I tweaked the arrangement of the Homepage a little today in a sudden inspiration while compiling several newsy Blinks during my morning web browsing. It’s only a little tweak. News items previously listed as Blinks — because time or newsworthiness did not permit them onsite News pages of their own — are now given entries under the central News tab. This gives them the visibility of other news items. I adjusted the color of the text and links to enhance the distinction between on-site items and off-site links under the News tab. And I retrofitted the Blinks archive page to move news items from there onto the 2003 Archive page among the other news.
One reason I like doing this website is that I have such complete control over it. I don’t have to get anyone’s approval to tweak the design; I don’t have to coordinate among partners or staff about what to post. This may sound like vanity publishing — no editors! anything goes! — just like blogs!! — but you may be sure that the editors and publisher of Locus Magazine keep close watch of the website and provide occasional, ah, advice about what I’m up to here. And I very much appreciate those readers who email me about errors or omissions on the site. The beauty of web-publishing is that I can make such errors disappear.
Having my little website domain is a complete contrast to my day job (at a certain large aerospace firm), where I sit in a Dilbertesque cubicle when I am not sitting in meetings. In such an environment making even the smallest change to a released document requires submitting a change request, getting the request approved, drafting the change, peer reviewing the draft, implementing the reviewed change, and releasing the updated document, before the change goes into effect. It can take months. So you can understand why I appreciate the contrast.
