If you are reading this on my blog, you can see that I've given it quite an overhaul from top to bottom. (If you're reading this in an RSS reader, click on over and let me know what you think.)
After painstakingly pulling apart a wonderful theme from eBlog Templates last night and personalizing / tweaking it until it looked just how I wanted it to, I clicked "Save Template" in the Blogger control panel for the last time and went to sleep.
But alas, today I found that I hadn't quite gotten everything squared away. My RSS feed was broken. My Google Analytics (for tracking visitors) wasn't live anymore. Countless other tools like MyBlogLog Link Tracking, BlogRush content referral program and BlogCatalog link were broken.
Everything looked great, but under the hood some nuts and bolts were definitely missing.
Jamie Grove from the How Not To Write blog and Jen from The Wild Apricot and Domestik Goddess blogs were helping me out on Twitter this evening, figuring out the kinks in my feed (it should be working fine now - I apologize for the delayed post delivery and for any other RSS wonkiness today) and I think Jamie summed up the situation with this great metaphoric Tweet:
Just like a Harley. Get it all put back together and find you have half a dozen nuts or springs or etc. Where do they go?
Well, I've never so much as touched a Harley, much less rebuilt one, but nonetheless, that's exactly how it is: in making sure I sorted out all the main visual and layout-related code here, I had ignored some of the most important "nuts and springs."
Of course, there's a lesson here, but I don't think I need to spell it out, because you are all quite clever and I have faith you'll get it quite readily.
In any case, everything seems to be back in working condition now and I really hope you all like the make-over. I would truly appreciate any feedback, so please drop me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks!
Glad I could help! The new site looks awesome!
From this side of the screen, at least, your face lift is seamless. Everything looks natural...no unattractive pulling or tightness...no stress or strain. I'd say you have a winner here.
Glad to pitch in! Tinkering is always good fun, especially when the results are so very fine-looking! :) Hey, can we stand by to hand you a wrench, if / when you do get to working over a real-life Harley?
@Jamie - thanks again!
@Mark David - I'm glad you like my surgeon's work. I will pass on the accolade :P
@rjleaman - I dare say tinkering is more fun when it doesn't mean your blog is fundamentally broken lol, but we figured it out so it's all good!
And if by "real-life" Harley you're making a coy reference to a hosted Wordpress solution, then yes I will need your wrenches and helping hands when the time comes.
If, however, by Harley you mean... Harley... well that's not about to happen anytime soon, I'm sorry to say!
Daniel