Regular users will have noticed a number of changes on the site in the last few weeks, as I’ve updated a few things, changed some graphics, and tried to bring the blog kicking-and-screaming into 2007.

Perhaps the most obvious change from the user perspective is the complete redesign of the Work pages, to separate them out more from the blog – in essence, to differentiate more clearly between the things where I know what I’m talking about and the things where I really don’t. It’s also quite important, as I know that several schools and sixth-form colleges link to the pages from their intranets, so it’s probably preferable for them that the work content is separated out more clearly from the blog.

More significant to the site, however, is the introduction of a formal comment policy. I’ve had almost a thousand genuine comments on the site over the last few years, and up to now I’ve been moderating on a pretty ad-hoc basis. But after a couple of complaints from people who’ve been personally insulted in comments, plus the wider debate in the blogging community about comment policies, I decided that I should probably feature one for the benefit of my users. So here it is.

The design of the site in general has changed, with the old side boxes replaced by a proper sidebar, the introduction of ‘notes’ (the smaller posts-between-posts) so that I can say things briefly without having to create a big dramatic headline, and some general tidying – including of the print function, so that you can once again print a clean copy of any page by employing your browser’s normal print function.

So, in summary: A few minor aesthetic changes, but underneath the surface everything is pretty much the same as ever. Remind you of anything?

Apologies if you’re having problems accessing the site. It seems to be stumbling a little, probably due to increased traffic – I’ve served roughly the same number of hits in the last month as I did in the first five months of last year, and it seems to be taking the server a while to catch up. I’m sure it’ll be sorted soon…

This site is now running WordPress 2.1 ‘Ella’.

The security update was released 12 hours ago, and is now in use on this site. Thanks to Mark, once again, for the Changed Files ZIP. 🙂

Yesterday, I posted that someone was having a bad day. Well, as it turned out, that someone appeared to be my email server. So I unreservedly apologise to all who use the site’s ‘Subscribe by Email’ or comment notification features. I know these went a little nuts yesterday, and sent out four or five copies of emails. As I say, I can only apologise, and state in my defence that this hasn’t happened before, and I’ll endeavour to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And heck, it was probably worse for me than it was for you – my inbox was bursting!

On the sunnier side, the site is now running the all-new WordPress 2.0.6. WordPress is still the best blogging tool about for an awful lot of people, and I highly recommend both the downloadable version (wordpress.org) for experienced users, and the free hosted version (wordpress.com) for beginners. You should check them out. And thanks go, as always, to Mark – your Changed Files ZIP makes life an awful lot quicker and easier.

In the event that the first paragraph of this post didn’t apply to you, and you didn’t care about or understand the second, here’s something to make you glad you’ve just wasted a few minutes. Or not.

This year has been yet another incredible year for this site, and has seen it grow yet further. So, now that it’s almost over, let me indulge in a parochial look back at this amazing year.

Back in 2004, the site generated 282,122 hits. That’s quite impressive. Last year, I was blown away by a final total of 1,202,415 hits. This year, I’ve more than doubled that. The final figures won’t be in till sometime tomorrow, but I’ve certainly had well over 2,500,000 hits this – two and a half million. The site has grown pretty consistently over the year, with this month being the most successful.

All of this is despite there being far fewer posts this year than last. I hope that you’d agree that, whilst there have been fewer posts, each one has been of higher quality. Easily one of the most notable posts of the year come in February, when I was one of only a very few UK outlets to publish the infamous Denmark cartoons, sparking a response bigger than anything the site has ever seen before, contact with the Reuters news agency, and a Google ranking higher which was the stuff of dreams. The comment thread still continues to grow.

Also this year, I’ve been featured in Iain Dale’s book as one of the country’s top politcal bloggers, ranking me higher than Jeffrey Archer, Melanie Phillips, and David Aaronovitch, I’ve won a Bloggy Award, I’ve worked with the country’s number one political blogger Guido Fawkes on a local political scoop, and I’ve been picked out by Channel 4 News as a ‘blog of interest’. And all this for spouting my often ill-conceived opinions to a global audience. Oh, and the site’s now making a profit for the first time, despite having no big flashy banner ads or Google Adwords – just plain, honest recommendations and an all-new toolbar with ‘shopping’ links.

So, after a spectacular year, there’s really only one things that remains to be done. And that is to thank you, my readers, for your continued support throughout the year. I thank you for your reading, your commenting, and even for those times we’ve disagreed. Thank you for it all – you make it worthwhile and fun.

I’ll be back here in 2007 – I hope you will be too.

Now we’re officially in December, I’ve added the usual Christmassy touches around the place. It’s snowflakes galore for the next month and a bit!

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been some more permanent changes I’ve neglected to tell you about, too.

Firstly, there’s a new ‘Share This’ function. Clicking the Share This link will make a whole raft of options appear, which will allow you to share a particular post via Email or using a Social Web like Digg. You can find the link below each post, which brings me to the next change…

The post footer has been tidied up. On pages with several posts, it’s just been made a bit clearer and neater. On the individual post pages, it’s been reinstated, with an ‘Interact with this post’ section appearing below the post. The ‘More about this post’ section in the sidebar now provides ‘Quicklinks’ to commenting facilities.

Which brings me neatly to the third change. Comments are now closed for all posts, once they reach one year of age. This helps to curb spam, and also to keep discussions to the most recent posts on each topic. To this end, a notice will appear by the ‘Leave a comment’ form pointing out the fact if a post is a little on the old side, but not yet a year old, and hence still open for comments.

And finally, you’ll notice that on multiple post pages, the post titles are now clickable. It’s a small change, but stops having to faff around finding the ‘Permalink’ link.

I hope these changes meet with your approval. Thank you, as ever, for your support for the site. November was the best month ever in terms of hits on the site, with well over double the traffic for the same period last year. So thank you!

On the same day as my car clocks over 50,000 miles, I hit 1,000 posts. I feel like I should write something deep and meaningful about the history of the site, how I’ve changed, and possibly include some shocking revelations.

But, frankly, I think you’ve heard all that already.

So I sit here, and wonder why I’ve bothered writing the last 222,000 words (about three-and-a-half novels), designing and redesigning the site countless times, not to mention footing the hosting bill.

I started posting about three-and-a-half years ago on The LBSC. Now, 1000 posts later I’m on my own stupidly successful site, still venting my spleen, getting hundreds of thousands of hits each month and actually spinning a profit. So, in summary, I get to spout my self-important opinions, have thousands of people read them (and present me with awards!), mess around a bit with a website, and I get paid (albeit modestly) for the privilege.

When I put it like that, I wonder why it took me so long to discover blogging! The site started over seven years ago, and looking back at archive.org always makes me smile. There was a bizarre flash-based period, a number of odd aggregation attempts, and a fantastic thing from 2002 where I used a special logo to celebrate 5000 hits – far fewer than I get in a day, now.

I’ve written a lot, and the site has come a long way since then. But even when no-one read it, it was fun. It still is fun. And as long as it is, I’ll still be writing here.

This is the 999th post on this site… and also the first to be posted
by mobile phone. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s certainly
proof of the mobile blogging concept for sjhoward.co.uk, and (I like
to think) shows that even all this time on, I’m still trying to
innovate.

And, for mobile phone fanatics, make sure you watch this space for new
mobile content coming soon. See the new mobile link at the top of
every page – this brings together the current mobile services
together, and is the place where new ones will be added.

So, the next post will be 1,000… I guess I’m going to have to come
up with something pretty special for that!

For those to whom this means something, I’m now up to WP 2.0.5 (9 days since its release – that’s slow going for me!). Thanks to Mark for the changed files zip, it’s really helpful, and for the heads-up about Error 500s – I did have the problem, but the supplied tune-up plugin took care of it. Thanks!

In other news, I’ve tidied up the BlogRoll a bit, and added some new blogs. It’s more a side-effect of cleaning up my Bloglines subscriptions, because the BlogRoll comes straight from there, but it’s nice all the same. One new inclusion is the newly relaunched More4 News blog, which is looking good – and I’m not just saying it because I’m in the “Other blogs of interest” column” (thought that’s more than welcome…). I also want to have the first Trackback… Oh, and it’s a great programme and a great site, of course!