Asking the Wrong Questions

No sooner do I wish for more variety in Blogger's available templates than they create a new tool to do just that and stock it with quite a few fancy-looking options.  The result of my tinkering is before you, which for me is a feeling not unlike the experience of leaving the hairdresser's five minutes after getting a shorter-than-you-expected cut.  Good?  Bad?  Somewhere in between?

I've made some much-needed changes to AtWQ's layout and functionality.  Not, as this post's title would suggest, to the extent of changing the template--I'd like to, but none of Blogger's other default templates are appealing (I don't even like the default version of my current template, which has a completely different color scheme) and I haven't got the HTML know-how (nor the visual sensibility) to write my own--but still some substantive changes.  Comments, suggestions for further improvements, and other thoughts are welcome. I've replaced the blog's search feature with one powered by Google which, unlike the previous one, seems to actually work.  It claims to be able to search outgoing links and the blogroll, but so far these features don't seem to be working and I may remove them. I've added a recent comments application to the sidebar (after trying Blogger's default widget, which doesn't have the option to display the post t...

I seem to have found a tentative fix for the problems with the site's LJ feed. Right now, the solution seems to be to switch the RSS feed to short entries instead of full ones. I personally find this less convenient when reading other sites, so I'm going to keep looking for a better solution.

Those of you reading this blog off its LJ feed might have wondered why I've been so quiet this past week. Apparently, LJ thinks I'm fat. Neither of the entries I posted this week--a joint review of Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly and Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain , and an entry about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Heroes --have shown up on the feed, and the excuse seems to be that they are 'too big'. Yeah, I'm sure that's not going to keep causing problems.

At Niall Harrison's request and with his kind assistance, AtWQ's comments feed has been syndicated on LJ . Speaking of LJ syndications, I'm aware that the site's main feed has been spamming people's friends pages with an extended backlog. I apologize--I have no idea why this happened or whether the problem is with the RSS feeds or LJ. I'll keep an eye on the situation--hopefully these are isolated hiccups.

With no small amount of trepidation, I've made the switch to Blogger Beta: Everything Wordpress Can Do, We Can Do Better or At Least As Well (We Hope). There are several new features that I've been clamoring for, mainly post categories (see sidebar) and a comment feed . Also, obviously, a layout makeover, which I think we can all agree was long overdue. I'd be very happy for some feedback. Is the new layout pretty/ugly/in need of some drastic changes (I can change the color scheme rather easily and may in fact end up doing so)? Are there any categories I've missed or that I should get rid of? Should I syndicate the comment feed on LJ? For that matter, which is preferrable--a site-wide comment feed or individual comment feeds for each post?

It's been three days since either the main site, the forums, or my user site responded at all, and I think it's time to admit that my beloved StatCounter is dead, dead, dead. Which leaves me in need of a new stat-gathering service, and so far they've all been depressingly awful. I gave Google Analytics the old college try, but it's clearly oriented towards business users and drowns me with useless information while ignoring or burying the data I need. For example, it only lists referrring sites by the root directory, which might make sense if you're running a business, but when trying to engage in a coversation, there's a huge difference between a person clicking through from anybody.livejournal.com and someone coming from anybody.livejournal.com/friends, or between a person who clicks through from a blog entry posted six months ago or this afternoon. So, does anyone out there have a good (free) website statistics service to recommend? I'm looking for somet...

One year ago today, I published AtWQ's inaugural post. I had no idea what to expect from this endeavor, but I don't think that I could have imagined that the blog would draw as much attention as it has, or that it would lead to my writing appearing elsewhere, in online and print venues. Niall Harrison SMSed me about an hour ago to say that a quote from my Strange Horizons review of Maureen F. McHugh's collection Mothers and Other Monsters has been used as a blurb on the paperback edition --a timely illustration of how my life has changed in just a year. So, one year later, I would like to say how grateful I am, to everyone who has dropped by, commented, pointed to this spot, or become a friend. I hope I continue to find favor.