Inverness Forest Today Facelift

I've given Inverness Forest Today a facelift and added several new features.  The change in appearance is more than cosmetic.  The old layout always used the same narrow column for all the posts regardless of how wide you made your browser window.  The new layout display the posts in a wider column when you increase the width of the window.

I've added a set of navigation links at the top of the page as shown here.  Home takes you to the usual blog posts, More links takes you to a page of additional links that you might find useful.  These links are in addition to the ones found in the sidebar.  Suggest Topic is a page that asks you to suggest a topic for future blog posts.

Near the top of the sidebar is a new Search box.  Enter a word and a search of the blog finds posts that match the word you entered.  For example, there was a blog post about raccoons almost a year ago.  If you type "raccoons" in the search box, the post from June 1, 2009 will be found.

Another way to find previously covered topics on Inverness Forest Today is with the Topics list.  As you can see in the illustration, there have been 13 posts about the minutes, six about snow, five about gardening, etc.  Clicking on the keyword, such as snow, takes you to a list of the six posts on snow.  From here you can view the individual posts.  It is possible that a single post can cover multiple topics so it might be listed in more than one topic.

Finally, I've added a link in the links list to the Trash Pickup status.  Clicking on this link will tell you whether our trash will be picked up on Monday or whether, due to a holiday or weather conditions, it will be picked up at a later time.

I hope you find these new features useful.  As always, if you have a comment please click on the "Comment(s) link below or send me an email.

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Not long ago I reported on the new features of the invernessvillage.org website (link in sidebar).  In addition to those feature I've created a new communication channel for all Inverness Forest residents.  Until now, if you had an issue you wanted to discuss your only option was to send me an email and ask me to post your email on my Inverness Forest Today blog.  There was no way to raise and discuss issues on your own.  I've solved that problem by creating a Google group located at http://groups.google.com/group/invernessforest/  I'll be inviting everyone on my mailing list to join the group, but you don't have to wait to be invited.  One of the options you will have when you click on this link is to "Sign in and apply for membership".  

If you already have a gmail account or use any google service (Picasa, Google Calendar, Google Docs, YouTube, Google Groups, Blogger, Google Reader, etc.) then you can use your google sign in/password to access the invernessforest group.  If you don't already have any of these google accounts, you'll be asked to create a new google account.

As a member of the group you will be able to send mail to the group's email address, which will, in turn, be sent to every member of the group.  Don't worry about spam.  No sales pitches for used cars will be allowed.  You will also be able to upload photos and other files to the group so that all group members can see them.

Harvey

iftblog@gmail.com
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