Wednesday, July 13, 2011

New Look for Mizz Information

You may have noticed that suddenly, this blog looks totally different. I started tinkering with it when I switched from the old commenting platform I was using (Echo comments) to Disqus. Why did I switch? Because Echo recently started charging $10 a month and since this blog is only for fun and not a money-maker for me in any way--not to mention the fact that I barely ever get comments--the idea of paying for a comment platform was just stupid. I wish I could use Livefyre but for now it doesn't work on Blogger. I talked to someone from Livefyre at BlogWorld NYC and I believe they said it's coming soon for Blogger...but maybe that was just wishful thinking? That was such a crazy two days that I honestly can't remember.

At any rate, while I was debating over whether I should just migrate the blog out of Blogger to Wordpress so I could use Livefyre, I admit that part of me was curious to see what new features the "upgraded" version of Blogger included. I then discovered that Blogger users can upgrade now by using Blogger in Draft. So I did that, and while doing so, figured I'd change my template while I was at it. I'm sad to report the number one feature I was hoping Blogger would include in the upgrade would be the ability to opt to have links open in a new window from the text editor....but sadly, you still have to do this by messing with the html. Which is why my links usually don't open in a new window...I usually just don't take the time to go the extra mile to go insert a bunch of 'Target="blank"' tags after I compose a post.

Anyway, since I've recently taken to reading books via the iPad Kindle app in bed and appreciating the black screen/white text feature I figured I'd try it here. Not sure if I love it, and not sure how readers like it--how do you like it?

One good thing about switching to the new template--it allowed Google's "share bar" to show, something that didn't work using my old template. So now I don't have to have separate retweet and "like" buttons at the bottom of every post, and I have a +1 button.

So there you have it...because I know it was killing you not knowing why I'd suddenly changed the look of Mizz Information! Please let me know if this black background/white text is really annoying; I'm personally on the fence about it.

UPDATE: Thanks for the feedback! Apparently black background with white text is only good for reading in bed; I've reverted back to white background with black text. I don't love the background image or the color green, but it was as good as I could get customizing the free template. In my next life I'm going to pay someone to design me an actual logo and non-out-of-the-box blog template.

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