About the “Hot Headlines” section

First, thanks for all the feedback on the new blog design. I absolutely love how it looks here now. Totally different, totally fresh, easier to read (IMO), and the WP upgrade has been a dream so far on the admin end of things. The four columns were an absolute must for me. Thanks again mega– bunches to Lisa at E. Webscapes. She took my ideas and generic layout page that I had scribbled stuff onto and turned them into something beautiful. She also patiently put up with my countless emails! Thanks also to those of you who have contributed to my tip jar. Your donations helped make this design a reality.

Please continue to give me feedback on the site – positive or negative, either via the comments section here or email. I’m interested in what you have to say about the look and functionality.

Which brings me to the “Hot Headlines” section. I wanted something like that up because there are times of the day where I may not be able to blog about something and having Hot Headlines a good way for me to post a few quick links. You’ll notice if you click on the zeros on the right side of that section that it leads to a comment section for that news link. Please feel free to use that. My plan is that if people comment on one of the links, once I’m ready to take it off Hot Headlines I’ll move it to a category that will keep it in this section of the blog, so people can continue to comment on it. I may add my .02 as well once I move the article into a different category. If the article gets no comments on it by the time I get around to updating the headlines, it will now stay on the Hot Headlines archive page (I had previously been deleting them) in the event that someone wants to comment on that headline after I’ve moved it off the main page.

I’m still tweaking and fine tuning here and there. Again, please continue to express feedback and also let me know whether you experience any functionality issues. I think everything should be ok on that front at this point, but you never know.

22 Responses to "About the “Hot Headlines” section"

T-Steel says:

January 21, 2009 at 11:43 pm

E. Webscapes has designed two blogs for me and they always do a great job. Your “Hot Headlines” section really adds some nice interactivity. My wife’s personal blog uses something similar (except she’s only pulling entertainment news). But being able to comment on Hot Headlines is nice indeed. And I’ve been a WordPress guy since v1.0. Can’t go wrong with WP.

All in all, great looking and functioning site.
Sister Toldjah says:

January 21, 2009 at 11:47 pm

Thanks As a side note, I didn’t know you had a blog! I just added the link to my “Reader blogs” section on the right side column.
Severian says:

January 22, 2009 at 7:18 am

Great redesign. I feel all full of hope at the change!

I like the Hot Headlines thing, and the ability to comment. Hot Air does that, and it’s a great tool for quick hits of interest that still allows the peanut gallery to get their licks in commenting.

A fellow conservative friend of mine at work and I do the same via IM. We tend to have these short running commentaries back and forth during the day whenever one of us sees anything interesting. We get the same from our boss, but usually those are limited to car stuff, last one was the link to Top Gear’s test of the Nissan GT-R. Heh.
Bob Sykes says:

January 22, 2009 at 8:14 am

I’m running Firefox 3 on a Mac, and there is a big empty white space in the upper left hand corner of the first page. Is something missing? It looks like there should be a graphic there.
Sister Toldjah says:

January 22, 2009 at 8:34 am

Bob, are you talking about the uppermost part of the left side? Or below the header graphic?
William Teach says:

January 22, 2009 at 10:14 am

Holy Cow! I love it, ST. And you know I am a definite themewhore. I think I have done about 10-15 or so since I started on WP.

Where’d the Hot Headlines thing come from? Is that a plugin?
Sister Toldjah says:

January 22, 2009 at 11:42 am

Hi William -nope, that’s not a plug-in.
T-Steel says:

January 22, 2009 at 4:31 pm

Oh yeah, I have a personal blog ST. I’m going to write more there once I stopped getting slammed at the J.O.B. But being busy at work isn’t a bad thing at all these days.

William, E. Webscapes is WONDERFUL at creating original applications for a blog. When I first saw the section, my first thought was “not a plugin”. It matches the site too well.
teqjack says:

January 22, 2009 at 5:20 pm

May I add a THANK YOU for your font-size selection? At all too many blogs, over a third of the page is background color with no content while the text is what appears to be equivalent to printed 6 or even 4 point (normal book/news font size is 8, sometimes 10), so I have to “zoom” the page 150% and even then squint a bit. Zoom also has the unfortunate effect of often crippling cut-and-paste and web links.
ST says:

January 22, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Test
ST says:

January 22, 2009 at 6:33 pm

OK- the edit comments feature is working in Firefox but not IE. I’ll see if I can find the fix for that.
Dana says:

January 22, 2009 at 6:48 pm

Interesting: the site looks very different at work on IE 6.0 and at home on Firefox 3.0. I suppose it could be differences in screen settings.
2Hotel9 says:

January 23, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Your lookin’ good, Sis! I was “hoping” you would get email notification on your comment threads. Other than that it is really happening. I’ll link this to Froggy, perhaps it will bring him out of hibernation.
2Hotel9 says:

January 23, 2009 at 12:24 pm

OH!! And how was your Hopey Changemas Day?!?!?!? Mine was simply splendiferous!
Jerry says:

January 23, 2009 at 3:06 pm

I’ll ask if no one else will (and if it’s already been asked and I missed it my apologies): is the banner photo you or from a stock photography site?
Sister Toldjah says:

January 23, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Jerry, it is a stock photo. I had to take my photo off the site for security (and sanity) reasons. I wish I looked like her, tho! I doubt she just celebrated the 12th anniversary of her 26th bday
Lorica says:

January 23, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Dear, I have your photos saved to my computer hard drive. You are very pretty, and I you should know that we are our own worst critics. – Lorica
Dana says:

January 23, 2009 at 6:58 pm

Sis, I’ve seen your photo, and you look pretty good to me!

If I weren’t already married . . . .
Dana says:

January 23, 2009 at 7:01 pm

Our beautiful blogmistress wrote:

I doubt she just celebrated the 12th anniversary of her 26th bday

Yeah. Those of us who have celebrated five anniversaries of our fiftieth birthday feel your pain!
Dana says:

January 23, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Actually, isn’t that Stevie Nicks in the photo? If so, she’s sixty now!
Sister Toldjah says:

January 23, 2009 at 7:11 pm

LOL Dana – your birthday is this month as well?
Dana says:

January 24, 2009 at 11:58 am

Nope; on April 22nd, I’ll celebrate the sixth anniversary of my fiftieth birthday.

Actually, I simply put things into reverse at 39. My subsequent birthday was 38, then 37, etc. When I hit zero, I’ll know that I’m done. That makes me 24 now, and I’ll turn 23 in April.

Comments are closed.