After much blood, sweat, toil and gnashing of teeth, I’m pleased to introduce the new Intublog! What’s new? Plenty actually, and I really think it’s going to make this site a whole lot better for you.
I’ve created an entirely new site: www.intublog.com, that is running on the WordPress blogging app. You’re visiting it right now. This new site has many advantages for both you, the reader, and me, the blogger. It’s hard to know where to start in describing the changes, but I think a key feature that will make this whole thing more useful is the implementation of commenting. It’s useful for me, so that I know what was a hit and what was a miss, and it will allow for a dialog and follow-ups for everybody. I encourage you to let me know what’s on your mind – there is so much we can learn from each other!
Clearly another important feature will be the RSS feed. I’m using these a lot now, as I suspect a lot of other busy people are. For those who aren’t familiar with RSS, it’s a way for you to be aware of updates on a blog or news site without having to actually check the site, through use of a RSS reader. I use NetNewsWire as my reader, but there are many, many out there, including browser or email-based options. If you’re using RSS, just click the link at the top right in the navigation bar and you can add Intublog in a flash. If you’re not using RSS already, now is the perfect time to start – it will save you a ton of time every day.
WordPress has allowed me to implement a tag/category system that will allow for easy sorting of posts if you’re looking for everything about a certain topic. Just choose a category from the list at the right and you’ll be served all the posts in the category. If you want to find a particular item quickly, just use the “search all posts” field – seek and ye shall find. If you want to see if I’ve posted anything today, or any other day, check the calendar at the right, days highlighted in blue are days I’ve posted, and are links that will take you directly to that day’s posts only.
When I started this blog on my www.intu-design.com site, I had it set up as a two column affair: left-hand column for long-form pieces, right-hand column for shorter “links” pieces. As you can see here, I have abandoned that practice as a noble, but flawed concept, and have adopted the much more common practice of putting all content in a single column, in reverse chronological order. I intend to continue publishing both types of post, but will mix them together freely. This is much easier for me to manage, so I will likely post more frequently and thus there will more often be something new and interesting for you to read. I’ll aim for a minimum of one long-form piece per week, and hope to post short-form items most days. This new site structure will definitely allow me to spend more time writing and less time coding HTML, that’s for sure!
I’ll probably spend the next few weeks fine-tuning the bones of this blog, so don’t be alarmed if things look slightly different from time to time. I’d really appreciate your input on what you think works,and more importantly, what doesn’t…hey, you can now use the comments to let me know!
Thanks for reading,
Stewart
