MGoBlog has moved. The new site can be found at MGoBlog.com

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Yes, things are different around here. I've finally moved to the new Blogger. This brings with it some neat features:

  • Functional archives that don't take up epic amounts of space.
  • Convenient feed integration.
  • The ability to list all the labels I've started using (and badly need to organize).
The new template I'm using has some other features I may or may not get around to deploying.

You'll note a second sidebar. It was necessary to cram in the other stuff I want to get up and going. At the moment you'll find my last five Fanhouse posts plus something I'm calling "mgo.licio.us," which is basically a constantly updated list of things I come across that may be of relevance to Michigan fans with some brief commentary. Some of these things will end up in UV, but some may not -- there's always a bunch of stuff that gets buried and then is no longer timely. Hopefully this will put a stop to that. I also plan to create a similar widget that highlights recent comments of interest.

In the totally cosmetic department, there are now nice rounded headers and footers on all posts. These employ the transparency features available in Firefox, IE7, Opera, and Safari and are broken on IE6... but how broken I don't know because I haven't figured out how to test IE6 on this machine that already has IE7. So, if you're one of the approximately 35% of people still rocking IE6, please inform me if the resulting breakage is unreadable or unattractive and I'll get on it.

There's a bunch of broken crap. Working on it. It's really late. So I'm working on it later.

26 Comments:

Anonymous said...

doesnt relate, but have you seen marques slocum's facebook profile, its a must see for everyone

Anonymous said...

I agree. The profile is truly amazing in a negative way. The site looks good, Brian. I viewed it late last night as I was testing a bunch of Firefox extensions, and I was like, WTF? How could this site possibly get changed? But nice work anyway, and good idea on the sidebar widgets.

Anonymous said...

Any way to make the post title font the same shade of maize as the text in the sidebars?

I also liked the yellow highlighted boxes around quoteblocks.

Hooray blogger comments, boo word verification, though it will probably significantly delay SoJ from posting.

Anonymous said...

Am using IE 6.0 on a work computer, and while the screwed up headers are just annoying (they are yellow on a white background), the new footers do indeed cut off the end of every post. So yeah, that falls under unreadable.

Anonymous said...

Mgoblog always loaded very slowly from my work PC (I have no idea why, considering the fact that I work for the corporate devil and thusly have an awesome Internet connection ... a problem that's been isolated to Mgoblog ... maybe it's that angry, Michigan-hating God thing). This new version loaded up in an instant. Me likes.

Looks great, too.

susieandrew said...

ie6 on my work laptop. yellow headers on white background is annoying, but i can live with it. the date at the top of each post for some reason does not show up. i have to highlight it to see it. the post has not been getting cut off at the end for me, as far as i can tell. ie6 truly is wonky with all this newer-fangled technology.

ps. i hate times new roman. arial? verdana? any random sans serif? please?

Anonymous said...

I'm having the same problems as Andrew with IE6.

colin said...

Marques Slocum rocks out with his CAPS OUT. Can there please be a Unverified Voracity: I DONT DO 2 MUCH OF DAT edition?

Anonymous said...

copy & paste andrews comment here

colin said...

AN. Stupid indefinite articles.


Anyway, I also have issue with the font, whether too small or not the right one, I don't know.

Anonymous said...

I also experienced much faster loading (I had occasional slow load times at work and at home). And I also would like to see the return of the yellow quote boxes. I can't say if the font is problematic, since pretty much everything is smaller than I'm used to on this machine (13-inch MacBook).

Overall, new look: A+.

Anonymous said...

One other thing: I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but it seems like I have to go through the word verification procedure twice, even if I get it right the first time. I've had this problem with lots of blogger sites. Am I just weird?

PeckHorn78 said...

Looks OK with Safari on my Mac- loads faster, too. Will take a bit of getting used to...

Anonymous said...

Using firefox 2.0.0.2 when you click on one of the label categories thee headers come up yellow on white.

Anonymous said...

(I think blogger ate my comments, unless there is a delay now.)

Help! I am afraid of things which are new!

I think the layout is well, kind of ugly. A little too busy perhaps. Also the asymmetry between left and right is unsettling.

I liked the yellow quote boxes, you should bring those back.

(I had to do verification twice also. This is probably not your fault.)

Anonymous said...

Wow, the site looks great! You should definitely bump up the font size, though - too-small fonts are a problem the intarwebs over, and your site was always above the fray. Also, a second vote for bringing back the yellow quote boxes!

Anonymous said...

Oh, and anything you could do to make the main text area wider would be a plus for me. Feel free to ignore any and all of my ideas. But hey, its feedback.

Anonymous said...

To run IE6 and IE7 on the same machine, try Virtual PC. This works pretty well but it requires a reasonably powerful machine.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/03/20/ie6-vpc-refresh-now-available.aspx

Dave said...

I must have IE 6 at work here since I'm having many of the same issues. Unfortunately, I don't have the permissions to so much as install a new flash plugin, so I will probably be hosed until whenever IT decides we should get IE 7.

Also, I detest Blogger's native comment system. Haloscan is so much better.

Anonymous said...

I, too, find the blogger comment system to be comparatively cumbersome. The rest of the blog looks great (Firefox 2.0.0.2), though I agree that a wider main body is a good idea (and I think a necessary one when it comes to UFR).

Oh, and here's another vote in favor of yellow comment boxes.

Anonymous said...

Hey Brian, awesome updates. I especially like the mgo.licio.us and "Brian @ AOL" stuff. I'd also agree with above commenters about making the colors match a little more, changing the font to Verdana, and bringing back the yellow quote boxes.


Also, if you're still looking to fix transparency issues with IE6, what if you just used HTML if statements with the CSS?

That's what I do on my site -- but you're the computer engineer, not me.

Anonymous said...

is there a reason you removed the links to michigan message boards?

Brian said...

font, width, and blockquote issues should be resolved. IE6 will be a while. The missing sidebar links are coming. I think I might be switching back to haloscan... but maybe not. Dunno.

Anonymous said...

Did the permanent link to the 08 recruiting board i the sidebar go away? I can't find it.

Anonymous said...

1 vote for Haloscan.

Anonymous said...

Definitely Haloscan!