Wednesday 5 August 2009

A few things I need your opinions on ...

Okay, so this isn't much to do with anything but this blog. There's a few things I want to change and I wanted YOUR opinions and possibly YOUR help with a few of these things. :-)

1) Blog: As you may have noticed, the blog's name has changed from "Lady Lazarus" to "Not in the Pink."

- When I started the blog, I wanted to be slightly hidden from the world. Obviously everyone needs a bit of privacy on the internet and 'Lady Lazarus' seemed like a great identity to take on. (Not only am I the number 1 Sylvia Plath fan but 'Lady Lazarus' is my favourite poem.)

'Not in the Pink' is a lyric from the song 'I'm going slightly mad' by Queen. I always joke that that song sums up my life and the phrase 'not in the pink' means 'not entirely sane.' Obviously I used it as my blog address but I think I'm going to add it as the title to my blog. It's a much better describing word of the blog than just having my 'name'.

I'm still going under the identity 'Lady Lazarus' but the blog will be 'Not in the Pink'. (Of course, a few of you I've been making friends with know my real name - Ceri - and refer to me as that which is cool :-D ).

Anyway, wrong decision? Right decision? What do you think?


2) Comments! A few of you have asked me whether I'd consider putting the comment box in a pop-out rather than having it embedded, while I have also heard that a pop-out comment box can cause problems for those with pop-up blocker.

So I've put a poll (to the left) for you guys to vote on what you'd prefer. :-)

Speaking of comments, I'm so sorry I take forever to reply back at times. I'll get on top of that and am really grateful for all the lovely things you guys say.


3) Layout - I like the template I have on my blog right now but that's not to say I won't think about changing it at some point.

I was just wondering (as I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to HTML), does anyone know how to save all the widgets and whatnot that's around the side of the blog? (The lists, polls, etc.) I wouldn't want to lose them all from just changing a template/style.


Any advice/comments you can give me would be great. Thanks so much guys. Love to you all.

(And, just for good fun, here's the video for Queen's 'I'm going slightly mad'.)


 

6 comments:

Amanda said...

Hi Ceri! I'm glad you don't mind that I've been addressing you by name. Whew! It's just so long to type LL the whole time, you know? Plus Ceri is just a beautiful name and I've never heard it before.

1) I will change my links to match the new blog title. It doesn't bother me at all that you changed it.

2) As for comments, if I had to choose between the two, popup is far superior. The embedded comments cause tons of problems, and I know bloggers who can't comment on them at all. Several bloggers have told me they've never been able to comment on the blogs that have them at all. I've even had problems with it eating my comment altogether and giving me an error, so I've had to retype. If you're worried about popups, though, you can always change it to the third option, which is to open the comments in a separate page (the way my ramblings blog is, the way the zen leaf was until recently).

3) As far as I know, if you just change your template using the blogger templates, it won't delete your widgets. I don't know about using a 3rd party profile though. Since my husband knows tons about html, I just get him to help me when I redesign.

Violet said...

Ceri is such a beautiful name. I understand your need to be hidden. But I do get confused by LL and your blog name. Sometimes I have types Lady Lazarus in the address bar and come up with nothing, lol!!!

But honestly, it's what you would be comfortable with.

I have voted and you probably know what my vote is for :)

I don't know ant blogspot but wordpress has a feature where you can drag all the widgets to a safe zone and then do whatever you like with the layout. No idea if something like this exists on blogspot.

Like the layout, love the header :)

Melody said...

Your name is beautiful!

As for the comment thing, any one works for me since I didn't have any problem with it.

I've no idea how to save the widgets without losing them all in a new template so I couldn't help you in this case. (when I first changed my layout, I think I've to do the widgets manually!)

Anyway, I like your layout!

Good luck! :)

Ceri said...

Ladies - Thank you so much :-) Yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone outside Wales who've heard of my name. It's pronounced the same as Keri and means 'love' in Welsh. :-) Thank you for all the advice about my widgets and comment box. :-D It really means a lot.

The Bookworm said...

first off all, I love Queen :)
I like the new blog name, I think its clever.
I wish I'd of thought of something fun like that instead of the plain 'bookworm' :( oh well lol.
i'm not too good with HTML, thats why i've kept my own blog the same way for so long, i'm afraid to mess with it. I like your layout though, it looks great.
as for comments, I like the embedded ones better.
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

Ceri said...

Thanks Naida. Yay for Queen fans :-D

I like your blogname - I did kind of regret not naming my blog something more literary based (like bookworm - because that sums me up in a heartbeat) but I guess it wouldn't have worked because I love blogging about more things than books :-)

Thanks for the comments on the layout. I keep looking to see if there're better layouts I can use - particularly those that are a little lighter but all the ones I come across and like are still really dark :P

Thanks for the comment on comments. Keeping a tab on everyone's opinion now :-D