Nov 16, 2006

Sciencebase updates and sht

Posted in Geek, Science at 8:35 pm by David Bradley -- 1 Comment

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed, I’ve been messing around with the site again. I created a new shiny logo, which is hopefully a lot more attractive than the old flat one. I’ve added a much snappier form for busy visitors to sign up for the sciencebase newsletter, so they can get the headlines without even having to visit the site.

Similarly, the newsfeed (RSS) is now being rendered by Feedburner. That means no matter which browser you use or whether or not you have a news aggregator, when you hit the little orange buttons scattered around the site, a recognizable page will show up that gives you various options on how to subscribe (don’t worry it’s free) to the newsfeed. This gives you, the busy visitor, yet another chance to read the headlines (and in fact the complete text of each post) without even having to turn up at sciencebase.com itself for the privelege.

Also new is a “send-to-a-friend” feature. You’ll see that in the right-hand column under “SUBSCRIBE NOW”. I know it’s not really subscribing, more like syndicating, but you get the idea. Click that link and it fires up a little box for you to enter you and your friend’s details (don’t worry they’re not stored, it’s a transient box that just utilizes the guts of our content management system to send the link and details to your friend. After that, the email addresses are deleted without my ever seeing them.

Just below that little applet, is a simple javascript form that allows you to add our newsfeed to your personal choice of online newsreader, whether that’s your “My Yahoo!” (awkward phrase that “your my yahoo”), Google Reader, Bloglines, or your Rojo blogroll. You can also add the site to your Technorati favorites (please do, it will help keep the sciencebase site in Nature’s list of top science blogs!)

I also changed some of the site aesthetics. Hopefully, you noticed the banner-shaped photos (all my own work) and the thick black lines everywhere. These minor modifications to formating were inspired by the Cutline Wordpress theme. As was, the addition of the “previous post” link that appears above each individual post and the “recent posts” list in the right-hand navigation.

Finally, for now, I added a trivial snippet of code to the blog to make today’s date appear at the top of the right-hand column, just in case you’re visiting and forget when you are.

So, let me know what you think, am I getting things right, or would I be better off packing it in and going back to the lab?

Newsfeed