1/6/08
Well things are getting a touch better I hope. We are so much closer to the lil idea I had in my head. That should scare you all. Thank you for all the great feedback and for the suggestions. It always amazes me how something so simple to one person can completely pass over another. And hey what author wants to pass up reviewing a review site *g*.I wish I could say it was all perfect now, even if it just made sense to me, it seems if there is a way to screw up a blog I do it. For a while there we thought it was FUBAR. And that made me a sad, sad duckie. I was treated to repeated disbelief and amazement at just how badly TGTBTU was set up. How the files were not in the correct places. And how could I think this was the right way to do things and on, and on, and on. Uh huh and you were feeling badly for the pig. sheezeLucky for me the pig and the geek speak greek to me so it was rather easy to tone them out. Alas my blank stare was lost on them over the internet but hey what do you do? BUT Teddy is THE PIG! And our FUBAR seems to only be a SNAFU. So with a lot of work, fowl language and a pig developing a drinking problem… The Good, The Bad and The Unread should soon be a thing of beauty. And stop changing back to that default template.No really, we will have a clean install and awesome code that works with plug ins that are all shiny. The fact this makes me sqqquuueee with joy is a very very sad thing. Or worst case the pig and the geek will not be able to beat down the awful which was the code and we will crash and burn. And then there will be plan B.
Regardless of what happens, the duckies will rise from the ashes, so no worries if we disappear for a bit. YAY back up(s)! The geek and the pig have been amazing. Beyond amazing. LOL even while bitching *g*. So even if all is lost, I have nothing but thanks to them. And to Gwen, Lawson, Alicia, Sandy, Bev, Devon, Nikki and Connie for putting up with me, coming up with some amazing ideas and keeping that whole blog content thing happening.
If I owe you email, know I am not ignoring you and that you are in amazingly awesome company. I had to decide if I stuck with a blog that would never work right or take a chance of losing everything here, which has been an amazing amount of fun and work for a tons of people. Along with the possibility of a SHIT load of copying and pasting… and this is after about four straight days of work by two people so not getting paid to do this.
In the end I decided that keeping the blog unstable (there is serious irony there) wasn’t an option because if the files were already as screwed as they are and omg big I don’t think we would have made it through the end of the year without crashing. We gots plan man and a ton of nifty happening.
So cross your feathers and hope the shiny survives but either way everything is zen and the show will go on. And will never, evah, evah change templates again. No really, I mean it this time… stop looking at me like that!
While the heavy lifting is going on, you really shouldn’t see any signs of it, well unless that crash and burn things happens. What can I say, I am here to bring fun, books, excitements and ducks into your lives. So look for a new shiny banner, the template to stop flipping every ten seconds, columns to be wider, categories shorter, everything search able, and tons more *g*.
Oh and if anyone knows how to keel the fucking smartquotes that have YET AGAIN returned to plague teh blog, you just might save a life. Since it would be mine own because it is possible I will drive teddy to stuff me in a trunk with my bitching about it, I am really all for suggestions.
1/4/08
oops… I sort of messed it all up but it looks like it is all better now. But just a warning… it will happen again. So if things look really funky… give it a min and it will hopefully be fixed. Quickly 🙂
BAD Note: until teddy I can figure it out, you can not ‘see’ the comments or leave a comment unless you open the post… teddy I am working on that :)Things might look a touch wiggy but I couldn’t wait….
I mean why do a test blog make it all perfect and THEN make it live when you can completely fuck things up repeatedly, change your mind, learn how to do stuff and allow others to point and laugh.:) so depending on when you hit… the gods only know what we will look like but we are almost there… only now there is that whole re thing. As in re doing categories, re doing tags, re doing post format, re re re.
OMG look at the shiny!!!!!!!!!!!! So tell us, what do you lurve? What do you hate? What doesn’t work? What confuses you? Is the color loud or too purple? Click on the title of the post that will open where you can comment…. did you already know that? Or was it just a certain doll of a reader who couldn’t figure it out *g*.
I off to work. Don’t worry about it if you hate it, feel free to tell us. Really. I have lusted after this design since March of 07. And we gots the skilz to beat it down and make it our bitch. Well not really but we know people who do, and that is all that really matters.
Oh we will be switching servers too… cuz that nasty ass SUSPEND thing. Good = it will stop happening. Bad = it cost way more than sane people should spend on a hobby (as did this template) and it will mean some down time.
But when we are done…. it is gonna be sooooooo nifty shiny. Well it will amuse us and that is all that really matters right *g*. Now I must force myself to go to work on 3 hours of sleep…. see ya!
I know~! lisabea isn’t that just the most omfg nifty shiny? Seriously I want to marry that template.
Laura J
Do you mean the current posts that are here? Those will all go into the nifty shiny new template in nifty ways. And I am all for sucking up to the great one. As long as he gets the nifty shiny to work *g* otherwise dude I am gonna whine cuz tis would be cruel to get my hopes up only to kill em. A duckie can only take so much you know 🙂
It rocks, Sybil. ROCKS! We are smart girls and we’ll adapt. I swear.
Teddypig, uh, have you had any sleep in the past week?
Looking good, bay-be!
Honestly, I think it looks to busy. Maybe I just need to get used to it.
The way it works is to click on the post and comment, there’s no room (and it’s not in the template). Sorry.
The site looks like most newspaper websites. Very professional! 🙂
It looks good. As with most things that change, it will just take some getting used to. Actually, I have ya’ll in my favorites and when I clicked here this morning, I was like WTF??!! Then I realized you’re changing formats. I’m a little slow early in the morning!
I can see why you’ve lusted after it – ’tis- very nice!! And after advising to actually click on the particular post – now I can comment !
Thumbes up on the new look – this is one of my favourite colours – this shade of mauve.
But are we back to two columns again? I could have sworn this morning there were thee – of course there still might be – I’m at work and have it very small.
D’oh – OK I get it. There are 3 unles you are in post mode – then there are 2. Just ignore me.
Me no likey. Sorry. I find it kind of annoying to navigate, but I’ll get used to it.
Yes, those hobbies do get expensive, don’t they? Sell out, put advertising, recoup the cost. 🙂
Test is comment emails working
Too many columns for me and it just seems a tad too much. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually though.
It’s purty. And I lurve the fact that the featured video is from my all-time favoritest band in the world, U2. *g*
I can see that it will take a little time to get used to the new look, but I like a challenge. Bring it on!
We keep Teddy chained in the basement and he likes it like that. So really… tis all good.
omg devon I think so!! We are going to have so much fun this year with this…
Chantal we are working on that ;). There are going to be cuts that make less text show. There are a few things I wanted, goals for the site so to speak…
Fun… it needs to amuse us, it is too much work, time and effort to not enjoy it. And for a while I was still having fun but I didn’t have that OCD running on high. Every new thing I wanted to do I stopped to think is it too much, will it move too fast, will readers miss it, does it kill the review exposure. So forth and so on…
And I have always been a category whore. Honestly it is sad, I think I have never met a category I didn’t like ;). Things are in place now where wordpress and the revolution magazine theme force me to give up my category whoredom. So right now all those you see in the sidebar will go way, way, way down.
My idea, that I hope will translate ::crosses fingers:: is a reader blog that allows for me to post my book alerts (to my hearts content) and tell everyone about books I think look nifty, stoopid, like we must lust after, coming from my fave authors and just general what the hell is this.
I can post excerpts for books that sound interesting to me that I think would be fun talk. We can do the events and such we have planned for 2008 without thinking that amazing review that went up at 1am is going to be buried? Will anyone see it?
It will also allow a better format for the guest authors days, line weeks, guest posts, contests and Duck Sauce. All while letting us be silly when we want to.
Each category will have very clear things as to what will go there. And depending on the day… some will not move. We ::cross fingers:: are aiming for 3 reviews a day 4 if we have a 10pm erotica or erotic romance review. Right now they are showing all? the text or I think they are… but we will be doing cuts and such.
So really it isn’t too much more content than we already had, but in a clear easy to find way. LOL once we are done.
Or maybe it will be all fucked to hell and not work. 🙂
What do you guys think of the video? I am thinking toss it.
Thanks katiebabs! I want a feathery, professional feel to it. LOL I mean really… how serious can you take duckies *g*. I have been lucky to randomly put together such an awesome group. Sometimes we are silly, sometimes serious but I don’t ever want us to be stuffy.
It’s busy, but I like that there’s lots of stuff. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to navigate, and it loaded very quickly.
some of the comments are still on the other blog…. don’t ask…. but if you are wondering that is why
they will be back here at some point
I think 🙂
I like it, takes a couple minutes to get used to 🙂
Yes i am moving all the comments one by one very slowly but we have them all… give me some time
I must be here during an update. It’s all plain blue.
Looks like the template is down? Site is plain blue and no more ezine format.
I want to wear a tshirt that says
Free Teddypig!
But not really. Looks great. I love that I can see all the new reviews on a single page and not scroll, scroll, scroll.
I will need a banner that sez:
No Pigs Were Harmed in the Creation of this Blog
I have the perfect pic for it even.
To be honest, I have not yet begun to drive teddy batshit. Ok I prolly have but most of the coding shit has been done by the geek (who I refuse to call roadkill, WHAT the kind of name is that? sheeze). The geek understands the greek which the pig speaks and alllllllll goes over my head. We are almost done sort of… but not really. And I am really hoping at the end of it they are both still talking to me.
Well the geek to lawson cuz I have really never spoken to him anyway.
Me? I get to pet the shiny. Purdy purdy shiny.
But you know you have always been able to get the reviews on one page. Just hit the category review. It was a link as a page on the old site as well… and I was gonna put it back. But hell, did anyone even know it was there? LOL
But you know you have always been able to get the reviews on one page. Just hit the category review. It was a link as a page on the old site as well… and I was gonna put it back. But hell, did anyone even know it was there? LOL
Have I mentioned that I’m slightly retarded?
*runs away to hide*
Hey! The blog looks different everytime I come here.
I liked all of the information on the redesign but it was a bit busy for me. I had one of those “information overload” moments but then got over it. Whatever you end up will be fine with me. I’m excited to see the end product…bet you are too 🙂
le sigh… when I saw your comment I knew it had flipped back. Part of whatever evol, bad bad thing I did when wordpress was first installed flipped out the servers when we tried to move. That would explain the really screwy not happy sybil making url.
Until Teddy can make the servers happy (or the geek – I am not really clear on that part but lucky for us all it isn’t me) I can’t get my domain. Sniff. And for whatever reason when this was set up (I think user error) the domain it should have been didn’t ‘take’. And was snapped up and is now spam. This really fucks with my happy zen place so we shall not think about it.
The template will prolly freak the hell out of people at first, really though how is that different from any other visit here *g*. But it makes perfect sense. This means it is very possible it only makes sense in my head.
What you see right now (if it is purple, the one column blue thing is teh evol that must be destroyed) is pretty close to what I wanted.
The Right Column is the Review Category. I think right now it is displaying 3 reviews. We post 3 to 4 reviews a day. It was always a fear that reviews got lost, so I could do less events, guest posts, guest author days, contests, info posts, upcoming books and general shiny that makes sybil happy.
But lets face it, I blog because it amuses me. So cutting out things didn’t work for me. This allows those reviews to stay up all day, which makes us happy. Then if we post a contest it would go in the ‘event’ box which still needs a name (top middle). I wanna post about a wonderful upcoming western coming out in six months – bottom middle in the Coming Attractions. All will display in the right hand column like a blog showing the five most recent posts.
There will be an RSS feed for all the posts so for the many peeps who read off their readers will get everything just like normal. We are going to most likely have a category for the year that will not display but will be clickable for those readers who want to bookmark it. That will show all posts for that year in a two column blog, like you see now if you are reading this at the blog.
The people who visit daily will know the reviews will be new (hopefully) but everything else is p for grabs as to when we update it. There won’t be more posts really, just a better way to display all our mayhem so people don’t miss out on the nifty.
Or just cuz we amuse easily. So I could be making sense only in my head and wouldn’t that be sad. LOL