LTR - Reloaded

2008 marks a new year. And it marks a new look here at LTR.

You may notice a few changes around here. First and foremost, the layout is entirely new. As of now, LTR is compliant with Blogger 2.0 (aka 'New Blogger'). The new layout incorporates XML formatting language, which replaces the previous CSS layout and the crude HTML before that. The result should be a page that loads much quicker, with better rendering and improved results in Google searches.

This blog will also load a bit quicker because articles will be archived faster. As of now, only the most recent five articles will be on the main page. You can access any article easily via the archives on the left or the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of the page.

Many of the same features are still here, though I switched things around a bit to make archiving and search engine pinging much easier (something that the former layout hindered very badly). New features also include a full archive, located on the left side of the page, allowing readers to quickly find articles by month and year. A labels section on the lower left allows for finding certain topics quickly. Larger print in the body of the page will make reading much easier.

On each post, you can now bookmark or share them with the AddThis icon, which allows quick social bookmarking for your own use or for voting or recommending articles to sites such as Digg. I also added a Buzzflash 'Buzz It' icon, but it is not quite compliant yet with New Blogger, meaning it doesn't quite work yet. Still working on a hack for it, so be patient.

The new layout also allows for other nifty things such as polls, as you can see on the left column.

And finally, as mentioned last week. Google accounts are no longer required to leave comments. As part of a reconfiguration by Blogger, OpenID is now configured for LTR. Meaning that you can sign in and leave comments via OpenID-enabled services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL Journals, or even with an AOL/AIM account. You can read more about OpenID here. So far, I've noticed a few people leaving comments with their AOL accounts. Cool!

All in all, it's the new and modernized LTR for 2008. Hope you enjoy it.