New Look BLOG for main website

[Hot Trout]

Using the dedicated forum (here) I have started to work on replacing the original google blog from the main site. The new BLOG uses the posts from our forum to populate its pages. The beta (non public) version can be found here, please note that this is just a test blog at the minute and as such a bit rough round the edges.

http://www.theoldcomputer.com/blog/index.php

To date I am unable to get the embedded images working. Will update you as I get more coding done.

[Guest]

A great idea I think.

I know you have more coding to do and im sure it will turn out fine, but some things I noticed:

1)
Special punctuation like -- ' -- looks likes: -- ’ --
This is not the only punctuation but just the first one I noticed

2)
I wonder if it might be a good idea to limit the length of some of the stories because some of the blog entries take up lots of space but limiting it and linking to it (if it needs to be cut off) would provide more page room and less scrolling.

3)
Your embedded picture issue obviously that you mentioned.

4)
Possibly a background behind the text to make it more legible.

Thats all I really have right now. Ill give more feedback if I think of anything.

Kudos

[crustyasp46]

A great idea I think.


2)
I wonder if it might be a good idea to limit the length of some of the stories because some of the blog entries take up lots of space but limiting it and linking to it (if it needs to be cut off) would provide more page room and less scrolling.

I have been trying to educate myself on doing blogs, and making the blog easier and quicker to read is suggested in many of the articles I have read. So I will keep that in mind when doing future ones.

Guest shorter

[Hot Trout]

I have made a number of changes and I think we are almost there. I just need all the images changed from inline to IMG (Crusty knows what I am talking about), then we should be ready to go live.

What do you all think?

[JAHGoVeg]

me thinks its a good idea!

[Guest]

Much more better.

At the bottom of the page it shows the link to go to next page or choose which page to jump to "1, 2, 3, 4,.. Next" -- It looks really funny cause it sort of overlaps and its transparent. I would prob throw a background behind it to make it show up.

I still see funny random characters in place of common punctuation. Not sure if this can be fixed. If you actually go to story they disappear.

Love the little bird guy!

Great job!

[Hot Trout]

OK Update,

The encoding problem has been solved, I forgot to use utf-8 for the page build , its fixed now. I might be able to get inline images working but for now Crusty, please change all images to the upload IMG type as discussed.

[Guest]

Fantastic. Im pretty satisfied now.

Just curious to know though how to get the pics inline. I know it means to use the img tag but do you want us to use the direct links to outside websites or is there a way to get them to host on TOC. I looked at one of the blogs that was working and it said the pic was comming from some folder in TOC so I was a little confused. It was posted by you so that means you have access to the sites files but just was lookin for some clarification.

EDIT: Ah, just remembered something. I have the page full screen right now and it is just a hair too wide, if you know what I mean. There is a scroll bar at the bottom of the page. The computer im on right now has a resolution of 1024 X 768. My home laptop is at 1600 x 900. If it bothers others then it would be pretty easy to change the static width of the blog column and that would get rid of the scroll bar. But it also doesn't hinder my reading at all. Like I said, its just something I noticed

[Hot Trout]

I will fix the width thing. Yes, I am asking Crusty to upload all images used to a newly created folder. This will allow him and I to better control the images and URl's.

I have also made a banner for the blog and made some more display changes. I think we are nearly ready to go live with this.

[Guest]

Lookin damn sexy right now!!