Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Perhaps you’ve already noticed: Hello, also known as the Stratepedia Blog, also known as the blog you’re reading right now, has undergone another facelift. The change is as much for editorial reasons as it is for aesthetic ones–the focus on lengthy features we put with the previous layout made it difficult for us to include shorter, more to-the-point information (or at least made us feel guilty about not putting a sizable amount of time in each and every post). Don’t worry, we’ll still have longer posts from time to time, and we’re not getting rid of anything that’s already here–just expect more short, but timely, items.

Looks wise, unfortunately the previous look-and-feel came about toward the end of a movement we’re making to kind of clean up Stratepedia’s act. As you may recall, last August we introduced a new look to the Stratepedia hub page and our recently-released Stratepedia Guidebooks. Tonight the blog follows the trend (known as “Stratepedia Clean”) established there. The Stratepedia Social application currently being tested internally at CRL uses this general aesthetic, and over the course of the next few months, the individual applications making up Stratepedia will get facelifts as well.

I hope you like the new look. I’m still doing some tweaking, and need to test it a little more in Internet Explorer 7, so let me know if you see something that doesn’t look quite right.

I know it’s late, but I couldn’t wait–Hello.

In the last few months, Stratepedia’s blog has become a major part of what we (Amber, Mark, myself, and contributors like David) are known for within CRL and the SIM Network. It is therefore, with little fanfare, I introduce to you the latest stage in the site’s evolution: A real name! Meet Hello, the newest version of the Stratepedia Blog.

The focus of our content will remain the same–helping people at the Center and in the Network use the Stratepedia tools like pros and be less afraid of technology in general. What’s new is a slightly more polished look, a name that rolls off the tongue (and the keyboard) a little more readily, and a few new features to hopefully encourage you to participate in discussions:

• The front page now sports the five most recent comments received on articles across the entire site. Click a comment to read it and catch up on the conversation.
• You can now subscribe to e-mail notifications of new comments per article. You should be able to, anyway–this is a new feature, and I did some testing, but I’ll be curious to know what you think of it.

One reason I like working with the Web over any other medium (I was trained to write and design for print, if you can believe it) is its dynamic nature. So, given that this site has received a handful of facelifts in the last year and a half, rest assured that Hello will continue to be an ongoing process and a continual learning experience for all of us. I’m going to remind everyone again that we (”we” being the list of people above) need your comments and suggestions to keep us moving in the right direction! If you like what you see–or more importantly, if you hate it–leave a comment using the form at the end of this page. You won’t hurt my feelings (not much, anyway) and it will help us make Hello (and Dossier, Depot, and the Learning Labs, for that matter) better for everyone. Or, if you don’t have any constructive criticism, at least comment to tell me you recognize the reference from the title and first line of this post.

In the meantime, thanks as always for visiting and keep checking back!

Unfortunately, the modification we were using to produce an iPhone-specific version of this site doesn’t play well with the new look we installed last week. I’ve disabled the fancy iPhone version for now until I figure out a workaround. No worries, as you can still view the site with Mobile Safari just fine. Also, I have a feeling I’m the only one this affects–so no harm, no foul.

If checking this website regularly or setting up an RSS reader is too much of a hassle, don’t forget you can also receive news from the Stratepedia Blog by e-mail.

If you can read this, you’re at the new and improved Stratepedia Blog. Hi!

More soon, but in the meantime I wanted to point out a couple of changes:

1. If you bookmarked something here you’ll have to bookmark it again. All of the old content has been moved over and is keyword searchable.
2. The categories got streamlined. Most stuff is now in Stratepedia News.
3. The podcast is gone, at least for now. We might revive it down the road, but if that happens it will be on its own site rather than mixed in here (which was kind of a chore, technically speaking).
4. You can now subscribe to our blog via e-mail! See the subscriptions page for more information.

Also, for system outage information, be sure to visit our new Twitter account: http://twiter.com/stratepedia. It dawned on me that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good if I post a message on this blog about our network being down. Twitter isn’t located on our server, or our network. If something’s down, and I know about it, it will be posted on the Twitter page. See the message in the green bar, right underneath the buffalo? That’s also coming from our Twitter page.

Like I said, we’ll be posting more (much more) here soon, but let me know if you have any questions in the meantime. Thanks!

Aaron