Sunday, February 21, 2010

(Forced) Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes

When I first started blogging in 2001, Blogger was strictly an FTP affair. Then they invented blogspot and FTP started to get devalued. The time has come for Blogger to drop FTP access, which imperils this very blog. I still wanted my blog on my own domain space so I decided to drop Blogger for Wordpress.

For the past few weeks I've been tinkering with making Wordpress work on my site. I was very happy to find that Wordpress is a breeze to use. I'm just a few tweaks away from having it take over the blog at this address. If you want to see the Wordpress version now, take a peek here. Images don't work right now but I'm pretty sure they'll load right when the Wordpress blog is moved to the right directory. The only other critical thing I need to do is to add menu links to the comics and professional sections. Easy!

Labels: ,

link : 6:03 PM :  1 Comments : Links to this post
 

Monday, April 9, 2007

How Come No One Told Me My Blog Was Boring?

I scrolled through my blog page to check for formatting bugs and I saw something. Every cloud was in the right place and all the links seem to work. The code was fine. What I saw that bugged me was a whole lot of text. A whole lot! Considering the three subjects of this blog, things could look a lot more exciting. So now I'm trying to put in pictures in my post. I added some to the previous two posts and I like it. I borrowed the formatting from Kristin's blog: down to the caption in squiggly brackets.

Note: I couldn't think of a picture for this post.

Labels:

link : 4:14 PM :  0 Comments : Links to this post
 

Saturday, December 30, 2006

I read a very good book on CSS programming at the local Barnes & Noble: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (which is now in my Amazon wishlist btw). I was inspired and started tinkering with my blog. From what I can tell, making those little clouds with the rounded corners would be a pain in CSS so I kept those as tables. But I'm ditching the table infrastructure that positions the clouds for CSS techniques. It's not done yet, but it looks good so far. The file size between CSS and HTML appear the same so I have to ask what the point is. Still, it's good to know the latest way to do things.

I learned tables way back when in 2000 or so for a multimedia anthropology class (!) when I was an undergrad. Since then I've gotten pretty good at making a layout that doesn't break. I guess it's very unintuitive but by now it's pretty natural for me to stick in an invisible gif as a spacer or put a table within a table to keep its shape. Kristin didn't get it when I tried to explain it to her though so if I learn an easier alternative I can hopefully pass it on to her.

Labels:

link : 12:57 PM :  1 Comments : Links to this post
 

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

ComicSpace is Awesome

Since I have two complete issues of Keeley: CHE done I have been spending a lot of time working on publicity so people will actually read the darn thing. Recently, a cool site called ComicSpace popped up which is kind of a Myspace for people who read or make comics. The person who made the site also made OnlineComics.net, which I've found to be where most of my readers came from so I signed up for ComicSpace almost as soon as it opened. It's become popular, with over 8,000 people signed up. The atmosphere is very friendly and it has put me in touch with a lot of interesting people, from other comic creators in Columbia to makers of comics I like a lot, such as 12 Reasons Why I Love Her by Jamie S. Rich and X-Men: First Class by Jeff Parker.

ComicSpace uses the ad service Project Wonderful. Advertisers bid for blocks of ad space located on various websites. If their bid is the highest, their ad gets shown in the block and the advertiser if charged. If the bid is losing, no money is exchanged. I stuck my own ad for this site up on some ad blocks at ComicSpace. According to Google Analytics, that accounts for around 10% of my visitors. Not too shabby for a few dollars a day when my ad is running.

The coolest thing that has happened is that I got fan mail from someone who saw my site via my Project Wonderful ad. And this time it's not from my mom: it's Dean Trippe, a cartoonist with his own webcomic, and a blog. His comic, Butterfly, is about a sidekick that works for a Robin-esque character who of course is himself a sidekick to a Batman-ish character. It's very funny and the art style is very retro and simple, like Darwyn Cookes'. He thought my comic was so cool that he mentioned it on his blog! My pageviews shot up that week up to 900 one day. That's crazy!

My advertising efforts are dying down as I prepare for Issue 3. The first fourteen pages are absolutely set and I like it a lot. The last six pages are still in flux, but I think I at least nailed down the general plot and what happens each page. Maybe the alternate versions of the script will turn up on DeviantART. When the comic starts I think I'll still go page-by-page, but I'll skip all of the rough stuff and post full color pages. Readers seem to like that the best for some odd reason....

Labels: , ,

link : 1:11 AM :  0 Comments : Links to this post
 

Thursday, December 21, 2006

AdSense (or Add Cents?)

I spent the morning placing Google AdSense ads around my site. Most of the hub pages now have a banner or two. Untouched are the professional pages and the individual comic pages. They look unobtrusive enough, though I have to admit that I've never clicked on one before on another site.

The ads are based on this very content. Right now, there's a lot of ads about Dreamweaver, blogging, and Macs. Time to spice it up: cakes! Porche! Hungry Hungry Hippo! Ha, we'll see if the ads change if only briefly.

The AdSense policy is a bit strange. Rule #1 is literally "do not talk about AdSense*." They're mostly concerned that I'd blab about how much I'm making from what advertisers. They also don't allow me to ask people to click on them, which seems counterintuitive but very noble. Google: the same company that doesn't want me to sell out but on the other hand, helps China squelch human rights. How far the pendulum swings.

*Rule 3 is if this is your first time in AdSense, you have to fight.

Labels:

link : 9:52 PM :  0 Comments : Links to this post
 

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Blog-making is going nicely. I spent a while trying to get rid of the large gap in the sidebar between the category (ie. Links) and the bullets (ie. Google News). I settled on setting the top border of the list to a negative number, making it move up. If anyone else has a better idea, please let me know. I'm kind of an amateur at this CSS thing.

Next on my wishlist is to make a cool title using only CSS. Then, I'd like the links list to actually be a hierarchical CSS menu that shows up on mouseover. I have no idea how to do that, so we'll see when I give up and just list the darn things.

Labels:

link : 11:02 PM :  2 Comments : Links to this post