As mentioned in this entry regarding Topic Name Change for my projects, I had changed the PolarLava Website icon to the little spider web icon:
I didn't really like that, but it was an improvement over the basic "PL" graphic. So now I've found the new "exploding lava" icon that I've obviously decided to use because it's what you see above!
After much contemplation, I've finally come up with something to put on my front page other than just the lava lamp.
I've been unhappy with the front page for quite some time, but wasn't really sure what to do with it. I didn't want my blog as my front page so I needed to come up with some sort of introduction page. After all, it is effectively the "welcome mat" at your front door and should make a visitor feel welcome and explain what they will find "inside". Thus I've added such an introduction and a brief outline of my various projects. Actually, I think most user of my site come through one of the "side doors"…most likely one of the projects, but then surf around from there. I know this is often how I learn more about someone on the web…I find a deep link into their site and then start exploring the rest of their site. Thus my new front page provides a quick rundown of who I am and what's going on here. I hope you like it as most anything would be an improvement over the previous stark page that it was.
Today marks the second anniversary of the PolarLava Blog. And here is the now infamous first post. Being a generally pointless post, here's a generally pointless link to last year's posting about this momentous event.
I've made a couple of changes to my RSS Feeds page. First I've added a link at the top to take you back to the feed selection list which is very helpful when you are viewing a very long feed. You no longer need to scroll to the bottom to get back to the feed list!
Secondly and more importantly, I've reworked the page feed to display the description text for each entry instead of just a link to the remote item. Besides helping provide some context for the item, it allows you to view sites like Boing Boing in a work safe manner without the work offensive advertising.
11/20/04
I've added the entry publication date next to the entry title assuming there is one. It seems most feeds don't bother to include this information for some reason. I've also made some changes to the underlying RSS retrieval mechanism that required some coding changes to a third party package. I've submitted these changes to the owner in hopes that he will incorporate them into the package. I will be documenting the reasons for the changes and the technical details in another post once I know whether he is accepting them or whether I'm branching the code.
12/10/04
More changes to the feed page, this time mostly internal code restructuring. One obviously viewable change is the addition of numerous feeds. Another change is that when you now hover over the "site link", there is now a title on the link. Truly is the little things!
12/28/04
I've written a utility to automatically fetch all of the outdated feeds (currently) at two minute after the hour from 7am to 5pm except on weekends. This automatic feed refresh during weekdays should make the feed content pages now appear very quickly. I've selected this schedule as being the primary (and likely the only!) user of this page, it makes my life better. And that's the primary purpose of most everything that goes on around here! Previously each feed was fetched on demand and then cached for an hour. Now the utility will fetch and cache them automatically. If for some reason that fails and/or the page is outdated (e.g. on weekends), the page will be fetched and cached in real-time (as it was previously).
I believe this will be the last update on the RSS feeds…for a while. Okay, there may be some additions/subtractions to the feeds, but it's now working the way I've wanted it too since I started playing with it. Any further RSS feed work will likely be some sort of integration to allow external feeds in PolarBlog, but that's off beyond the horizon.
1/29/05
A minor tweak…the automated feed schedule is now 7am to 8pm M-F and 5am-10am on the weekends. This pretty much covers my usage periods. One wonders why I just don't go to 24x7 and get it over with! ;)
I've cleaned up both my Links and RSS Feeds pages. On the Links page there were several links that I don't use anymore. And on the RSS page about half the feeds weren't being used so I trimmed that back to a handful that I do use. That page was more of an exercise in accessing RSS feeds anyway. Some of the security related feeds have now been put back onto the Links page. You really needed to know this, didn't you! ;)
