No, you’re not seeing things — we have changed the format of our “Morning Brief”. The new look is a result of some new blogging software. (We’ve switched from the basic google blogger software to WordPress) WordPress is a bit more sophisticated in the way the content is presented and organized for our readers, and offers some features not available with the old software. Additionally, you may have noticed that the archives at the old page never quite worked like they were supposed to, and the new software solves that.
The biggest changes that you may note, besides the cosmetic appearance of the page are: (1) Search engine that lets you find anything in our archives; Try it now if you like. Type in the word “poker” and you’ll get a short abstract about Maccabbi poker fund raiser this weekend. Now click the title of the article and it will expand to full text; (2) Categories, which you can click to see postings on only a particular topic; (3) Link bar, for easy access to some of your favorite fastball sites, including a quick link to get back to fastpitchwest; (4) Monthly archives, containing short abstracts for easier reference (click the title of any archive item to see the entire text of the column); (5) RSS Syndication to news readers. (a way to get our Morning Brief delivered as an email each time we add a new item). Don’t worry if your reaction to that last item was “huh?” The techies in the crowd will understand and can plug our RSS URL into their news reader. Those of you who have no idea what RSS is, fear not, as you can continued to read the Morning Brief at this site. We’ll be posting a column on the subject (RSS) for those who are interested. It’s a very cool feature that saves you the trouble of logging in to see if there is anything new posted. Easy route to RSS – click the “Get Thunderbird” link at the right under “Syndication”; (6) Live Bookmarks. Do you see that little orange square in the lower right hand corner? Click it, then choose RSS 2.0. It will place a bookmark for the site in your browser bookmarks that also create a “sub-menu” listing the headlines of the columns from Morning Brief, so you can access any of them from your the Bookmarks. If you don’t see an orange square on your browser, you probably haven’t set up your news reader. Stay tuned, as we’ll cover in a future posting. Want to read a bit more about this? Click here.
We’ve also made Morning Brief easier to find. It’s now on the main menu at Fastpitchwest, as well as a quick link at the bottom of every page at Fastpitchwest. (in that little grey bar quick link bar). And the URL is easy: http://www.fastpitchwest.com/morningbrief
Thank you for your feedback about the Morning Brief to date. Judging from the emails we receive, it is becoming one of the more popular pages at our site.
We’re still tweaking the settings of the new software, so you may see some more minor changes in the coming weeks. We will be restoring the archive of prior postings for those who wish to reference them for any reason, and will leave the “old” Morning Brief intact until we do. You can access the old Morning Brief via the link over on the right under “links”.
Click the “Contact Morning Brief” link over on the right, and let us know what you think about the new format. Lastly, if you bookmarked the old site, don’t forget to update your bookmarks.