I Broked Sommert

Very quickly: I had a message this morning that images were not displaying properly - for some reason the were appearing behind the template. I tested it in Firefox, and it seemed fine. Tested in Chrome and Internet Explorer, and lo-and-behold, images clicked on displayed behind everything...

I'm not entirely sure why it was happening, but it was something to do with the "Lightbox" image display feature. So that is now disabled, and it SHOULD be working properly now.

I will get on to the Template designer and let them know. Thanks Sue for letting me know :)

Fingers crossed it's all fixed now!

Finished!

For the last couple of hours, I have been sodding around with 0ddness. You may have noticed, if you've logged on here at any point and seen random blog widgets smeared across places they shouldn't be.

As usual, I've not done the template myself, instead finding one on the internet somewhere. I don't know enough coding to be able to do it myself, and because I can never describe what I want nor how I want it, I have to make do with the offerings others have created.

The one I used earlier WAS nice, but the more I looked at it, the more plain, bland and boring it seemed. Not to say this one is exciting, but it's neat, it's smart, it's tidy...

I can't do busy templates, after all. If it looks cluttered, I can't deal with it - and while I am not the one that is sitting here reading it, it still annoys me.

The current one, however, I DO like as it is all lined up neatly and tidily. The previous long-term one (the black with the squiggly blue lines) was nice, but it had a few errors that I couldn't live with any more - a line out of place, and the columns not lining up properly.

Search for OCD on here and you'll understand ;)

A few things have changed, not greatly, but enough. All the "Find" and the "Subscribe" sections have been merged, and to add to the pretty, I've got each services' icon at the same size. Yes, there are two Facebook Icons - one is for ME and one is for 0DDNESS directly. Also on there is email, twitter, tumbler, and an RSS feed. The search box is also relocated up the top. I've removed a load of Blog-Catalog type badges as the traffic they steered my way was - at best - limited.

Who knows, one day someone may well stumble upon my blog and offer me thousands of pounds to write for them in some form, but I am not holding my breath.

As before, all feed back is appreciated, and any mistakes you can see, point out please! Now, I have to go to bed - I am exhausted, sore, grumpy and need sleep - but have had a few rough nights so am up later than usual to try kick things a little into place.

Template Changes (The Revenge)

If you're not reading this on the site directly, you won't know what I am talking about.

If you ARE reading this on the site directly, then it's pretty much a moot point.

Either way, I have fiddled again, and changed my blog template. No, I am not too worried if you like it or not. Yes, I am happy with it for the moment (literally, this moment) but I don't know if I am going to keep it.

Plus side, it's clean, simple and I like the neatness of it. Downside, it's a bit... well, dull I suppose. However, it is a "fluid" template, in that it should resize properly depending on your screen resolution... I know some of you still use 800x600 so the previous template might have been a little "squishy" but this should be better.

If not, my advice to you is get a new computer, fast...

If you find any errors, please let me know. If you have any thoughts on the new template - positive or negative - then let me know.

One day... One day I will find that perfect Just-Right-For-Me template, and will stop doing this at random.

He says, hopefully.


EDIT, 9 minutes later...
I changed my mind already, I found a nicer one. No, it's not fluid, but much prettier.

Malware Warnings...

A quick note: Thanks to The Shortest of The Short, Em, I discovered that 0ddness has been throwing up warnings about Malware infections...

After a bit of digging, a bit of sleuthing, a bit of Googling, it turns out that a Blog Catalogue I've been a member of for years has had lots of "issues" of late, and has been flagged up as a source of Malware, Viruses and other unpleasantness.

In order to err on the side of caution, I have removed the offending button from the site. Everything I've read has confirmed that, at no time have people visiting 0ddness been in danger of infection or anything else. The only reason you've been getting these warnings (if at all) is because your browser or anti-virus software has seen the link on the page, assumed it was dangerous, and blocked or popped-up a warning box.

With the nasty button now rotting in a ditch somewhere, hopefully those of you getting the warnings will no longer see them.

For what it's worth, I do take visitor security seriously, and all images and what-not are hosted somewhere safe. There are no ads, no pop-ups, no sales stuff on here that can be compromised. I don't have any nefarious cookies placed, and everything on here is put on here under my control.

Granted, nothing online is ever 100% safe, including you, but I do my very best to prevent nasties happening to you while reading my inane ramblings.

Thanks again, Em, for pointing me in the direction of the warning. And thanks everyone else for reading :)

Construction: Done!

After goodness knows how many years of 0ddness having the same template, and how many years of being bored with it and going to change it, but chickening out at the last minute, I have finally done it.

It has to be said, it wasn't a hard thing to do - all the new Blogger templates and oojamiflips* that you can fiddle with now made it mostly easy and virtually painless, and aside from a few issues here and there, I can safely say it is finished.

I like it.  That is saying something to be honest, as quite often I change it, decide I hate it, then either revert it to the original one, or sulk about it and change it over and over. I used to love one that had a brilliant bit of artwork on it, but that was old original blogger and became thoroughly incompatible with the changes they did, but I moved on.

And, incidentally, that bit of Artwork is now my background on my other computer.

Anyways - there is currently no banner-title-thing on her because I've begged asked nicely to have a new one made so that's a work in progress, so bare with that for the time being. The mobile version of 0ddness should also be pretty and nice to look at too, so fingers crossed when you access it on your mobile, it'll be nice there too.

You'll notice I've also ditched the tagboard. It was getting spammed, none of my friends used it very often, and it just made me sad that the only time it got messages was someone telling me they weren't a spammer - only to find their blog was a spammy blog.  Ugh.

I'm not sure how many people actually read 0ddness via the site itself any more either... I've never been one for counting traffic for the sake of it - I like looking at the numbers just so I know A) that people ARE reading, and B) the interesting ways people trip face-first into the blog. I suspect most people read via an RSS Reader, Facebook or some other way.

If you're a reader, feel free to say hi in the comments section - even if you've never commented before, post in the comments section, say Howdy and let me know you're here.  I had one reader that kept to herself add me on Facebook a while back (I'm calling you out, Sue!) which was a nice surprise, so if you're too shy to comment on here, then prod me on Facebook! Alternatively, you can find me and add me on Twitter.  Facebook, Twitter, either way - there are links on the right to both - cunningly marked as "Facebook" and "Twitter"

Feedback on the new layout/design is appreciated, even if you don't like it... Kellie is going to have a pokey prod around with it in a bit too and give me her two pence worth, and once it is done, there will be a new banner up. Hopefully this layout will keep me happy for a while now!



*Oojamiflips (OO-JA-MA-FLIPS): Part of the systems of thingamajigs (THING-A-MA-JIGS), wotsitcalleds (WOTS-IT-CALLEDS) and doohikeythingies (DOO-HIKEY-THINGIES)

Construction

Due to Miss Kellie having fiddled with the Template on her Card Making blog, she's rattled my cage for MY template... You know, the one I keep threatening to change...

Well, after sodding around with the template tools in Blogger, I think I've found something I like. So it's going to change in a bit.  Apologies if you don't like it - but most people seem to read via Reader/Mobile or RSS anyway ;)

Still - bare with it while I prat around with it - it WILL be finished shortly, but it might undergo some rough-and-ready changes before it's finished.

Sodding Templates

So this morning, I figured I would get up and fiddle with my blog template.  The current one has been like this for aaaages - the longest surviving template I've ever used.  I'm bored with it, and spent a few hours looking through other templates...

Eventually, I found one I liked, and using my spare blog site, I fiddled around and sorted it out how I wanted it... But it turns out it looked just like the existing template.

So, pah, bum and arse.  I've spent another hour going through template sites, and to be honest, have lost the will to live, let alone change the template.  There's nothing wrong with the current one per se, I'm just boooored with it.

I know someone is going to say something amusing like "Make your Own" or similar, to which I reply "I don't know the coding language" I also don't know what I want exactly, something clean, easy to read and not cluttered with junk.  A lot of templates out there are also optimised for adverts and stuff - which you will notice I don't do...

So once again, I'm back at square one, template-less and sulking over the apparent lack of decent templates out there.

Not Sure Why...

So, last Monday, Blogger annouced they would be having an hour or so downtime on Wednesday night - which equated to Thursday morning for me.  I read it, and promptly forgot about it.

No biggie, it was just "scheduled maintenance" for an hour or so.  Thursday morning, I tried to blog, and halfway through my "Digital Darwinism" post, it stopped saving, and then wouldn't publish.  I quick look around and I realised it was probably the maintenance.  I quick look on the help forums, and the world was spitting.  Sod that, I left them to it.  An hour later, it was all fine and dandy, so I published my post, wrote out todays Musical Monday and thought nothing more.

This morning, I noticed there was no sign of either post, so I went in and saw the tags were screwed, the Musical Monday post claimed to have posted, but hadn't, and the hard drive picture was also marked as "Draft" for some reason.

So I fixed the tags, ensured the music post was done, and thought nothing more of it.  Popping onto Facebook, I noticed all three posts appeared on there two or three times each.  The tags were still screwed too.  I fixed them and that was that.

Then they published again for some reason.

I deleted the additional posts to save spammage, but I am not entirely sure what was going on nor why.  I am hoping this post appears so I know it's working, mainly.

Still, I love Blogger to bits still and won't be leaving.  I am quite happy to not change to another platform, and with the amount of new features coming to Blogger soon, I am even happier to stay and play!

So, if posts appear out of nowhere after you've already read them, or if anything appears screwed up, please let me know, and I will get it fixed ASAP.


Two additional notes: HTC have released Android 2.3 Over-the-Air updates for the Desire HD and Incredible here in the UK, so click your Update Now button to get it - but get it via wifi as it's 108Mb ;)  Second, apologies for the amount of spam in the tagboard of late - as quickly as I Report/Ban/Delete them, they're coming back, so I am considering removing it.. We shall see.

Blog Header

For those of you asking what you missed... The blog header is a swipe at this post, with me discovering I am a misogynist .  It was made - as usual - by the fantabulous Kim Cross.

And no, we've still not had a reply from the crazy woman.  Must have been on her period or something!

Ha har! Zing!

Anyways, the offending item that started this off is still on my tagboard, 18th October 2010.  Scroll down and have a lookie see :)

Cleaning Up A Bit

Being that the last week has been rather... Hectic... My body is officially dead.  I was knackered by Saturday, Sunday was pushing past death, and Monday had stuff to do.

So today I feel like I've been hit by a steam roller, which went over me a few extra times, just to make sure.

Doubletap!

So, sat on my blubbery behind, I am pottering about on the laptop.  I've spent an hour or so going through my Google Reader subscriptions, deleting everything that no longer exists, or leads to a place that's not been updated for a year or more.

All tidy now!

Next up is my link list over there to the right.  It's grown steadily over the last few years, but I often get told "Link X is dead!" so now I'm going to go through them all and have a tidy up.

If you have a blog on there and see it's removed, it is either because you've not updated in a year or more, or your site no longer exists.  Please feel free to tell me your new URL or whatever so I can put it back! 

Let the purging commence!!

What The?!

OK, is it just me - or has my header vanished?!  Can anyone see the World of 0ddness logo up top there, or has it done a runner?!

Answers on a postcard, and hurry up about it!!

EDIT: OK OK I have been fiddling with some code and THINK it's fixed... If it vanishes again, please prod me.

Warning

Heads up people.  I'm bored with my template and looking at new ones...  If 0ddness vanishes or looks reeeally strange, you'll know why.  Might not do it today, but I AM fiddling with things on my Stomping Ground blog where I test stuff.

You've been warned ;)

Ooooh!

New logo! Care of... well, someone cool that doesn't want be named for fear of the Mighty Might F**eBook suing them ;) I'm going to see if I can get the two little bits under the main title to work as links too, but not sure how to do it without hacking about the code.

Remember - Dan fiddling with code = Dan breaking his layout ;)

It's In The Stars

To be honest, I've never seen the fascination with stars...  The reading of, the studying of, the watching, the celebrity-variety.  And if I am REALLY honest, I don't get why stars are given as awards.  WHY is something good worth five stars?

"Well done, that's such a good bit of work, I will award it five balls of burning gasses from the depths of space"

Doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

It can't be all about the shape, as there are lots of pokey shapes to be had - WHY does it have to be the five-pointed variety?  Why not six?  Or twelve.  Not two though - two would just be... erm.. a stick.

However, being that I am still playing around with Blogger In Draft - which I suppose is Bloggers new Beta.  Have to play with the betas.  It makes me cool.  Anyway, you will now see - hopefully - at the bottom of each post is a little star-rating thingiemajigg for you to "rate" the post it's attached to.

I know a lot of people read my posts, but a lot of you are cowards that don't like to comment.  Some of you go as far as using the Tagboard off to the side there, but there could be MORE interation.  So, if you don't want to comment, if you don't want to use the Tagboard, then click the stars.

Except you dirty RSS Readers ;)  You can come over here and load the page in order to use it.

Now, I am hoping that over time, Blogger will add a widget to show the "Highest Rated" posts and suchlike in a sidebox... I would assume that would be the next logical step, but still.

Feel free to be harsh - like you are anyway - and if you think a post sucks the floppy one, rate it.  I'll ignore the rubbish ratings anyway ;)  My Blog, after all.

If you're using Blogger In Draft, then there's a post on their official blog about Star Ratings.  However, because some people are idiots that mess around with their templates all the time, it doesn't always work properly, in which case, I found a very handy guide to getting it to work on another blog called At The Edge.  So thank you to the author there :)

Logo A-Go-Go

As is probably apparent to everyone visiting here - not your dirty RSS-Readers tho - but I have a logo.  An new logo.  A proper logo for my blog finally!

As the little post icon here probably suggests, it was made by a rather strange girl that lives in some coal-mining village up norf somewhere.  She stay home on the computer all day because she suffers, like the rest of her community, with Black Lung and other mining-related ailments.

And, out of the kindness of her heart, she made me a logo!  Huzzah!

She's one of the girls that was at my weekend at the Posh Palace back in May, that spent the best part of the evening completely bemused and amused by plastic beer cups.  Clearly, the technology known as "Plastic" has yet to make it's way to the norf.  She's a blogger, but obviously using a stolen laptop with a mobile broadband connection...  You can visit her (new) blog through this link.

Little does she know, I think I will start collecting logos for my blog and have them alternate around and change for a bit of variety :)  900x204 are the banner dimensions, FYI ;)

If you want to make a logo - and I mean a semi-decent one, not someone having a laugh in Paint and scrawling "0ddness" then chuck it on over and I will A) use it, B) link to you, and C) take the piss out of you!

So, to Miss Lynzi, thank you :D  I'd buy you a pint o' bitter, but your whippet will prolly have me.

Under Construction (Again)

I'm Re-Re-Re-doing the blog template.  If it goes PLOOEY, blame a woman.

Edit: You know, I think I did it without breaking anything... 

*kills*

What the buggery is going on with my layout?!

The Never-Ending Template

As you may have guessed - by the fact there is slightly less chaos here - I have once again finished completely fucking my template fiddling with my layout.

As is usual for me, I'm still not completely sure if I like this or not, so I am going to leave it, see if it grows on me, or if it grows on me like a dirty dirty fungus.

A couple of hours back when it really hit the fan - and my backup copy of the previous version didn't work - I was ready to start head-butting the keyboard. I was sooo pissed, it wasn't even funny.

That's pissed angry, not pissed *hic*

Lucky for me, it was at that moment that Kellie decided to send me an email, and all was right again in the world. I sucked it up (the Graaaah'ness, not the email) and started again. Well, again-again-again. And finally, I win.

You maybe have noticed earlier there were ads on here. Rest assured, I have NOT sold out, and never will. The ads were part of a template I was trying to use, and were hastily deleted as soon as the template went up. If you saw a tower ad, a square, a banner or anything else, I am sorry - it wasn't me :)

So now, considering I wanted an early night, I am going to sort my crap out and hit the sack.

As usual, if you find anything wrong with the new template, let me know. If you have anything you'd like to say - and be harsh if you wanna - then go for it.

Under Construction

Bear with me: I've found a template I like!

Edit: Ooooops, I farked it... REDO! Edit/Edit: OK, as you can tell, I've completely bum-sexed the template. And I backed up from my complete template backup. And it's even more broken than it was.So excuse the mess. I'm going to go boil my head.

Template Woes

Slowly, slowly but surely, I am trying to get a decent template on here. Well, I say "surely" but what I mean is, "I find something rather nice, then either have to tweak it, alter it or just outright bin it"

Today is no different. I have been sat here for a couple of hours today trying to get a template to look just so but do you think I can get there? Can I f'k.

My first issue is that I fell asleep not long after I started on it. However, unlike those that feel tired and have a little lay down, I was forcing myself onwards.. And woke up an hour later in my computer chair, face down on my desk. I completely forgot what I had been doing, so I deleted and started over. Now for the last hour and a half, I've been altering and fiddling and what-have-you, trying to get a (Spanish!) template to look right.

However, I've learned from a million a couple of times when I broke 0ddness to do it elsewhere - so have been using my random blog for just such purposes.

My biggest issue, is I couldn't say exactly WHAT I want. Three columns. Clear, Clean, Professional... Dark-ish but not dreary colours. Then there is the OCD-Anally Retentive part of me that has to have things just so. Trying to balance two side columns to look neat. Everything in line. Colours that match - or near as dammit.

And for the love of all things banner-like, can I PLEASE find a template that isn't steered towards AdSense, Banner Ads, Tower ads and all the rest of that shit. And please please, a header image that I can change...

Currently, I have the following layed out on my stomping ground blog: Clicky to Lookie. There is so much WRONG with it, but the basics are quite nice. Maybe a bit cluttered - which I need to figure a way to cut down. The header image is actually two different, different-sized images which is a f'ker. And mostly, more importantly, I want it to load fairly quickly - not struggle through reams of code, background images, sidebar images and everything else... Some blogs I visit have a massive load-time thanks to the template itself, not the stuff on there. Content loading, no a problem, but if the template is slow then I get bored.

I don't know - I doubt I will use it in the long run as I don't look at it and think "Wow, that's nice" I look at it and think "Maybe it'll do for now". The current theme on 0ddness is probably my longest-serving theme since switching to the new version of Blogger, and it's not what I would call a nice template, more a "it'll do" template.

I've sifted through a load of different template sites on Google - the various search strings of "Blogger Templates" "Blogger XML Template" and so on and so on... Somewhere out there, there MUST be something that will satisfy my whiny-crotchety-anally-retentive self... There MUST be...

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know - but if it's plastered with ads, either random ones or a banner for the author, no thanks ;)

*resumes thumping head on table*

And you know what - I dislike that template on my spare blog more and more, the more I look at it.