I published my first interview today over at BloggerTalks.com and the lucky recipient of my interview questions was Christina Warren. As you read the interview, take note how she became involved in the blogging scene. I find it particularly interesting that she received a position at USA Today based on her comments alone. I wonder if it is still possible in this day in age to get a writing position based on your comments.
commenting
CommenTag Promo Video
Here is a promo video I found on YouTube for CommenTag.org A service that lets you organize the discussions on your blog, otherwise known as comments. The system looks like it will be interesting to use and will be in private beta on January 1st, 2008 Midnight GMT.
There is very little info in regards to the company on their own website. At any rate, the thing that is stopping me from using something like this, or DisQus or any of those other commenting system replacements is that, I’ll have to start over. Unless you guys know of a system that integrates with what I already have so I don’t lose all of the comments that are already published on the blog, I’ll be sticking with what I have.
Highlight Blog Author Comments
For a long time, I’ve been looking for a plugin that would change the commenting area for the blog author so that regular commenter’s or visitors would be able to tell at a glance when the author of a post or blog replied to a comment. Thank goodness the search is over. Thanks to the recent mention on the WeblogToolsCollection blog, I have found Highlight Author Comments.
Highlight Author comments was exceptionally easy to install. Once you download the plugin, unzip the contents to your desktop or a folder of your choosing. Upload the highlight-author.php file into your plugins directory and activate the plugin.
The plugin options were located on my install by clicking on the OPTIONS link and then HIGHLIGHT COMMENTS. There is only one configurable option for this plugin and that is the CSS styling. This is where knowing CSS helps. All I wanted to do was change the background color of my comments. Here is a screenshot showing how I did it.
The plugin homepage actually contains a few examples of CSS code that you can edit, copy and paste into this box. One thing worth noting is that you don’t need to place a { or } at the beginning and end of your CSS. The plugin does this automatically.
I have this plugin installed and running. You’ll notice my comments now have a shade or two darker grey when compared to everyone else’s comments. I think it’s a good plugin for every blog to have. It’s nice to browse through a post that may have 100 comments and being able to pick which ones were from the article author at a glance. It also let’s visitors do a quick Who’s Who.
I suppose I can set my unreplied forum topic requesting this plugin to RESOLVED. Thanks goes out to Rob Marsh for creating this plugin. I and many others really appreciate it.
Jeffro2pt0.com Undergoes More Updates
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I have had an inkling to change some things around here. Some of those things include the commenting system. Not only did it look like an eyesore, but it lacked a few features that I have been wanting to implement for some time now. I have implemented SezWho, a plugin and service which highlights user reputation. Users can rate your comment up or down which after a period of time, can be known as your reputation. Readers of this site can now minimize or maximize individual comments, sort comments based on ratings and rate each other, including me. I’ve also completed some design work which is not entirely finished. I still have a couple more design tweaks I would like to do before I can consider this area of the blog done.
Over the weekend, I decided to try out the idea of having a shoutbox. I realize the word SHOUTBOX is so 1990′s but it’s still one of the easiest ways of leaving feedback without having to go through a series of steps. Check out the chat area on the sidebar on the right hand side of this site and leave a message. This is just one more way of allowing me to have two way communication with the readers of this site.
I finally added a little bit of information to the CONTACT ME page. I’ve added some text before the contact form and I’ve also put up a list of other services/networks that I have an account on in which you can get in contact with me. So far, there are over 20 ways of getting in touch with me. Please don’t use them all at the same time :)
That’s the realm of updates for now. I’ll be finishing up the rest of the changes tomorrow with a follow up post letting you know what’s up.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 