alot of people don’t even try to read anymore (Poor bášŧárdš, they know not what they miss) so I wonder what exactly is ‘celebrity’ measured by?
I guess it doesn’t really matter. I consider PAD’s works to be worthy of celebration (I do the ‘dance of joy’ each time I get the next New Frontier novel) and that’s good enough for me.
Salutations,
Mitch
I’m also having trouble with the side bar being pushed down to the bottom. I’m running MS IE 6.0 at a screen resolution of 800×600.
Also, when the pop-up replies page comes up, the maximize button is grayed out, but the horizontal scroll bar on the bottom shows that the page is not fully displayed within the window size. In other words: I cannot adjust the size of the window, but I still have to scroll left to right to see all of the contents of the page.
The color is a little monochromatic for my tastes. And I don’t like to give out my email address as a requirement to post. I’m not planning on abusing the forum, but I’m picky about who gets my address.
Good job! It’s clean and easier to read.
Does the tip jar have change of a twenty? If not I’ll have to catch you next time.
Why is everyone so shy about their email address? Isn’t commenting in other people’s blog just a quick and easy form of self promotion? 😉
As for bold and italics, they work if you use the HTML tags. If you don’t know what they are or how to use them, it may be best not to try. I’ve had my own chagrins at forgetting to close a tag and wreaking havoc. So there’s that.
Oh, and you can all expect a headshot and resume in your inboxes shortly… 😉
While perhaps more aesthetic, I should point out that putting the Amazon links to Peter’s books and the Google AdSense ads at the very bottom of the sidebar are probably going to reduce their clicks, and thus their generated revenue, pretty drastically.
Since you have the BID archive seperately, does that mean that we’ll start getting more of the old ones? ‘Cause the last time we got one was July 3rd of last year.
Too much white. It burns our eyeses, precious, it does. I liked the grey-on-slightly-darker-grey look better. But then I’m just a lowly lurker, so what do I know?
The sidebar on my screen only contains the “Lot Auctions” ad; everything else is all the way at the bottom….
PS I like the new blog as well, very nice! My thanks to those who updated the look.
Generally I like the revamp, and I’m sure more tweaks are upcoming, but if I could make a suggestion I think there needs to be a better color scheme. The gray/white looks too generic and boring — using the color scheme of old would be a good idea. Also, please make Matt Feazel’s pic of PAD bigger (what can I say, I like that image!).
I like the “Recent Comments” part of the bar and love how it jumps right to the comment selected.
While I don’t mind using an email to sign up somewhere, nor having the info stored…
The last thing I’d want is to suddenly get even more spam mail via the trolls who find it no longer enough to just post here.
Just one of many reasons. 🙂
And I’m not just saying that because they’re editors at Tor, for whom I’m working on a new novel.
Nice way to slip in a hint of an announcement. 🙂
Now what’s the bloody project? (and why hasn’t anyone else asked?)
I’ll second Bladestar here: the “recent comments” addition is very cool.
I’m more or less neutral on a lot of the rest of it, though it’s settling in fine. I rather liked the old color scheme, but most of the stuff along the sidebar is quite nice indeed.
Kudos to Glenn.
TWL
Oy, not another tip jar appeal. I’m sorry, don’t take this wrong, you know I love you and I also love a lot of bloggers who happen to cyber-beg, but I hate blog-begging. I think it’s selfish, inappropriate and utterly unnecessary. Blogging is a labor of love, a hobby, and as long as free alternatives are available nobody should have to lay out any money to blog (I never have), and if you choose to then it should be your money, not your readers’ money. Period.
and if you choose to then it should be your money, not your readers’ money.
Especially when you can deduct the costs of running this website as an expense of Second Age, Inc., right?
Corey
“Posted by: Ricardo C …
Too much white. It burns our eyeses, precious, it does. I liked the grey-on-slightly-darker-grey look better.”
Agreed.
The other changes are secondary to legibility and, after spending hours working at a computer, having this white-with-black glaring out at one is simply uncomfortable to the eyes compared to the much more pleasant soft-grey-with-black of the previous format. Any way to bring that part back?
“…but I hate blog-begging. I think it’s selfish, inappropriate and utterly unnecessary. Blogging is a labor of love, a hobby, and as long as free alternatives are available nobody should have to lay out any money to blog…”
Sorry Elaiyne, but you’ve obviously never run a high-profile site for free. It’s a different environment than, say, my personal blog. People certainly don’t get rich off of tip jars. Anyway, this IS Peter’s little home on the web; what’s worse than him asking for tips for his webmaster, who seems to do this for Peter and others as a favour, are people like you who presume to tell him the kinds of things he should and shouldn’t say on his own site.
It’s not like his mention of the tipjar is constant. It’s not like two sentences every once in a while, in the middle of hundreds and hundreds of others, get in the way that much. Just live with it, and hope that the site never goes down because it just got too expensive to maintain as a labour of love.
I wonder if you enjoy NPR or PBS…
On another note, the move to MovableType is nice. No problems on Mac OSX.3 running Safari 1.2. No problems with the colour scheme. I don’t really use the calendar function, the “recent posts” and “recent comments” are a lot more interesting. I think a one-line search box (wth a text link to “advanced search”) in the header would be a lot more functional–if it’s possible. The links, feed links, and amazon affiliate links almost seem like they’re pushed out of the way. I think a thin left-hand sidebar could be a better home for these.
“Oy, not another tip jar appeal. I’m sorry, don’t take this wrong, you know I love you and I also love a lot of bloggers who happen to cyber-beg, but I hate blog-begging. I think it’s selfish, inappropriate and utterly unnecessary. Blogging is a labor of love, a hobby, and as long as free alternatives are available nobody should have to lay out any money to blog (I never have), and if you choose to then it should be your money, not your readers’ money. Period.”
And you know I love you, Elayne, which is why I know you’ll take it in the right spirit when I tell you that that is a spectacular load of crap. Mark Evanier makes a mention of tipping, he gets a bunch of money. I mention it, I get holier-than-thou commentary.
Blogs and websites are the modern day equivalent of fanzines. You wouldn’t even think about going around to people in dealers rooms who are selling their fanzines and telling them they should give them away because, after all, it’s a labor of love. Labor of love or labor of necessity, labor is still labor.
Writing is not my hobby. It’s what I get paid for. When I’m doing this thing, right here…this post, my blog entries…I’m working. But I do it gratis, because it helps keep my name there, and because I just can’t get enough of people upbraiding me for my political beliefs.
Glenn, however, has been donating hundreds of man hours and his own money in everything from domain registration fees to cleaning up the messes of people who tried to destroy the site because upbraiding me wasn’t sufficient for them.
I shall spell it out: The money that comes in from the tip jar will go to Glenn to compensate him for the time that he has generously donated over the past year. But I think it unfair to keep asking him to donate it. I don’t deduct the costs from Second Age (an incorrect assumption, thank you, Corey) because Glenn’s been absorbing the costs.
But I don’t think he should anymore. Which means one of three things: 1) The folks who contribute to discussions and such here put in some modest amount as a thank you for the service so that , when it’s totalled up, it comes to something substantial; 2) I absorb all the cost, which I’m not gonna do; 3) We strip down the website so it’s much less labor intensive, such as eliminating all the chatback options. Which strikes me as far less interesting, but hey, you get what you pay for.
“Blog begging.” Christ, what an offensive comment, particularly for a first-time appeal after more than a year during which we’ve had to endure an impressive amount of šhìŧ from people who have tried to abuse me, Glenn, or this site. Chip in, don’t chip in, but don’t go judgmental simply because my reasons for maintaining a website are different from yours.
PAD
And you know I love you, Elayne, which is why I know you’ll take it in the right spirit when I tell you that that is a spectacular load of crap. Mark Evanier makes a mention of tipping, he gets a bunch of money. I mention it, I get holier-than-thou commentary.
And if Mark had a comment section, you would have seen me say the exact same thing to him there. As it is, I’ve said it to him in e-mail. Don’t assume that there’s been no criticism just because you haven’t seen it.
And by the way, I want to thank you for choosing to respond to my comment instead of deleting it. A fairly big-name, high profile blogger deleted this same kind of comment when I posted it on her blog (she knew, as you do, that it wasn’t a personal criticism, but she couldn’t deal with someone disagreeing with her choice to ask people to give her money for her hobby even though she’s a lawyer who appears regularly on TV and can certainly afford it herself), and ever since then whenever she’s made an appeal she’s turned off her comment section for that entry. Unreal!
Blogs and websites are the modern day equivalent of fanzines.
With one glaring exception. It cost me money to self-publish INSIDE JOKE. I charged folks $1.50 an issue, and even so I lost money regularly due to printing and ever-rising postage costs. That’s why I find blogging so amazing – anyone with an Internet connection can do this all for free, on someone else’s server, with zero out-of-pocket. It’s a dream come true for me.
Writing is not my hobby. It’s what I get paid for.
But you don’t get paid for all your writing. You don’t get paid for writing e-mails, or notes on the fridge, or Rosh Hashanah cards. Blogs are great advertisements for your paid-writing projects, but you aren’t at present blogging for pay.
When I’m doing this thing, right here…this post, my blog entries…I’m working.
Yes, that’s the “labor” part of “labor of love.”
Glenn, however, has been donating hundreds of man hours and his own money in everything from domain registration fees to cleaning up the messes of people who tried to destroy the site because upbraiding me wasn’t sufficient for them.
I shall spell it out: The money that comes in from the tip jar will go to Glenn to compensate him for the time that he has generously donated over the past year.
I think Glenn has done a phenomenal job, and I’m glad you mentioned his own blog because I’ve just added him (and Kath) to my blogroll. And yes, he deserves to be compensated even though he didn’t do it for the money either. I tend to bend my “anti blog-begging” rule to the point of breakage if it’s someone asking people for money on someone else’s behalf. 🙂
But I don’t think he should anymore. Which means one of three things: 1) The folks who contribute to discussions and such here put in some modest amount as a thank you for the service so that , when it’s totalled up, it comes to something substantial; 2) I absorb all the cost, which I’m not gonna do; 3) We strip down the website so it’s much less labor intensive, such as eliminating all the chatback options. Which strikes me as far less interesting, but hey, you get what you pay for.
There’s a service called HaloScan that provides what you call “chatback options” for free. It’s the service I use. Be that as it may, I realize that, as with so many things, I hold a minority opinion here, so I’m sure enough of your readers will go with option #1 that it won’t come to #3 (or, heaven forfend, #2 😉 ).
“Blog begging.” Christ, what an offensive comment
I’m sorry you took personal offense where, I repeat again, none was intended. In the blog circles where I travel, I’m afraid blog-begging is rather epidemic, so I fear I’ve grown a little over-sensitive to its every appearance.
Chip in, don’t chip in, but don’t go judgmental simply because my reasons for maintaining a website are different from yours.
Fair enough. I can see where you would interpret my remarks as judgemental, which I regret and for which I sincerely apologize. No such judgement was intended; my comment was intended merely as an expression of my distaste for the practice in general, not your specific use of it, and I should have made that clearer.
WOW! Looks great.
I just picked up Fallen Angel #3-#9 (I got a litte bit behind…) but I have some fun catching up to do. Kinda like waiting on the trade paperback, but not.
Nice to see some good differences of opinions without lots of mud slinging. A++
BTW, I agree with both Peter and Elayne. I run a couple of blogs too (one personal small one that I have just redesinged and one larger, local/regional music web site). It is a labor of love (for me love of live music locally) but it does take a tremendous amount of time. Kudos to Peter for doing this for Glenn – I know first hand — He deserves it! But, as Elayne said, used the wrong way and it could be taken the wrong way. “Blog-Begging” – LOL, gotta remember that one! 🙂
Re: blog-begging…
First, thanks for adding me to your blogroll, Elayne.
The setup at PAD.net: I am not an employee of Peter, Second Age Inc., etc. The phrase “head stooge” still applies, certainly at this level of compensation. (I was shooting for minion, but we need nine more of me and I’m not Jewish enough.)
Peter is indeed writing all this stuff for free. However, this is being hosted on someone else’s server space (mine) and I do spend a lot of time doing work on the weblog and site, retyping and reformating old BIDs when I have the chance, cleaning out fauxBendi, backing up, etc., as Peter has the web site administration capacity of a tuna. (This is an improvement– he used to have the skills of kelp.)
And if you think Peter has fun getting upbraided for his political beliefs, imagine the joy I have getting upbraided for Peter’s political beliefs. On the other hand, he gets upbraided for some of mine, so it averages out.
Believe me, I appreciate the funds that come in, small as they may be, as they do defray the costs involved. They don’t come close to covering the time, but if they can cover the costs of running the site plus a little bit more, I’m reasonably content.
Glenn, I just saw the new blue banner on the main page today for the first time. Nice addition. Makes it stand out. Kudos.
So, how about those of us who run (relatively) high-profile sites, forward the costs out of our own pockets, and don’t have tip jars? I guess we’re the really dumb ones. 🙂
Hey, it’s nice! The design is very grand indeed. My hearty congratulations, PAD, on the new look!