I’ve been busy doing some background updates to the site, adding some new plugins to the WordPress install I am using as well as adding some tracking via Google Analytics. I have also recently updated the sites theme to make it a bit brighter and more welcoming.

First off the new plugins are

1. a better social networking bookmarking feature. This is visible underneath each post as a ‘Bookmark to’ link. Please leave a comment if you would like any other sites adding to the list.
2. An improved commenting system with more advanced spam filtering. This is largely unseen from the front end but I can confirm the spam filter appears to be doing its job very well.
3. Gravatar support so any avatars hosted at gravatar.com are automatically polled into any comment posts. For those who are unaware, gravatars are Globally Recognised Avatars, which allow compatible sites to pull your avatar from a central source without needing to keep a local cache. For users it means only having to set your avatar once and then just supply the associated email address with the comment. For those who do not have a Gravatar account I have also added a neat check box into the comment form so an account can be created for you. If you do choose this then you will receive and email from Gravatar to activate your account so please supply a valid email address.
4. A text size alteration widget in the right hand menu. This will allow you to alter the majority of the text sizes on the site to any size between 7 pixels and 19 pixels in 2 pixel increments. Hopefully this will make accessing and using the site easier for those who are unfortunate to have less than ideal sight.

The new theme, I think, looks a lot fresher and more welcoming than the very dark NinjaMonkey theme I used to use on this site. The new theme is a slightly modified version of freicurv. Hopefully I will like this one enough in a few months to not have to got hunting for another base theme to modify again.

As hinted at above, another background feature I have added is Google Analytics monitoring. This will allow me to see more clearly when visitors arrive and how the site is used. I will not be using any data obtained this way to track any individual, but more to get an overview of how the site is used by everyone. As yet I am not too clear on what data I will get, so am unable to be more precise.

Hopefully these changes will make using the site better for everyone.