This Site has Moved to the New Version of Blogger

I just moved this blog to Blogger's new platform. It was a fairly simple move and Blogger does allow one to backup the old site in case there is a desire to move back. I was surprised that the move over did not automatically care over my links. I thought it would given that a section of external links is something that the old Blogger has be default.

The good news is that some of the features I had to custom code in the template are now easy to do with a few clicks. The additional feature I like the most is the ability to apply labels. I have to work a bit on getting the right combination of labels. For example, do I use the Open Source tag every time I use the Linux tag? I think by now everyone knows that Linux is Open Source. I have many postings on items that are Open Source and may not be known as such. Do I use laptop batteries as a tag when I have laptop? I'm sure everything will work out after I see the natural patterns develop.

One unintended consequence of the new system is that using the new labels gives the system the impression the entire posting is new and thus should be kicked out as a new RSS item. So, for those of you subscribing via RSS, my apologies for the flood. There may be a few more days with re-postings as I complete the labelling process. I believe the labels will add a lot of value to the site. While many of the postings are fairly topical, most are useful many months latter. The labels make it easy to find postings that would otherwise go unnoticed in the blog archives.

Let me know what you think.

T

Use the new Blogger for internal School Blogs

Blogger, the firm that provides the service for this blog, has just announced a new version of their system which makes it usable for an internal school blog.

In addition to a number of nice usability upgrades, Blogger is making it possible to limit access to the blog. So, for example, you could make it so that only teachers or students can access your site. Adding allowed viewers is as easy as uploading the email addresses for everyone you want to be allowed in. Certainly worth a look.

The new features are for new accounts, for now. People with current accounts have to wait for the features to be rolled out.

T
Making a private blog