Site News:
Well not quite, but I have been distracted from working on my new site plugin by adding Twitter and Facebook buttons to the site. The buttons are visible on all blog pages within the cake decorating blog directory, my Blog and on my About page. These buttons will help both blog owners and blog fans share things of interest.
I have also joined Twitter and Facebook to enable me to post updates about the site entries and improvements. This provides a new way for blog owners and fans to keep up-to-date with any additions, new blogs and promotions.
I think these changes will all help improve the user experience for all my visitors.
As some of you may know my cake decorating site empire is spread over three sites. Part of the reason for this was keeping the size of the sites to a minimum. This was important because no one likes to visit a site that takes too long to load. Also the sites were hosted on shared hosting, which is basically a computer that hosts lots of different websites and shares its resources between them. The largest of my three sites got a little too big for shared hosting. This meant I was unable to add any new blogs to the site, and it was probably at risk of crashing if too many people visited at once.
So, a little sooner than planned – and with the help of my wonderful husband Derek – I have transferred all three sites over to my own new dedicated server. Now the web sites are free to get as big and busy as they like. I make no secret of the fact I am a bit of a geek, so I am really thrilled by this move.
We did have a few glitches with the transfer and it took a couple of days to get everything back on track. So, if you did experience any problems over the last few days, I’m sorry, but we have fixed everything now.
I can now turn my attentions to a very exciting new feature that has been in the works for several months.
I just found this blog today. I thought the cakes were so cute I just had to add it. So if you’ve not been to OutCakes before, it’s well worth a visit.
Last night I was doing a bit of yoga on my Wii and was feeling all pleased with myself and healthy then I had a major light bulb moment.
On Tuesday I made some changes to my site by adding a navigation bar under the header banner, but something about it wasn’t quite right. It still felt a little messy and disorganised. Well, like I said I’d just done a bit of yoga and for once wasn’t thinking about the site, and hey presto – I got it!
I’ve split up the navigation, with a lot of help from Derek (hubby), because it was a bit complicated for me to figure out on my own. Now things like ‘Home’, ‘Blog’ and ‘About’ appear above the header and the real contents of the site appear underneath when you leave the homepage.
I’m well pleased with the navigation now, and a little proud of myself for figuring it out. Not that I’m resting on my laurels. Oh no, I’m working on another exciting change, which fingers crossed will be unveiled soon.
Yay, I love it when a plan comes together,
Lindsay
It may not be BIG news, but I have added a cute little cupcake favicon. It may take time to change for anyone who has visited the site before, but it is there honest.
I do like having a favicon that matches the site. There was no way I was going to get a whole cake squeezed in, so a cupcake seemed the best alternative.
I’m a total geek,
Lindsay.
PS. For those of you who may be wondering what a favicon is. A favicon is the little image that appears next to the websites URL in your browser, and if you have tabs it will also appear there. See I told you I was a geek.
I’m working hard to get all the blogs I have found reviewed and added to the directory. Today I have added:
Hope you find something you enjoy.
I am very pleased, and proud, to announce that I have added a cake decorating blog directory to this site. I have created four categories for the entries; enthusiasts, instructors, services and one more for blogs dedicated to recipes. So far I have added several blogs, they are:
I still have many more blogs to review and add to the directory, so please keep checking back.
If you have a blog suggestion, whether you are the author or a fan please feel free to let me know. There is a “Submit a Blog” link on each page of the blog directory for you to use.
Lindsay.
