Xatal

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!