Monday, January 29, 2007

Surprise! It's a Re-Launch (Sort Of)
Welcome to www.DanShanoff.com

You might notice some changes on the blog today. Some are more prominent than others:

New URL: www.danshanoff.com. The biggest is the name change: I've ditched the ol' "blogspot" part of the URL and now it's simply: www.danshanoff.com.

I'm still using the Blogger publishing platform, like other Blogspot blogs, but I've switched to the "new" version. We'll see how that goes. But going to the straight "danshanoff.com" URL is a big step forward.

(For some reason I have yet to figure out, you can't simply type in http://danshanoff.com. You need to include the "www" part. I'm working on that.)

Old URL OK, too: All of your bookmarks to "danshanoff.blogspot.com" should still work fine. Any links you make to specific old posts should still work, too. The only thing that really changes is my Technorati ranking. If you want to modify your bookmarks, feel free. If not, no worries.

Link, link, link. Wait: You haven't bookmarked this blog? You don't have it blogrolled? You don't pass it around to your friends? You don't link to it constantly? (Eh: I understand. But I'm always up for more shameless pandering!)

More links: The right-hand column of the blog has also been modified with a lot more stuff, particularly more links. The first set of links is to all sorts of navel-gazing stuff. The second set is me (finally) building out my blogroll. (It's still a work in progress.)

Tags on posts: Also, individual posts will now include tags, which will begin to be listed on the right and should help sort through what I have posted about. (It'll take me a little while to go back through the archives and tag all 400-plus posts I've done since the blog's launch, but that's a goal.)

More to come: There are a couple of other little new details that you might find intriguing. For now, I'll let you discover them yourself, but I'll plan to put individual posts up about them later today.

What do you think? As always, please let me know what you think of this new stuff. Any complaints or compliments are always welcome. The goal is always to give you a better experience, and I take your comments and opinions to heart.

-- D.S.

14 comments:

Big D said...

Impressive. Yup, that about sums it up.

So... can we go back to talking sports now? :)

(Guess I have to actually put some effort into my page now too.)

Not A Gunslinger said...

Is it just me or do the comments not carry over?

Unknown said...

Yeah um....we want quickie!

Not A Gunslinger said...

Nevermind, was looking at the wrong post.

philipjsnell said...

Dan,

I miss the sidebar chronological list that linked to your last 5 or so posts. I always rely on that list to see if I have missed a post or two without having to scroll the whole page.

Gary said...

This new format has already foiled me. I tried posting a comment and I hit tab then enter and it took me to a google account sign up!

Ok, lets try this again...
Congrats on the new stuff. I think the only thing I dislike about the blog in general is fact that lots of comments can get lost if you post on an old post when you update throughout the day.

A new post occasionally kills a great comment-driven converstaion, I wish there were a way to make a forum for comments on specific topics.

MLB, NCAA FB, NCAA Hoops, NFL, NBA etc, obviously in addition to your posts, you could also throw your posts relating to these topics into the individual areas of the site.

Maybe thats a bad idea. I don't know. But the new post/lost comment problem is my only qualm

Big D said...

Since there's no morning sports post yet, I'll put it here...

Schilling, live on WEEI this morning:

"I'm not retiring in 2007".

Well, that came out of nowhere.

Gary said...

On Schilling...

I'm sure Big D has heard about the upswell of people voicing support for Schilling to run agains John Kerry for Senate in 08. Kind of a strange story, but if they won the World Series in 07, I bet he would win the senate seat in a landslide.

The only thing I didn't get about Schilling is that he claims to be Republician, but in a newspaper article (can't remember if it was globe or herald) he said he'd either vote for John McCain or Barock Obama (sp?).

I guess anyone is better than Hillary!

Big D said...

Yeah, he's a Republican, but he's not a far right wing Republican - one of the ones who votes on party lines no matter the issue.

Whether or not that's a good thing, who knows.

I think the better news coming out of this announcement was the proclimation "If something doesn't get done in Boston (i.e. contract), I will not play in New York..."

Straight from the Roger Clemens textbook on "How to leave Boston"...

Gary said...

I think the better news coming out of this announcement was the proclimation "If something doesn't get done in Boston (i.e. contract), I will not play in New York..."

Where have I heard that before? Johnny Damon

Brian in Oxford said...

The Yankees of Damon, Bellhorn, Embree, and now Mientkiewicz....what's one more on the "if you can't beat 'em, sign 'em" list...

Brian in Oxford said...

oh and Mike Myers, too.

So annnnyways....hopefully Bush will learn not to mess with Brisco County High. I'm surprised Vick and LT don't go over his house and beat him up! As long as Coach Shula doesn't find out about it.

Here's a question. When Tiger lost at the match play tourney last year, everyone was talking about how he'd won his last 5 tournaments, and his streak was stopped. Then when he won a regular tournament really late last year, it was like, okay the streak's up to 6. As though, suddenly, the match-play format loss didn't count against him. But come on, you know if he'd have won it, the media would have counted it. Is this like one of those "a hit sreak doesn't stop if you walk all 4 times you're up, or if you only pinch-hit in the 8th inning your only time up" things?

solomonrex said...

Here are my recommendations:

Edit the template to make the posts wider and therefore easier to read.

I still think you should split the posts up by sports.

Most importantly (and the easiest) make the Comment link larger - font, bold, new line, something. It's too hard to click on right now, and it's probably used the most of any link.

solomonrex said...

I know this is annoying, because he doesn't have a real landing page, but if you could add Whitlock to your blogroll, that would be nice. Maybe you can be the central site for ESPN black sheep!