Sexy New Blog Design

Koichi — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:49:43 +0000

This weekend, I didn’t go curling, I didn’t go clubbing, nor did I hunt the great white shark. I sat in my chair and made the eduFire blog look pretty. During that time, I watched all three Star Wars movies (the most recent three don’t count as movies), some Doctor Who, and listened to part of a Seth Godin audiobook. This, here (unless you’re viewing this via RSS), is the finished product, so hopefully you enjoy it!

But that’s the boring part! I learned so much about this blog, and about eduFire, while redesigning it, and have made it easy for you to do the same! Here’s what’s new:

Better Categories

Before, the categories were just kind of all over the place. Now, they’re very nicely organized, so it should be easier to find what you’re looking for! One of the really cool categories, which somehow I had no idea existed, is the “building eduFire” category. The reason I didn’t notice it before, was because it used to be called “building eduRev.” Why is this? Well, you could head over there and find out. To check out other categories, just mouse over them, and a drop-down should appear! You can even subscribe to certain categories, so you only get news in your feed about certain things!

Searching

Wow, I can’t believe we were missing this before! Now you can go and search for past (not future, sorry) articles. Just pop in a keyword and see what happens! It’s in the right sidebar, up at the top.

New Plugins

One of the great things about Wordpress, is the plethora of plugins that are available. Besides a bunch of back end plugins that make your experience so much more enjoyable (without you even knowing!), we’ve added a few that you might notice while stumbling about the blog. My favorite one is a “Related Posts” plugin, that tries to come up with related posts, and tells you them at the bottom of an article you’re reading. Usually it’s spot on, but sometimes it is wayyyy off.

More Features

You’ll notice that the sidebar is full of all sorts of things, including an Archive Page, a little blurb telling you who comments the most (minus blog admins), links to our shenanigans on social sites like Twitter, Popular posts, Tags, and more! Overall, this blog is easier to navigate, and it’s easier to find stuff. No more getting lost, hopefully.

That’s about it – it’s still a work in progress, but if you have anything else you’d like to see, I’d love to hear it! What sorts of plugins / features do you use on your blogs, to make them better? What have you seen around the blogosphere that no blog can live without?

Related posts:

Bringing J-Bloggers Together

Koichi — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:38:13 +0000

On Saturday (that’s Sunday, Japan time though), eduFire hosted a J-blogger meetup for Japan-related bloggers located all over the world. Of course, eduFire is not a website that puts together virtual conferences. There was an educational aspect to this meetup as well (I swear!), and everyone (from J-bloggers, to non-bloggers, to wannabe bloggers) could attend and learn.

Although the conference was organized beforehand, had a presentation (on great Wordpress plugins for your blog), and had an agenda, the best part were all the spontaneous discussions. Someone would ask a question about blogging, J-blogging, Japan, etc., and there were always a few people that had a good answer. Everyone came away knowing more than they did three hours earlier (that’s right, it went on for three hours!), and I know several participants were inspired to start their own blogs up as well.

Here is a list of the Bloggers that joined us. I highly recommend you check out their blogs / websites!

- Koichi (Tofugu)
- Deas (Rocking in Hakata)
- Carlie (GoddessCarlie)
- Louis (Xorsyst)
- Brett (Rainbowhill’s Language Lab)
- Nick (JapanSoc)
- Chris (NihongoNotes)
- Michael (MichaelDowney)
- Shane (Nihon Sun)
- Jason (Jason’s Advs in Rural Japan)
- Tae Kim (Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese)
- Dave (The Ramen Blues)
- Jonas (Yonasu.com)
- Kirk (Jamaipanese)

Thank you everyone for attending, it was great to have you!