• New Feature

Blogger In Draft has two new features that caught my eye. The first is Star Ratings. Below each post, a star rating should show up so visitors can rate my posts. I like the idea, however it can easily be abused. I tried inserting the code, but the ratings didn't show even after resetting the widgets as instructed on another site. I will wait for this add on to go public before trying it again.

The second feature is something I think many bloggers have been waiting for. It's an embedded comment form. The comments form can now be arranged below the post on the post page instead of on a second page making it much easier for visitors to post comments. So far it looks like it works. I made a test comment and somebody tried to spam twice, but I rejected their comments.

Since these features are still in draft, they may not work as expected. Let me know if the comments form confuses you or rubs you the wrong way.

• Now Subscribe To Comments

Visitors can now subscribe to the comments feed. Scroll down and find the AddToAny subscription widget and pick your feed manager of choice to subscribe.

Why subscribe to comments?

If you make a comment and would like to keep track of any additional responses from other visitors or myself, subscribe. You'll be able to instantly get up to date information on responses and also to new comments. Let me know if you're using it.

• Upcoming Posts Are Done & Scheduled

Four upcoming posts have been written already and are scheduled via Blogger in the following order.
Local Tackle, Spooling Tip, Split Shotting, Bass Weight Calculations

If you haven't noticed, I'm getting close to 200 posts. By the end of this week, I will have 202 posts. I'm not planning anything to celebrate having 200 posts. I don't think it's that big of a deal. It just means I need to start coming up with more things to write about. Easier said than done it seems.

Enjoy!

• Subscriber jump?

Somehow the number of subscribers on my blog jumped from 26 to 40 over a few hours. I'm not sure how that happened. I know I added the addtoany subscription button to my page. Now Feedburner is reporting 25 subscribers again. There was only one "uncommon use" listed and that came from Blogcatalog, which isn't the least bit uncommon. I did notice the Technorati search bot was visiting a little more frequent. All I can figure is that addtoany somehow triggered a feeding frenzy, pardon the pun.

• Some Fixes & Changes

I fixed a couple of things and am about to add something new. First off, I noticed my comments links were messed up. When one comment was posted, it still said "1 Comments" plural, not "1 Comment" as it should. Fixed that. My Recent Comments feed script is hosted off-site by a third party and it stopped working today. I said forget all that and found code to actually do it myself. So now my Recent Comments actually look better and I'm listing the seven most recent instead of five.

Blogger has just introduced a new add-on for Blog Rolls or Blog Link Lists. I'm going to give it a try and see how it looks.

• Revamped Pflueger Summit Review

I went back through and revised my review of the Pflueger Summit WLP baitcaster. I've taken the sequential edits from the bottom of the review and integrated them so that there is a little more continuity to the review. I've also reworded the review to reflect the high speed reel playing field at the time I purchased the reel and put it into context of the current offerings from Pflueger, including the new Patriarch and the Cetina LP. I still have to add a few links, but for some reason, the Pflueger web site is timing out on me.