• Myspace Feedflare Not Working

The Feedflare at the bottom of every post and in my feed that allows people to add me on Myspace is not working. The developer who made this flare is not directly associated with Feedburner and so help is few and far between. I just removed the flare from my Feedburner settings, but Feedflare being the testy beast that it is may take a while to update the change.

• New Labels Post View

I've already made a few changes lately regarding Labels. I added a listing by frequency using a drop down menu while at the same time listing Labels alphabetically. I'm not sure if this is Label-overkill for my visitors or if it makes things easier for them to navigate. According to my StatCounter log, it has made a difference in whether or not someone clicks posts based on a Label.

I also have the Table of Contents set up, but I'm not sure how many actually use it. The TOC is worth using if you want to browse my blog without loading entire posts or new pages. I recommend using the TOC over any of my other Label links.

The new change I just made should help viewers in the long run. Normally when you click on a Label such as techniques, the page that loads will list all 22 posts including the post content. If there are more than a few posts for one label as in the case of the label techniques, it will be difficult for someone to browse through all of the posts. I modified my template code to only show the post titles and dates and leave out the post content. I'll pay attention to the StatCounter log to see if people visit more posts as a result. My goal is to help visitors find what they are looking for in a timely manner before they decide to resort back to a completely new Google search.

See Only Show Post Titiles @ Blogged Up!

• Revamped P-Line Halo Review; New Posts Coming

My P-Line Halo review was comprised of bits and pieces of my first impressions followed by sequential edits. I felt this was not the cleanest way to present things and thought perhaps that I should rewrite things with a little more continuity. I have done similar things with other reviews in the past, so this is nothing new.

I have several upcoming posts to write. I have just recently written up three posts. Two of them are not on the Upcoming Post list and the one which is should be posted shortly via Blogger's scheduled post feature. The post that should be along shortly is my Merc Motor Tip. The other two posts are on replacing a rod strap on the V-18 All-Fish and on the Lowrance X37TX blinking "-4.0°F." Both are scheduled to show up in the near future. That'll give me time to do other things and work on a few other posts as well.

• Updated LFT Plastics Post

I updated my post on Lake Fork Tackle plastics. I cross linked it with a few posts such as rigging the LFT Craw as a jig trailer and my Back To Basics T-rig post. I also added more to the section on the LFT Craw Tube after having used this lure more.

A Few LFT Pastics
LFT Craw, Craw Tube, Top Dog Lizard, & Pig Claw

• New Layout

Some time in the last few days when I was fumbling around with those star ratings, a new feature Blogger is working on, I messed something up. Upon viewing my page earlier today, I witnessed the background color change from its usual tan to gray. In addition, a few fonts looked different and my visited link color had changed. In a panic, I dove into my hard drive looking for my most recent backup template. I couldn't find them. I'm not sure what happened to my backups from last month. I made one the other day when I messed around with the star ratings, but that didn't fix the problem.

I saved all my widget data offline and went to work on a completely fresh Minima template. This time, however I planned on making three columns keeping the blog posts on the left and putting two smaller sidebar columns together on the right. I've seen it on other blogs and I really liked that appearance. I started a completely new blog to test those kinds of things out on from this point forward.

I don't have a lot of die hard fans, so I don't think too many people will be confused the next time they stop by. Everything is essentially still there in roughly the same location, just shifted to the right or left. I think this look is a lot cleaner. I'm scared to mess around with those star ratings again. I don't want to have to go through all of this one more time. Besides, the stars take a little while to load and I don't want anything extra that delays my load time.

• 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.