• Mobile Viewing

Some time in mid-December, Blogger enabled mobile versions of templates in Blogger in Draft. What this allows is a more refined layout for anyone who visits a blog on a mobile device. The mobile template does not obey all of the theme trends, especially in a custom template like mine, so it reverts to a simplified version. At least it places my header at the top. If you blog on Blogger, to access this feature at this point in time, visit draft.blogger.com and go to the Email & Mobile tab.

I know browsing my fishing blog can be a somewhat cumbersome task on a mobile device, especially with the busy sidebar that I have going on. The mobile version does have a link at the bottom to allow visitors to view blogs in their full versions, but for the mobile readers out there, this smaller layout should suit you well.

Here's a screen shot of of the preview Blogger generated for me. Clicking the arrow takes you to a mobile page view of the individual post.

• Facebook Maintenance, Working on posts

My Facebook profile is currently being held hostage by Facebook developers as they perform "maintenance." I get the classic screen showing that my profile will be back up in a few hours. Even my Fan Page is affected. It's been like this since early this afternoon, so it is obviously taking more than a few hours to deal with on their end. It's one thing for a personal user to have no access to Facebook, but as a blogger, this puts the screws to my ability to communicate with readers.


In terms of posts, I am still working on my Bandit 200 series review. Looks like a post on the Big Bite Baits Biobait Trick Stick might come out before the crankbait post, so keep in touch. I know I've been quiet lately. Lots going on in my life at the moment. I apologize to my regular readers for the delays. It's been hot here and I've been less than enthusiastic about fishing, but the water is also dropping, so the shallow stuff isn't holding as many fish.

• Gettin' Shifty, Added Skype

I shifted some stuff around the top of the blog this evening. Hopefully no visitors were confused at any point. Subscription links are now at the top of the page along with the Feedburner counter (even though Feedburner has been wonky lately). The Statcounter and TopFishingSites banners are now side by side. Everything else is essentially unchanged, although I did move the Outbrain code to the top section at the end instead of having a widget in the sidebar. Because I switched from ratings to recommendations, the Most Popular widget really serves no purpose. Since it was still loading in the sidebar, my Twitter feed was getting pushed down a little bit. Now with the Most Popular widget gone, the Twitter feed should line up evenly next to the Blog Archive.

I made a Skype account for the blog. I'm not sure how useful it will be, but seeing as how everyone communicates using different platforms these days, it only makes sense to have Skype covered. Not only will people be able to find me easier, but now I should be able to talk to anyone live should they desire such interaction. In addition, should an interview opportunity ever arise, regardless of the direction of the questions, I'll be ready. Video-wise, it will be easy for me to illustrate certain things to anyone who has a question.

• Fishing Game Test Post

Found this searching Google Gadgets. Make sure you click the ? symbol for help. Left and right arrows move the boat. Up and down arrows move your line. Watch fuel usage. Catch a limit. Good time waster.

• Some modifications

I was getting frustrated with the header image because the text just didn't look right. While that text in my header has drawn a lot of fire in the past, I continue to feel that the message needs to remain clear. Can't lose sight of what got me blogging in the first place.

So the new header lightens things up a bit. I gave it a slicker look with a different font of a lighter tone. I moved the text down to the next section of the blog and kept the heading simple. Added a cool little Dem Donkey image with Photoshop to kick things up a notch. I also tossed in a customized Louisiana license plate with my handle. When put together as one, I think the new image has a lot more punch, visually.

When I moved the other text down, I ended up shifting the "Getting Around" section down too. That left a huge hole in the html table to the right where I keep links to social networking, popular posts, and my upcoming posts list. I didn't like that empty space, so I scanned my sidebar for two items that would fit. I could have moved the section related to star ratings over, but that would have required some rehashing of the table tr's and td's (for those of you familiar with html). I just didn't have the patience for it. Moving short items from the sidebar up to the top was just easier.

Since I get visitors from other countries on a fairly regular basis, the Google translate widget really is more ideal when located at the top. Then I moved the Snapshots code up too. While the Snaps section fits, I'm not sure if the script will run properly. Hopefully it won't interfere with other javascript on the page. I've had trouble with the Outbrain ratings not loading from time to time and sometimes the Snaps script itself drops.

That's all for now.

• IE 6 Layout Problems Fixed

I periodically check to make sure my site loads properly in other browsers. My blog did not look right in IE 6. Although Internet Explorer 6 is an outdated browser, many visitors appear to still be using it. Even some government computers still have IE 6 installed. Because a significant number of visitors are still using IE 6, I figured I had better investigate and fix one problem with my layout.

Here's what was happening. The sidebar on the far right of the page was getting shifted down and out of alignment with the rest of the site. After doing some searching, it appears IE 6 does not render certain Blogger layouts properly to begin with. That's the price you pay for using an outdated browser.

However, I wanted to make sure this was the case, so I fiddled around with my template.

Being a Mac user on an equally outdated PPC system, I don't have access to a PC running IE 6 to do any tests. I have to resort to third party browser preview services like NetRenderer and Browsershots. Under IE 7, IE 8, and Firefox for Windows, my blog showed up fine. Under Firefox and Safari for Mac OS X, everything looked fine too.

So after diving into my template, I checked the sidebar width settings. Nope. That wasn't it. Being the tinkerer that I am, I expanded the width of my outer wrapper. Low and behold, that fixed it.

Hopefully visitors see what I see now.