22 March 2009

Some changes to TYWKIWDBI

This blog is now well into its second year of existence, so I thought it was time to do make some minor (cosmetic, not substantive) changes.

I've started with the title image above. When I set up TYWKIWDBI, much of my "target audience" (family, friends, neighbors) were newbies to the blogosphere, so I inserted brief instructions for navigating the blog. One year ago this week there was a day when the blog got three hits (me, my wife, my old friend Ted in Florida); now with about 2,000 visits a day by people who are much more "cybersophisticated," it seems appropriate to delete those directions.

I've also tweaked the acronym itself. TYWKIWDBI was a bit of a grammatical nightmare; I explained in the first post I wrote for the blog that as an English major in college I fully understood the discrepancy between the initial "Things" and the final "It," but it seemed necessary to render the acronym pronounceable. I have felt bad about it ever since, and have been called on it by at least one copyeditor blog. I obviously can't change the acronym itself, because that's how the blog is registered, but I can change the meaning of it; for the moment I've changed "It" to "Incessantly," which is suboptimal but a little less awkward than the original phrase (I'm open to any other suggestions).

The image in the header also needs to change. I selected the Icelandic waterfall because the layout faciliated the reading of the text, but the photo is not my own and is used without permission, so I'll be replacing it with a photo of my own later this year. And I'll need to revise the footer image which I created to help newbies navigate to page 2.

The rest of the layout could use some attention. As one blog put it "TYWKIWDBI is garish and offputting to anyone who judges sites on appearance alone..." At present I'm confined by the constraints of the Blogspot templates and my own lack of cyberskills, so further changes will come slowly.

More important than the format and appearance is the content. My goal for this second year is to incorporate more original material, or at least more material that is in keeping with the title acronym of providing content you won't find elsewhere. Anyone who blogs knows that creating new material is much more time-consuming than aggregating material from other sites, and this blog is already consuming more time than it should. I'll be making the transition, but will do so gradually.

18 comments:

  1. I don't think your blog appearance is garish, but I mostly get your post in an RRS feed.

    Good work, especially the mold photos.

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  2. Garish? Beige and green are not garish, they're easy on the eyes and your page is uncluttered w/o annoying ads. It's your blog and I'm no connosieur but to quote Hollywood: "don't change baby you're the most!"

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  3. You might consider ditching the Mr. Rogers sweater. I'm just saying ...

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  4. It was only 30 years old. But you are right. Replaced. With one of my grandfather as a placeholder, while I search my files for a more appropriate avatar.

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  5. My younger daughters, having difficulty deciding on how to pronounce the acronym, discussed and settled on "tidder-bikki", which bears little if any resemblance to the apparent phonetics, but is pleasing to their ears I guess. It serves them well. One might say to the other "That's unbelievable / interesting / amazing! Can't be true! Where did you find that out?" (statement of disbelief)
    "Oh, on Tidder-bikki" (thus justifying the truth of the assertion)
    "Cool! I'm going to tell my friends" (acceptance of the statement as truth)

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  6. I think your blog is fine as-is. Make any changes *you* want. As for content, blog what you love. Otherwise, what's the point?

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. How do you pronounce the acronym?

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  9. In my house your site is known and loved as the "tweaky blog."

    Per NetLingo: "Traditionally, [tweak] meant to increase system resources in order to allow applications to run faster. Now it also means to make a small modification or to fiddle with something in an effort to make it better."

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  10. At our place it Twick-A-Dib-EE, which doesn't even match the acronym very accurately but serves the purpose of identifying the blog rather well. I've always liked the format, since it wasn't cluttered and easy to read. My wife was drawn to the spectacular photos on the side of the main threads. Enough said, so Stan, no matter what you do to the overall look of your blog, we'll keep coming back.

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  11. Lovely! So, to summarise, there are these names being used already:
    - Tidder-Bikki
    - Tai-Wiki-Widbee
    - Tweaky Blog
    - Twick-A-Dib-EE
    ...
    I wonder if there are other pronunications around. Language in the making!

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  12. Sometimes when I'm bowling I tap the letters into the computer as my name, which shows on the monitor overhead. One morning an older lady came up to me and inquired, cautiosly, "Mr.... Twickabee?"

    She probably thought I was Welsh.

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  13. You seem to be old enough that your finger is trembling on the "return" key...

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  14. you could incorporate, then the final I could be for Inc.

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  15. Through a sad and frustrating sequence of events I have been without the internet for about two weeks -- talk about going cold turkey!

    Anyway, I like your solution to the grammatical conundrum (incessantly). My only alternate idea would be to make a change at the other end: "This You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog It".

    Either way, or some other way, I'll not complain. I can't pronounce your blog, and never thought to try until this thread. But I'm a addict now.

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