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J-O Eriksson's blog


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Improving the Community Server Blog

For those of you reading my posts from the web page, rather than through RSS, might notice that I have done some small changes to my blog.

First I've tried to make the top menu a bit clearer. So for instance I renamed the item 'E-mail', which could be seen as 'E-mail subscription', especially when it is next to the menu item 'RSS 2.0'.

The 'RSS 2.0' is also renamed to subscribe, and behind it a whole new page describing the different subscription methods available. I know most people knows what RSS 2.0 means, but as there are other subscription options I thought it would be good to consolidate them into one menu item.

The former 'Media' menu item I renamed to Screencasts, because that what it really is, nothing else. A bit more clear in my opinion.

Also I've tried to restructure my ad-parts a bit. I know not all of you agree that ads on a blog is a good idea. But I think if it's done well it can add value to both the reader and the blogger.

After reading Scott W's post about SnapPreviews, I also added that to my blog. You can see it in action if you hover over any link (excluding Google Ad links) on the blog. It shows you a small preview of the page the link points to. I have not decided yet if I like it or not. What do you think?

Lastly, I've added a text line at the end of each post, where readers can directly subscribe to my blog. Readers are the reason, for me anyway, behind writing blog posts. To be able to contribute to and communicate with readers of my blog. Subscribing to a blog via different methods is an important part of getting new and keeping existing readers, so it should be easy and obvious how to do it.

There it is, that's about all the changes I have done for now. Feel free to give any feedback on the changes. If there's any interest, I'll write about how some of these changes are implemented.

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Posted: Sunday, November 19, 2006 10:38 PM by J-O Eriksson
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Comments

jayson knight said:

Those are some nice touches, and I do like the SnapPreview addition...I recently blogged about a firefox extension that does something similar in concept. IMO the "snap" is a little small on my 16x12 res screen...is that customizable? If so I may take it for a spin as well.

# November 19, 2006 10:55 PM

J-O Eriksson said:

Thank Jayson,

I don't believe it is customizable. All you get after registering is a small Java scipt to implement on the page. And there's no parameters for width and/or height there.

# November 19, 2006 11:49 PM

Dave Burke said:

J-O, I like the SnapPreview, but I was wondering.  Is is configurable so that only certain links show the preview?  For all links it can be a little distracting.

# November 20, 2006 11:20 AM

J-O Eriksson said:

In current implementation you just get a java script like

< script defer id="snap_preview_anywhere" type="text/javascript" src="http://spa.snap.com/snap_preview_anywhere.js?ap=1&amp;key=[MYKEY]sb=1&amp;domain=joeriksson.com">< /script >

I've put it in the LayoutTemplate.ascx, so it only works on my blog links, other that that it seems it a littel stale on what you can config.

# November 20, 2006 11:34 AM

Community Server Daily News said:

news of the day a grab bag for what's happening in Community Server J-O Eriksson is a genius. While most

# November 20, 2006 3:00 PM

Thomas Freudenberg said:

I just want to announce that I added Snap Preview to my blog. But unlike Scott and J-O , I enabled them

# November 24, 2006 2:34 PM

Sachin Misra said:

J-O,

Nice search UI. How cutom is it? Are you willing to share it?

Sachin

# January 1, 2007 10:27 PM

J-O Eriksson said:

It's a script from Windows Live using the Windows Live search engine. If you're interested I could look up where I got it. Just send me a mail via the contact form of my blog here.

# January 3, 2007 7:35 AM

Community Server Bits said:

J-O makes a few changes to his blog, including the addition of SnapPreview, a widget that displays page

# March 12, 2007 5:08 AM
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