Honeyed Words: June Site News and Updates

June Site News and Updates · 13 June 2007

I have a confession to make. I’m a bad blogger.

The unspoken creed of the blogging community is that “Thou Shalt Participate!” (better known as “Show me the link loving!”).

I know, it’s been almost six months since I started this blog and I have no excuses. But, I just don’t have the time I would like to read around and sift through the millions of blogs out there. So, I’ve cheated a bit. I’ve linked to several of the really popular blogs, which I do read, and a few of the newer smaller blogs that I’ve started reading recently and want to spread the word about.

Expect my blogroll to change. It’s titled “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. . .” for a reason. It isn’t intended to be the end-all list of blogs that I like, or even blogs that I read. It’s just a list, and I don’t want it to get 400 items long, so I’ll be swapping things around. My goal is to have an unabridged list up on del.icio.us by the end of the summer, so absolutely no one gets slighted and I can share the linky love as is my blog given duty.

In other news.

I cleaned up a few small things on the site that have been bugging me, icon placement, messy CSS, etc.

I changed the format of how readers will access book reviews, and included a list of books that I’ve read since the inception of this blog. You can check out the new page here or by hitting the “Reviews” link at top. I installed the Library Thing Widget on this page, because I’m a sucker for pretty book covers, but (as you’ll notice) I’ve only got 4 books up on Library Thing. Adding more is a project for another day.

I finally tackled the format for leaving comments. It took a lot of poking around, but I think I’ve beaten the Textpatten tags into submission on this one. The text box is bigger, the styling matches the rest of the site, and I get a special color when I post! One reader noticed that he didn’t submit a few comments after viewing the preview. I tried to address this by removing the “Preview” function, but I think I’d have to write my own plugin (beyond my skill at the moment) so I’ve added a reminder on the preview screen to hit the “Submit” button so your comments get posted, and not just typed up.

I’ve also updated the social bookmarking options at the end of each post. If, by any chance, I’ve excluded your favorite site, let me know. I’m using this very handy Textpattern plugin, which supports many more sites than I chose to clutter my articles with. But . . . I can be bribed! For a limited time, all you need do is post a few comments on the actual blog, then make your request here and if I’ve got the capability, I’ll add your site. (Yes, that was a caveat that I won’t be adding sites of people who just comment to get their site’s button added).