Xatal

Yesterday i was reading Derek Semmler’s post about comments on blog posts, and I noticed he mentioned two plugins: CommentLuv and KeywordLuv.

CommentLuv I’ve heard of before — basically, when someone posts a comment, CommentLuv will find the most recent post they’ve made on their blog and display the title as a link back to the site. In theory, other readers will read the title and click if it sounds interesting.

KeywordLuv I’m new to, but from what I’ve read, it works like this: When you post a comment, in the name field you fill it in as such: <yourname>@<keywords for your blog>. Then, when your comment is displayed, it’s displayed with your name from your blog, where your blog is a hyperlink and your name is just text. This way, your links are linked with keywords (which helps with search), but it lacks the spam feel of just using keywords as your name.

Since I do believe in giving back to commentators, I’m considering installing one (or maybe both) of these plugins. Personally, I don’t care much for CommentLuv, but if you guys like that I’m definitely willing to install it.

So, as with any other decision, I prefer a democratic approach:

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Technorati Tags: blogging, comments

After much deliberating about which design to go with, I decided on this one. I liked all of them in one way or another, but I think this one provides a simple look for this blog. It’s a pretty flexible layout, and I’ll be able to make changes without too much trouble, I think.

Now that I have two sidebars, I was able to make some changes for the better:

1. Excerpts for recent & most popular posts. Now you can read at a glance the basics of what the most recent and most popular posts are about. I didn’t always put excerpts into posts, so if the list of most popular posts ever changes to an older post that doesn’t have an excerpt, it might look weird. I’ll keep an eye on it and add excerpts as needed.
2. Poll in the sidebar. Polls are always fun! I’ll try to add a new poll every so often to jazz things up. The current poll is going to be related to (what else) the redesign, to maybe get some basic feedback about it.
3. Ask a Question in the sidebar. My inbox has been empty lately! I’m always open to people asking questions about anything — high school, college, WordPress… anything at all. I put a quick input on the right sidebar so you can ask a quick question, should you feel like it.
4. Top Commentators in the sidebar. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but haven’t really had a chance. To go along with this blog being dofollow, I’ve decided to use a widget to list the top five (for now) commentators each month. These links will also be nofollow free, of course.
5. A changed e-mail newsletter. If you prefer to receive updates via e-mail, I’m now using a new plugin for that. The last plugin never really worked quite right and I gave up on the newsletter, but this new one will hopefully work better.

I’m not entirely finished with the redesign, but I wanted to bring the site back up as soon as I could. Over the course of today and tomorrow, I may be making minute changes here and there, but for the most part, the redesign is finished. If you have any opinions or feedback about it, I would love to hear from you!

For some reason, I always tend to forget that Xatal is not a normal word, but a name that I randomly picked for a domain a few years ago.

Even though I know how I pronounce it, I realized that not everybody pronounces it the same way.

Officially, it’s pronounced “za-tul”.

The “za” is a “z” sound with the “a” from “apple” following it. The “tul” is like the “tle” in “battle”.

Hope this clears up any confusions :)

So recently I unveiled several “beta” designs for Xatal. There, I explained that I was considering modifying the current theme. My main problem with the current design is that it’s just not very flexible — I’m limited to a sidebar and a main box, and my footer isn’t much at all. I’d like more space to be able to shift content around better as needed without having a sidebar that stretches for miles.

So I decided to work on the current theme and come up with a prospective modification, and here’s what I came up with. It, like the others, is not quite finished yet, but there’s enough there to give a basic idea of it.

Currently, the other design in the lead is Design #2, and Design #1 is right behind that.

I’ve asked around on several forums to try to get as many opinions as possible, and mainly it’s been pretty close amongst the three, with #2 slightly in the lead.

But you guys are my readers — not them! I want to hear what you have to say!

What do you want Xatal to look like?

So I’ve finally managed to make a few beta designs for Xatal. I’m definitely not a designer — and the designs definitely reflect this — but I am still semi-proud of them.

Like anything else that a person works on for a long time, I have a hard time seeing fundamental flaws with things, since I’m so accustomed to seeing it. That’s why I’d love to have some opinions from readers and other bloggers about the designs.

All of these are beta designs. I just want a general idea of which one to focus on. For whichever design is chosen, I would definitely spruce it up more than it is — adding better graphics, better logos, and so forth. I just don’t want to pour a lot of time into something that might not even go through. I just want a starting point. The content is all sample content, things would change on a real design of course.

Also worth considering is the option of keeping the current design, or modifying it in some way.

Personally, I don’t have any preference to anything at this point. So without further ado…

Keep reading »

In an effort to both increase my design skills and (hopefully) make this site look better, I’m aiming for a new look to the site.

I’m not exactly unhappy with the current style, but I would like a layout that grants me more space and is a little more flexible than the current layout.

I can’t say for sure if a new design is going to definitely come soon — I still have to come up with something — but it may be in the works.

If you have any suggestions or tips, I’d love to hear them.

Sorry about the downtime we had over the past few days. One of the servers that hosted this site had to be completely replaced, so it took a couple of days for that to happen. On the plus side, the server should be faster than ever now, which is always nice :)

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!

I realize I haven’t been updating much lately. For the most part, I’ve just been rather busy with school work and other things.

Mainly, I have a nasty habit of procrastinating, so when it’s the night before I plan to make a post and I have to choose between writing out a post or doing the homework that I put off, I end up choosing the homework and don’t have enough time to write out a decent post. Of course, my lack of time management is my fault and I do apologize for the infrequent updates. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to have a regular schedule.

That and I’ve been playing Fallout 3. A lot, actually. Fun game!