Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Have a Happy and Safe 4th!


And... here I am with a few minutes and nothing urgent to do for once, so....

....It has been a while since I have poked at the blog to improve it, and so here are Today's:

Changes to this blog: (I may update this post later in the day if I get more things done.)

1) Refreshing of the links:

a. I have gone through links, and those which I don’t feel a huge attachment to, or which I look at less often, or which haven’t been updated in ever-so-long I have removed. I also looked at who was getting ‘outclicks’ and kept those who were getting those. On this list are:

i. TitusOneTen – Silly blog about Episcopal Church Life, but not updated since… May! Is it possible? Maybe it will come back to life in the fall, and I will re-add it.
ii. Richard Pettinger Photos – Beautiful pictures and interesting bits of faith, but I rarely look at it, and no one clicks there.
iii. Fresh Spam – Not updated since May. (UPDATE: A Reprieve - there has been an update - so I have re-added FS to the blogroll.)
iv. Releasing The Word: I never, ever go there, and no-one clicks on it. I probably should, but I don’t. Updated regularly too.

b. Links I probably should have deleted but didn’t:

i. TWIVNTY – The author promises to do SOMETHING with it soon, and it gets outclicks.
ii. Turns in the Road – nice site, nice pictures, but I don’t look at it much. It DOES get outclicks. The host needs to turn off the automatic music video that runs when you hit the site. Which video I loved the first 15 times I visited.

c. New Links – things that I found inspiring and interesting over the last several months:

i. Slyphnascency – Poetry, struggle and light from a ‘Pixie’. Oh, and she linked my site.
ii. What Not to Crochet – Updated a few times a month, will bend your mind with scary crocheted objects.
iii. Amazing Filtered Things – Amazing pictures.
iv. I have more to add here, some nifty stuff that is hiding from me, but I only get so many minutes with my own computer, and that time is up, I can tell by the way a small, impatient person is pacing behind me.
v. Muck-n-Mire - wonderful pictures of flowers and plants.
vi. SketchyBeast - interesting and odd drawings.

d. Rearranging Links – The links I visit most or get the most outclicks should be first, and I have tried to honor that.

2) Tracking my Visitors: I have been with Site Meter for ever-so-long, but they have changed a number of things which made me reconsider that, and now I am with StatCounter. We will see how StatCounter works out. Items leading to my decision were:

a. They supposedly started adding cookies from ‘Specific Click’ that get loaded on my visitor’s computers and track their activity beyond just my blog. (Spyware! Evil! Evil!)
b. They started requiring ‘cookies’ (little bits of data or code that get stored on your computer to store information about your visits).
c. Their stats stopped working at all on my laptop, and on my mobile device.
d. Often the counter wouldn’t load even on computers that were normally compatible – and I am pretty sure that those visits were not counted.
e. I am pretty sure that the stats counter slowed down the loading of my blog.

More as it happens!

LE