More on Amazon Links
Having played around with server side includes, and proved what I was trying to do actually works, I have now decided to bite the bullet and apply the new Amazon links sidebar to the main page of the blog.
All the CDs and books listed are those that I can thoughoughly recommend. Buy them all! Buy them for your friends!
When I apply the same changes to the category sub-blogs, and the individual archives, the Amazon links will be different dependent on the category; Music will have links to CDs, while Railways will have railway books. At least that's the idea.
The format still needs some tweaking, and I'd appreciate some feedback. I'll be keeping the three-column format, but I'm wondering whether to abandon the dark coloured sidebars, and use borders to differentiate the columns.
Update: One change I did have to make was to change the index file from a .html to a .shtml, otherwise the server-side include would not work. This means that http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/index.html has been torn up by the cat, and the new URL is http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/index.shtml. If you've bookmarked http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/, like you should have done, all should still work!
Posted by TimHall at June 09, 2005 08:42 PM | TrackBackFor a moment I was wondering what you were talking about, then I realised something you probably ought to know: Those using Firefox and the Adblock extension don't see the Amazon content, so that column is empty.
The sidebar displays okay in (ugh!) Internet Explorer.
Posted by: NRT on June 10, 2005 12:00 AMSurely not seeing the adverts if you're using Adblock is exactly what you'd expect?
I'm typing/viewing this using Firefox and I can see the adverts just fine. Unfortunately ;-) Maurice Dart's "China Clay Trains In Shadow"? Recommended? You've been on the *other* white powder :-))))))))))))
Posted by: Steve Jones on June 10, 2005 07:11 AMMinistry - What Steve Jones said!
I'm considering having the sidebar the same colour as the main content column - http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/newindex.shtml shows what it looks like.
Steve: A depressingly large number of railway books don't have images available. I wanted to have Siviter's "Taunton West", but Amazon can't be arsed to scan the cover of that one! The Maurice Dart book was one of the few that did.
Posted by: Tim Hall on June 10, 2005 07:54 AMLooks good in Firefox to me. The colours look fine to me but then again I am colour blind! Just prog rock? No links to Coldplay? :-)
Posted by: Chris on June 10, 2005 09:40 AMChris - Coldplay are boring, whiny and dull, without enough guitar solos or mellotrons.
I do plan to put some additional content in the right-hand sidebar, so anti-commerce freeloaders don't see a blank column.
Posted by: Tim Hall on June 10, 2005 12:19 PMNote to self....must get new Coldplay album...
Not that i'm against a guitar solo or two (or 12 minutes worth) mind... ;-)
Never mind guitar solos, what about drum solos? Surely the whole idea of CDs was that we could have longer drum solos? :-)
Posted by: Steve Jones on June 10, 2005 02:36 PMJust to clarify:
* I said Firefox *with Adblock installed*, not 'out-of-the-box' Firefox. Adblock is one of the most popular extensions (I'd call it essential!), so a fair number of people are likely to be affected.
* Yes, this is the expected result of using Adblock, but I just wanted to make you aware of it. Personally, I stick with inline Amazon links, rather than sidebars, etc.
Posted by: NRT on June 10, 2005 02:41 PM