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  • The Coaster Critic’s Blog 4.0 Now Live!

    Written by The Coaster Critic 19 Comments
    Last Updated: January 11, 2010

    Welcome to The Coaster Critic’s Blog 4.0
    As the blog enters it’s fourth year, I figured I’d give it a facelift. Welcome to The Coaster Critic’s Blog 4.0! I spend my winters (the theme park off-season) launching new projects like Theme Park Syndicate and on redesigns like this one.

    The changes to the site aren’t as big as the last redesign a year ago, but there are a few beyond just the new look. The featured content section on the home page will allow me to showcase several posts where I could only highlight one post at a time before.

    All throughout the site you’ll notice that rather than full posts, there are excerpts with thumbnails. It’s going to take me a while to generate thumbnails for all of my posts, but the summaries will allow more content per page with less scrolling. There may be a few other little quirks I’ll be working out over the next few weeks, but for the most part, the new site is ready to go. Now I can get back to blogging!

    Subscribe to The Coaster Critic’s Blog
    Since I’m working on adding my subscription widget back to the sidebar, here are two ways that you can subscribe:

    Subscribe Via Email:

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Subscribe Via an RSS Reader:
    Use my RSS feed url to subscribe to the blog via your favorite RSS feed reader, like NetVibes, My Yahoo!, or Google: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheCoasterCritic

    What’s Your Take?
    What do you think of the look? Got any feedback or suggestions? Leave a comment below.

    Related Posts with Thumbnails

    Related Posts:

    1. The Coaster Critic’s Blog Turns 2
    2. The Coaster Critic’s Blog – Coaster Reviews & Theme Park News
    3. Coaster Critic’s Blog Enhancements for 2007

19 Comments

  1. #1 CFC says:
    January 11th, 2010 at 10:59 pm

    My computer seemed to lag whenever I get on your site. Now, no lag. Is it just coincidence, or did you fix some bugs in the site, CC?

    Reply
  2. #2 Tom says:
    January 11th, 2010 at 11:22 pm

    Great new look! Love it, and same thing with CFC.

    Reply
  3. #3 Nick TPT says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 3:51 am

    The new look is excellent – frontpage in particular is much easier to navigate and I like the thumbnails. Congratulations!

    Reply
    • #4 Quil says:
      January 12th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

      Woah, Nice Site! Looks like you`ve gone to a lot of parks.

      Reply
      • #5 Nick TPT says:
        January 16th, 2010 at 6:58 am

        Thanks :-)

        We’ve been to quite a few – but still dozens out there left to try…

        Reply
  4. #6 Judy P in Pgh says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 6:08 am

    I checked this out at 5:30 a.m. and was groggy enough that I thought I made a mistake. (Or maybe I was dreaming!) I had me a cup of caffeinated tea and a shower while the computer re-booted and sure enough, things still looked completely different! Better yet, I actually NOTICED that you posted about the site changes. I guess I should stick to checking the site later in the day when I’m fully awake. The still sleepy me likes the changes, though. I especially like the “You might also like” section of thumbnails.

    Reply
  5. #7 Quil says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 6:54 am

    Yeah, it helps you find othger posts you`d otherwise never find. CFC and Judy are right, It feels even faster!

    Reply
  6. #8 The Coaster Critic says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 1:02 am

    I’m glad to hear that the site’s loading faster. I know that the home page definitely will as your browser won’t have to load all of those entire posts and videos. I’m not sure what would make the rest of it run faster, but again that’s great to hear.

    Thanks for all of the feedback.

    Reply
  7. #9 JaMeS says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 7:26 am

    yeah, great site… but i’ve never had the loading probs

    Reply
  8. #10 Judy P in Pgh says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 4:28 pm

    A coaster friend of mine wants to sign up to get email notification whenever a new topic is posted on the blogsite. I can’t find where you go to do that on the new page layout. Can anyone help?

    Reply
    • #11 The Coaster Critic says:
      January 13th, 2010 at 9:36 pm

      I wasn’t able to add my subscription widget to the new site’s sidebar. While I’m working on an alternate solution, I’ve added an email subscription box and a link to my RSS feed url to this post.

      Reply
  9. #12 Quil says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    Go to the Coaster Critic`s Blog Version 2.0 post and find the “suscribe” thing. follow the dirrections from there, bacause i`ve never tried. There used to be a little “suscribe” thing on the sidebar, but it dissapered when CC gave the site a new look.

    Reply
  10. #13 Judy P in Pgh says:
    January 13th, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    Joel, I know you recently went from posting the last 5 “recent comments” to 10, but these guys are posting way too fast for me to keep up! Is there a better way for me to make sure I don’t miss out on any comments? Since I can’t ride any coasters for a month or two, I’m counting on these discussions to keep me sane for the winter! I’ve noticed that other coaster-related sites seem to be dead (or at least in hibernation) recently, so congratulations on continuing to give us all the “fix” we need. I like your other sites, but the blogsite is still my favorite!

    Reply
    • #14 The Coaster Critic says:
      January 13th, 2010 at 9:33 pm

      Gotcha covered Judy. Just click this link and enter your email address. I just set it up, but you should get an email every time a comment is submitted. Your email might get a little full, but it’s the only way that I can think of that you won’t miss a comment.

      Reply
      • #15 Judy P in Pgh says:
        January 14th, 2010 at 10:43 pm

        I’m in! Go ahead and clog my email mailbox, guys. By the way, are there any other females that visit this site?

        Reply
        • #16 Quil says:
          January 16th, 2010 at 9:01 am

          Carolinagirl, nobody realy says.

          Reply
        • #17 JaMeS says:
          January 16th, 2010 at 12:55 pm

          well, not me!

          Reply
  11. #18 Tom says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    Thanks for the subscribe thing, very handy.

    Reply
  12. #19 The Coaster Critic says:
    January 17th, 2010 at 12:47 am

    I noticed that some of my posts that are older than a year (when I switched from Blogger to WordPress) have some formatting issues. I’m going through them and will be cleaning them up over time. Please pardon their appearance.

    Thanks!

    Reply

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