We Interrupt this Program . . .

So, the next installment of the ACLaBT series isn't going to be going up today. General Disasters. . . er, I mean GM, was keeping me busier than usual today, and I just didn't have the time (nor privacy) to sit down with the threat calculator to play around. On the plus side, I got to put in some time on improving the site itself today, and while I'm rather pleased with the results thus far, I have plenty more I want to try to get done today.

What I've Done:

First of all, with the help of Phaelia at Blog Azeroth, I've implemented cuts on my blog. What are cuts, you might ask? Well . . .

. . . Thats a cut. Just a nice way to condense the front page here. From now on, all you'll see when you first pop over to the Rambling Bear is an introduction to the posts, the actual meat of the articles will be behind links. Less cluttered and all. Oh, and I went back through everything I already posted and did likewise (Remember in school when your english teacher taught you to start every essay with an introduction paragraph? Sometimes it pays to listen to your teachers!).

Second. . . is actually what I did first. Yesterday, I signed up for a feedburner account, and set everything up for people to subscribe to the Rambling Bear as an RSS feed, or even through e-mail. So, while the option to subscribe to the blog was already there, its now in a more prominent location. Subtle hint? Perhaps.

Third, at the urging of the Blog Azeroth community, I have added a copyright notice to the bottom of the site. Can't hurt, eh? I'm not too fond of the appearance of it, though, but I'm too rusty with html/css/schwatever, and wasn't able to get the formatting looking good. I'll get back to it eventually, but honestly, with it hiding at the bottom, its not top priority.

Fourth, I went and adjusted the page widths a bit. The overall page is a bit wider now, and the sidebar is narrower, giving plenty of space for actual posts.

What I've Yet to Do:

First and foremost, I need to fix the images I'm using. Apparently, when blogger "uploads" a web picture, it doesn't actually upload a damn thing, it just hotlinks it off-site. Now that I've noticed this, I need to fix it so all of my images are local copies. Badwidth is bandwidth, and stealing it is bad, even if it's accidental.

Second, I need to figure out how I want to handle my blogroll. Right now, I have a short list of my frequently visited blogs (though even two of THOSE I'm not so sold on any more), and my guildmates' blogs. I want to keep my actual blogroll short, but also want to give a more extensive roll for all of the great blogs that are out there. I just have to figure out how I want to go about doing that, and also have to decide whether to keep my guildmates on the front page, or move them to the expanded roll.

Third, I need a banner. Badly. Unfortunately, my artistic skills are somewhere between 0 and none, at least in the graphic arts. I tried offering my guildies 100g to make a banner, but nobody's bit on that offer. Any suggestions for what to do in it are greatly appreciated. On the plus side, the mrs. does know a thing or two about photoshop, so I can probably get her to make it once I have the concept and some images to work with.

Fourth, I need to get item links working. I've tried to install the "Powered by Wowhead" item links on the site, but every time the script just makes IE toss errors around, even though I follow the instructions exactly.

Fifth, I need to work on the overall layout. While I'm more of a "Function over Style" sort of guy, if I want to build a community of readers, I need to at least have SOME sense of style. And style sheets. Ugh, again with the breaking out the books.

Anyhow, I'll try to get ACLaBT3 up tomorrow. Actually, no trying, I WILL get it up, even if I have to work on it until 3 in the morning to do it (Yes, I know, technically that would mean it didn't go up until Saturday, but timestamps are adjustable *grin*)