Just in time for the new school year, my blog has had a makeover. Before, it looked thus:
In the current Movable Type (MT) 3.31 version of my weblog, the Zoomclouds tag cloud and Flickr flash button that were formerly on the right toolbar are no longer. This may change, but I’m presently distracted by some of the new features.
The feature I’m most excited about trying out are the tags. Tags serve to classify and organize weblog entries in an alternative, more emergent way to categories, which tend to be predetermined. They do this by providing metadata that enable us to find a particular entry or find related entries. I’m not sure how tagging works in between or amongst blogs, but I suppose that among aggregated blogs like those in GRAIL, it enables online graduate students to find others who share their interests beyond the boundaries of a course, if they tag their entries specifically enough. I tag regularly in Flickr, for example, and I’ve received emails from people from around the world whom I have never met who also love pug dogs or knitting, and who have shared their photos of these things. del.ici.ous is another social bookmarking tool that I’ve played with.
On the aesthetic side, there are also styles that I can apply to my weblog to give it some individuality. I applied the one called “April Showers,” though I don’t think it is a radical departure from the default style.
Another feature I’m interested in is to see how well the new MT version eliminates spam. In the old version, my email inbox became inundated with alerts that I had spam comments on my weblog. Out of exasperation, I started asking readers to obtain a Typekey identity to post comments. This is what it looked like then:
The new version of Movable Type allegedly provides a higher level of security against trackback spam, so nice people who visit my blog are able to leave me comments easily once again.
Leave a Reply