I’ve added a few features to the site — one a couple weeks ago, and two just a few minutes ago — and I figured I’d babble for a moment about them.
In brief — the first is a list of books I’ve read recently, found in the right sidebar just underneath the search box. As I start reading a book I’ll put it in, and it will appear at the top of the list. Once I’m done with a book I’ll babble about it, and a ‘Comments…’ link will appear after the book title — click on that to read what I have to say. Simple, sweet, works.
The second — well, the second is a blatant plea for money and support. :D Up until now I’d avoided doing anything like this, but as my finances aren’t what they used to be, I figured it was worth a shot. Via a program that Amazon offers, there’s now a voluntary paybox towards the bottom of the righthand sidebar (at least I didn’t put it right at the top…if I’m going to beg, I’ll make it as subtle as possible). Should you feel like it, click on that, and you’ll be able to donate money to me to help me keep things afloat. I’m not expecting much (if anything) from it, but I figured it was worth a shot. The worst anyone can do is ignore it, right?
The third is also a potential way for me to make the occasional buck or two off the site. Another Amazon program allows me to set links for books, movies and the like to point to their site — then, should somone click through the link to buy something, I get a small percentage of the purchase price. As with the others, it probably won’t add up to much, but every little bet helps.
Technical details follow below.
The ‘Recent reads’ box is actually a mini-blog in its own right. Movable Type allows me to run multiple blogs from one installation, and to customized the output that it generates whenever I make a post. For this main page, it re-writes the entire page each time I make a post, adjusting the displayed text, the calendar, and all the other various blog-related links scattered across this page and the main page to my site.
For the ‘Recent reads’ box, I created a seperate blog, that instead of outputting an entire HTML page ready to render, it just outputs a small text file listing the last 5 books entered into the blog. That text file is then automatically included in the HTML sent to your computer when you request this page from my server, compliments of Server Side Includes. Quick, simple, and easy to use.
The desperate plea for money is driven by the Amazon Honor System, a program where (in their words) “…Web sites use the Amazon Honor System to collect voluntary payments from their users and to accept payment for digital content. In many cases, the Honor System is the only way a Web site can economically collect small payments. In others, the Honor System allows the Web site to raise money for continued operations without resorting to intrusive banner advertisements.” It accepts payments between $1 and $50, all major credit cards, uses secure servers to protect your credit card info…yadda yadda yadda. Basically, if you feel generous, great. If not, no worries. I’m not expecting much out of this — but why not try?