Sunday, January 16, 2005

The Buzz is back

Well, we're back. We have a new, less formal blog format with lots of functional improvements. We're hoping the increased ease of use for everyone will encourage a lot more posting -- by us and everyone else. For our part, we can post via simple email -- even from our handheld gizmo. For your part, you'll be able to comment on individual postings, or add your thoughts to our existing -- and unchanged -- forum with just a few mouse clicks.

We thank programmer Sue Crocker, of SheCodes.com, for helping us improve the functionality of the site. The underlying software running the site is called Expression Engine, for anybody interested in the technical end of things. Expect us to tweak the site a lot as we go along. If you have any comments or suggestions, don't hesitate to shout. Just add a comment or send email to .

Yes, we know that the satellite photo atop the site shows more of Troy than Birmingham. We're working on it. We got the photo from a very cool site from Microsoft called Terraserver USA. Plug in any address, and get aerial, satellite and topographic maps.

Here's an important change: We no longer plan to send content via email. Rather, we'll send periodic reminders to check the site for new posts. Formatting and sending the emails got to be too much work, and one thing we're really trying to avoid here is work -- at least more than is necessary.

All of our previous content is contained in the Archives, which are searchable along with the rest of the site. We've set up the main page to hold the 15 most recent entries. Earlier entries can be accessed by clicking the page links at the bottom of the main page.

We anticipate making future posts brief and numerous. Freed from our previous publishing schedule and format, we figure we'll just mouth off whenever (and wherever) the inspiration strikes. Please feel free to do the same. Frequent contributors are welcome to request access to post items themselves.

As always, if you like what you see, please tell your friends and acquaintances, and urge them to check in with us, and subscribe. We have a city election coming up in November, and we hope to inform and involve all of our existing readers, and many more, in plenty of time to allow for intelligent decision-making then.

One more thing: This item is "sticky," which means that it will stay at the top of the site until we unstick it. So until then, look for new entries just below this one.

Enjoy!