Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Changing the Layout

Being in the Witless Protection Program has required me to shed any remnants of my former identity. Part of the process was ensuring that my old identity was obliterated, and being nondescript in my new life. Now that I'm reasonably satisfied that I've lost my stalker, I am shedding the no-name jeans and t-shirt layout of this blog a bit, and am making it fit my personality a bit better.

I'd love to say it was all me, but in truth Paulius was the catalyst by donating my spiffy new logo. (Thanks again, man!) That inspired me to look at some of the other cool gadgets that can be added to a blog, and wouldn't you know it, I opted for two more that were inspired by Paulius. (Don't worry man, I'm not trying to turn myself into a carbon copy of you. I could never nail the accent.)

In addition to the new logo, I've added my Xbox 360 Gamer Tag and a new visitor map. Speaking of the visitor map, I'd like to mention something. I tried the gadgets that Blogger recommended, but they weren't that good. One, called Visitor Globe, never loaded. The other, called RevolverMaps Lite was okay, but it still loaded slowly, and if you scroll the blog page up and down, the map left artifacts, and the page just looked amateurish. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a pro or anything, but...

Being unsatisfied with either option offered by Blogger, I looked at what Paulius is using... a map from widgets.amung.us. It's got better functionality and loading speed than either of the options offered by Blogger. And -- my favorite benefit -- it's still free.

If you want to change your layout, blogger has added some awesome gadgets, but neither map was worth a damn. Go with the what widgets.amung.us has to offer if you want a map that tracks your visitors.

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