From the minute I opened my eyes this morning it’s been one long battle with the Asshole, whose plans for me this weekend were rather at odds with my own. I think it’s been brought on by the fact that we got a new TV this week after the old one went kaput, and in days gone by that would have meant a weekend full of me laying in the armchair taking advantage of the new cinematic experience.
I’ve got to admit, it’s a monster. With my usual vague stab at measurements, I ordered the new one on-line whilst I was at work, mentally estimating the size so I could replace the old one with something similar. Lets just say I was a cock-hair or two out in my estimation, in the same way that all those years ago when Charlie dog moved in as a cocker spaniel puppy he ended up with a dog bed that could have comfortably housed two Great Danes.
Anyway, it’s here, and our living room now looks like the IMAX cinema. And as I pottered downstairs this morning I would have sold my granny to be able to curl up in the chair with an armful of junk food and eat my way through a day at the movies. God I can’t even tell you how badly I wanted to do that. It was never going to happen of course, but I needed to find something to occupy my mind and my hands as insurance against letting the Asshole talk me into it, because I swear he’d have been pushing on an unlatched door.
So, I’ve been tinkering…
I’ve blown out the useless blokes with spanners, and finally identified a new and better email subscriber programme which will actually work . It’s got to be better than this crappy widget that I’ve had to constantly keep propping up with manual work-arounds over the last 6 months, right? I reached the end of my rope yesterday when even my manual workaround didn’t send…the air in Skinny Towers was blue!
If you are already on my subscriber list you don’t need to do anything…I can transfer the details, so from tomorrow you should start to get your skinny mail again. Lets all keep our fingers crossed that this one is more reliable than the last!
For those of you with eagle eyes, you might have also noticed a long yellow box towards the bottom of every page which appears to be filled with nothing. It’s a box which will eventually house some advertising – before you groan and chuck something at the screen, it’s a bit of an experiment. I was curious about whether I could grasp the concept of coding to make such a thing appear. And it seems I could…get me!
For now, I’ll run with it as pot luck targeted advertising, and even I don’t know what we’re going to get. Apparently they try and match the content to what we’re talking about in the blog so I can’t wait to see what they make of us lot. If it’s intrusive or annoying or I just don’t like the look of it once it gets populated with stuff I’ll take it down. Ultimately I’d like to select myself what appears in there, but I’m quite picky and none of the stuff I’ve been approached about has passed my quality test…
And finally if you make it right down to the bottom of the page, past the post and any comments I’ve extended the list of recent comments for those of you who like to go back and check-in with what’s on everyone’s mind, and I’ve added a tag cloud which shows what we talk about the most. I’ve never added ‘tags’ to my posts so I’m retrospectively doing that now…it might take a while to get to them all!
There’s also a new pop-up box which asks you if you’d like to share what you’ve just read…I’ve set it to appear at the very bottom so it it doesn’t piss you off as you’re trying to read, but as always I appreciate any social media shares to help us grow our community.
So, tinkering done, Charlie dog walked, no long and frustrating conversations with a bloke clutching a spanner at some call centre at the other side of the world waiting to be had…that’s me done and off to the cinema in my living room without the junk food! Enjoy your weekend, whatever you’re up to 🙂
Decided to quit lurking and throw out a comment now and then.
I’m having fun following your adventures, and trying to translate UK to American!
Haha, yes someone else said I write with an English accent! You’re very welcome to the chatter, and I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog 🙂 I have a lot of shy lurky folk in the Posse and I love it when you pop in to say hello 🙂
Hi! Well, I am ferreting around every little work-around I have ever figured out… Is there a Sunday post? Was the giggle-worthy video it? No ‘words’ alas, so no whiz-bang format or advert. E-mail notification has a list of posts, interesting… but no link-thingie.
Fleury
AW sorry Fleury – it’s the timing that has confused ya! It works a bit differently than my old skinny mail in that the auto email comes out once per day at 7am Eastern Time, irrespective of the time I post. So when the email comes out, it will have a link to any of the posts I have published in the 24 hours since the last email…I post early evening here, so in the email you get first thing tomorrow morning, you’ll find the link to the post I will publish later today. In a couple of weeks, I will be able to change the time of the notification email, and then you’ll get it around the time I publish, without the time lag but he’s still building what I asked for!!
I received my email at 6:17am central time. I’m usually 6 hours behind you but last night we put the clocks forward so unless you put yours forward too I will be 7 hours ahead of you temporarily.
The only difference I noticed was the yellow box on the right of the screen and the pop up box about sharing. Hope that helps. Oh and the comments thingy.
Hey Jo, it’s so cool to know I have a notification service that actually works! I can’t begin to tell you how much the old one has done my head in!! The timing is lagged a little right now, but I was just explaining to Fleury that in a couple of weeks’ time I’ll be able to override their default time setting, and arrange for it to go out around the time I publish, which will be better. But for now, it works 🙂 🙂 🙂
Tinkering with the look of my blog is always fun, but i don’t do it enough. As for the advertising, i do follow a few blogs that have ads and it never bothers me. Everybody’s got to make a living, and you don’t know they have a business if they don’t advertise.
I don’t mind them if they’re around the edges and there’s only one or two. What I dislike immensely is boxes getting in the way of what I’m trying to read and I guarantee that won’t happen on here! I’d be curious to know what you guys actually see – I see a blank box on the actual posts, in fact I only see content on the front page before I log in. I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m not allowed to click on my own adverts (let me tell you for someone who’s driven by curiosity and a strong need for control it’s making me a little crazy!!) or whether it just hasn’t got going properly. I guess like everything else I’ll figure it out 🙂
The TV is like a magnet for wasting time! My hubby wants to get an outdoor cinema to put near the spa, but I realise already that would be the end of my doing anything around the house!!!
Oh my goodness can you even imagine! I’d be in there 24/7!!
I’m sure you are more acutely aware of the changes you make to your site. I don’t notice much difference. I get my notifications that you have a new page up on Google and Facebook, so I can’t tell you how the email thing works or doesn’t work for me. Funny though, I could just see you with some planks of wood, a screw driver and some nails and screws trying to assemble something. I thought, “What’s she up to now?” Ha ha! Tinkering with the blog. Gotcha!
It’s a fair cop! 🙂