Website Changes 2021-07-12
- Feedburner / Google will no longer support subscriptions by email, so I removed it from the entire site.
- Updated a few things here and there to increase site speed, including removing unnecessary images, like the email and feed icons.
- Added a new family photo to the main and about pages.
Website Changes 2015-11-16
- New family photos!
- I've kind of forgotten about this page!
- With the recent announcement about Google Reader ending its service, I've had to make some changes to the website. We used to have little posts on the right that had interesting, relevant topics, but that will not longer be available.
- I'm considering deleting the combined feed that has both Entries and Comments. It relys on a Yahoo! Pipe to combine them, and who knows, that may end too.
- I also recently modified how users can comment on Entries, removing the ability for anonymous posts. Most of these were spam, anyway.
- I also removed a couple of other social links on the right pane. They just weren't used.
- New family photos!
- I forgot to enter the last few changes!
- I changed the About page photo a long time ago.
- I'm slowly converting to Blogger's new "pages" for all of these static pages that are not really journal entries. I have to replace all the links, so it's tedious.
- Updated the photo albums in the Media (Photos/Videos) page and the albums drop-down menu.
- Updated a ton of links.
- Updated the photo of us, using a photo from Concerts on the Square.
It's been a while!
- Removed the Followers gadget until further notice. The gadget has been causing errors in Internet Explorer.
- Added the "Followers" widget, and messed around with it a bunch. Decided that messing with it was a big pain, and I should just leave it as is.
- Changed the Subscribe button to link to a bookmark in About. I also removed links to the Google group because I think it may be confusing.
- Redesigned the layout for the About page to make it easier to read and to link to using bookmarks. I also added an email subscription box to the Subscribe section.
- Expanded the Recent Entries and Recent Comments sections so it's easier to get to the links.
- Re-organized the Photos/Videos page, including links to the photo albums.
- I think there was more, but I keep forgetting to write it down...
- Converting video to YouTube, since Google Video is shutting down.
- Added links to photo albums in sidebar.
- Expanded shared news items.
- Re-organized external links.
- Added graphic and link to CFF site.
- Added links to security sites.
- Converted feeds from FeedBurner.com to FeedBurner.Google.com, since Google bought out FeedBurner and is transitioning feeds to their locations.
- Changed the photo location, again.
- Updated many, many photo links.
- Updated videos, which were having problems, probably due to Google Video.
- Edited certain entries that had missing image files from external sites.
- Checked the entire site for broken links.
It's been a while since I've updated this, so I may have forgotten some things I've changed...
- Updated the About section in the sidebar and the About page.
- Changed our feeds to our own site location at feeds.kyrachris.com.
- Attempting to add a new sitemap that includes the navigational links for the site. No luck so far. Our current sitemap is the journal feed, which does not include the navigational links because they are set to dates before we started writing the journal to avoid complications with new entries.
- Added the Histiocytosis Association of America graphic and link.
- Removed the navigation bar from Blogger and added a link to Blogger in the Site Information section of the sidebar. The official opinion from a Google employee is that the navbar is not required.
I can't remember everything I've changed since last time. This list is what I've changed today.
- Changed all (or nearly all) graphics (not photos) to a new location. If you find a broken graphic, please let me know so I can update it.
- Switched around the search field to go under the Find heading in the sidebar.
- Removed the Calendar page, as it showed a "congratulations" even though we haven't had the baby yet...
- Changed some info in the Site Information sidebar.
- Updated many, many links.
- Website Location: We changed the website location to http://www.kyrachris.com/ by purchasing the URL with Blogger's Custom Domain service, which redirects http://kyrachris.blogspot.com/ to the new domain, provides Blogger services, and manages the domain for us. It costs only $10 per year to register the domain, so it's really cheap. And it's so much easier to tell people the address with the "blogspot" part.
- Added a "Guestbook", which is just a generic page for people to write comments. I'm surprised that people actually think they need a separate service for this. Blogger can let you do all sorts of tricks to create pages. All of our "navigation" or miscellaneous pages (non-entries) are back-dated to February, 2008 so they do not interfere with the usual journal function.
- Modified the navigation links. Updated the Photos link to say "Photos/Videos", since now it includes videos. Added Guestbook link. Also changed the "Subscription" link again to include the email subscription. The "Home" link is greyed out when the reader is at the homepage.
- Added an "Announcement" sidebar for wedding photos and videos. I'll take it down after a while. We will probably use something like this later on, too.
- Added and updated the Recent Entries and Recent Comments drop-down menus. I created a page to show the most recent 10 items of each, linked in each drop-down menu as "More...". I also added a Recent Entries section on each specific entry page.
- Updated site-specific links, including the ClustrMaps map, which unfortunately resets the entire map. Oh well.
- Ads: Just to note, I did not change the ads at all, but they are not yet appearing on the new site. No one clicks on them anyway, so I guess it's not a big deal. The ads had been working just fine, and they were very relevant, too. For example, on the "Favorite Baby Names" entry, it had links to sites about baby names or baby products.
- Modified navigation links, removing unused/unnecessary links. Changed the Subscribe link to a link to the feed.
- Highlighted the Home page when the reader is at the home page. I would do this with the other navigation links if I could figure it out. I've tested some code, but it hasn't worked.
- Moved the Little Prince quote to just under the About sidebar.
- Dropped the "Share" part of the sidebar.
- Added Google Translate tool to sidebar.
- Minor tweaks to other sidebar gadgets, including new links to Firefox 3 and the Mozilla Store. (I'm the proud owner of a Firefox hat!)
- Changes the Statistics sidebar to Site Information. Added useful links about the site.
- Created a section for Google Ads. Still awaiting approval.
- Converted the comment section of the blog to the inline comment form. Additionally, I modified the links that direct readers to post comments or read comments. I also switched the Categories and Comments/Sharing lines around.
- Added a text-only and alternate text-only version of the entries.
- Modified navigation links
- Updated baby calendar so it works
- Changed sidebar sections to promote subscriptions and sharing
- Removed blogroll
- Added "Interesting News" and "Interesting Writers" sections
- Moved Recent Comments to bottom of journal entries
- Added Firefox 3 banners
I've changed a lot since last time. Here's the list of changes I can remember:
- Add a navigation link bar below the journal title.
- Created a series of pages for the navigation links.
- Removed wedding countdown.
- Moved the baby countdown to the baby calendar page.
- Merged Archive, Categories, and Subscriptions in sidebar.
- Remove help drop-down menu. It is located in the Subscriptions page now.
- Removed the Related News section. It is now on the Miscellaneous page.
- Updated Related Links to Important Links, since most are internal now.
- Added some new site statistics features. I still haven't found an adequate counter.
- Added Changelog to footer.
- In two past entries, replaced two photo links to albums with slideshows.
Website Changes 2008-05-05
Here are some more recent changes:
- Added an "About" page and made the about section appear only on the homepage. The counters only display on the homepage, too.
- Changed the display of the Recent Entries and Recent Comments. Now the sidebar shows a quote, the author, and date.
- Converted many of the sidebar links into drop-down menus, including the archive, categories, feeds, and a new help menu.
- Added an external link graphic. I plan to add this to all links, if possible. I haven't been able to make this work yet.
- Removed the StatCounter site counter. It wasn't accurate at all.
- Added a Creative Commons license, although the license graphic I chose is not displaying for some reason. I converted it to a different one, but I'm not sure why the original wasn't working.
I added...
- Countdowns for wedding and due date to top of page. These may end up being miscalculated, since I cannot directly control them.
- Feed images with links to archive, categories, and comment areas.
- Per-category feeds. This was rather difficult, and I might be able to submit this addition to the category list as a new tool.
- Search engine for the site. It uses Google Custom Search.
- Text to the email subscription submission field. It wasn't JavaScript, but it was somewhat difficult to find.
- Footnotes with copyright information and links to subscriptions.
- I also added a new site counter, but it isn't very reliable. At first I displayed it, but it wasn't matching the Google Analytics results.
- Adding this neat feature I found today. It shows pictures in a window that overlaps what you see. Take a look at this site for an example. Click on any of the albums.
- Revising the entire CSS code for the site. There's a lot of fluff and odd formatting I don't like and are not necessary, so I'd like to remove it or revise it.
- It would be cool to have the sidebar menus hidden unless you click on them. I think JavaScript could accomplish this. That way, readers can see all of the menus and can open what they want to see.
Website Changes 2008-04-10
Here are some more changes:
- Finally figured out how to add colorful lines in between posts (yellow!). Wow, that was hard to find.
- Added nifty little email graphic to three hyperlinks for sending emails (one at the end of entries, one at the bottom, and one in Subscriptions).
: ) - Finally figure out how to add | in between the Comments and Email to thingies. Good grief that was difficult to find, too!
- Removed the "Subscribe to Posts" at the bottom of the page since there's a section for subscriptions.
- Moved the author line to just below the post title for easier identification.
- Remove the big ugly date above the titles. I never liked it there.
- Fixed the poll size. Looks like it's going well. Tried to display it only on the main page but gave up. I'll close it in a few days anyway.
- Found new links for news feed help. They're better than my hacked page.
- I'm going to attempt to add "type email here" in the email submission box. I think that requires JavaScript...
- Added Google Analytics code. I'm watching you now. Actually, it's really anonymous and kinda boring. They don't have any neat things to add to the page... at least that I can find.
Website Changes 2008-04-08
- Moved Notes section
- Added "Recent Comments" section
- Updated Subscriptions section with images
I've been working on the layout of the website for our journal, and here are some of the changes. Feel free to leave comments with suggestions for changes.
- Updated "About" section and integrated relevant journal entries into description.
- Created a "Notes" section.
- Will add a link to "Website Changes" label in About.
- Changed "Important Links" to "Related Links".
- Moved email subscription box to Related Links.
- Moved the "Baby Names" to a journal entry.
- Changed "Other Journals" to "External Links".
- Added Chris's shared news items, journal photos album, and cute Firefox banner links to external links.
- Added a poll, which will expire on April 17th, to the top of the journal entries. I will post the results in an entry once the poll expires.
- Added some new categories. I'm not sure how useful my categories are, so some feedback would help. (I'm using "Categories" as a synonym for "Labels".)
- Readers can subscribe to receive new journal entries by email. (Look under Related Links or at the bottom of any page.)
- Journal entries are organized by both date and various categories (aka labels).
- There is a category for each author to help find entries written by that author. There is also a category for entries with photos and other media. Or, readers can use the link to the album to view the photos.
- Readers can comment on any journal entry. Go to the bottom of any entry and click "Post a Comment".
