Tree Bark Jacket » Blogging

Short break

Keeva — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:42:01 +0000

Hi guys,

Just a short note to say I’m taking a bit of a break from the game and computery stuff in general, to give my wrists a chance to heal up, and because I probably should have a break now while it’s quiet.

I also need to focus on work and some RL stuff for a bit, so I’m a bit too distracted for quality blogging.

Back soon!

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Wanted: more Resto Druid blogs

Keeva — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:15:27 +0000

Just a quickie guys – I am updating my blogroll (down on the right sidebar, there).

Have I missed you? Please let me know.

It’s highly likely I subscribe to you, but I need to manually add you to that sidebar list, and I’m very forgetful. I found a few long-standing blogs that weren’t on that list, despite the fact that I’ve subscribed for ages. *hangs head*

Please leave a comment, or send me a quick note, and I’ll add you to the list. The more resto druid blogs, the merrier!

Thanks!

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I got bored; here’s the new TBJ

Keeva — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:08:16 +0000

In a month or so, it will be a year since I revamped TBJ, moving from Blogger to self-hosted Wordpress.

I was very proud of the new TBJ, it was much sleeker than my Blogger site, since I had a lot more control over the layout and content. Of course, it took me ages to reverse-engineer the template that I butchered, but I got there in the end. But, you know how it goes… lately I’ve been getting antsy again, and decided it was time for a change.

Goodbye, old TBJ!

Preserved here for posterity!

As you can see, the new front page is more magazine-style, with post summaries rather than entire novels. I’ve added thumbnails to the excerpts (but I cheated, and only added them to the first batch of posts.. heh). I’ve also added a few bits and pieces – the ability to “rate” posts and vote comments up/down, and the little “share” panel on each post. I’ll need to change my restoguide to fit the new format, but I was going to fix it up a bit anyway.

The new layout gives me more space, and the sidebars will allow me to post key features – like updates to my guide, or other cool things that I want people to have easy access to.

Please be kind, I was up until the early hours tweaking (read: hacking) – but if you do find any bugs or problems, let me know. In particular, I’m hoping that my full posts still go through to everyone’s feeds, so if you have any problems with that, I’d appreciate the feedback.

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Back – downtime over!

Keeva — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:47:49 +0000

Sorry for the few days of downtime – my host assigned my server a new IP, and things didn’t convert as automagically as they (and I) had hoped.
Lately I’ve been enjoying a bit of a lull in the blogosphere, putting my feet up and going with it while the going’s good.. but I tell you what.. when someone takes your blog away for four days, it doesn’t matter if you have nothing to say – you get desperate to have the chance!
But, as I said on Twitter – it could have been worse. It could have been 4 days of downtime at the start of the beta. Or worse – release!
I missed you, blog! *hugs*

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Resto guide – now with Wowhead links!

Keeva — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:15:42 +0000

Just a quick note to say that I have fixed up a few of the suggestions and corrections sent in, and I’ve now updated the guide to include Wowhead mouseover links for all talents, objects and abilities.
All 580 billion of them.

http://treebarkjacket.com/restoguide/

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Resto druid guide up!

Keeva — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:14:10 +0000

For a little while now I’ve been working on a Resto healing guide of my own. For ages I didn’t bother, since there were other guides up, and I didn’t think it was worth the effort to reinvent the wheel. But I realised that if I want my site to be any kind of resource, I need it to have information that people are seeking when they come here.
I do have a guides page, but those guides have been a bit few and far between.
So in the future I would like my site to continue to be “bloggy”, but I’d like to put more of an emphasis on helpful and informative guide-type articles along the way, so that TBJ can be a solid resource for resto druids.
As a foundation, I’ve created my own resto PvE guide:

http://treebarkjacket.com/restoguide/

I haven’t added it to my guides page yet – but I will soon. I need to update that page a bit anyway.
Due to the size of the guide, I’m positive there will be typos, a broken link or two, and most likely some wonky advice, no doubt. If you spot something that you think isn’t quite right, would you mind letting me know?
Some of it is accepted theorycraft, but a lot of it is “this is how I do it” based on my experience. If you think something is way off base, or perhaps something is missing, please let me know. I’ve already had to fix one part of it because I wrote it from my point of view, rather than as a new druid.. so I don’t mind if you think something isn’t quite right.
(Just be gentle though, I spent a lot of time on it!)
Thanks!

Oops, quick edit: Before anyone comments – I realise it is too wide for a 15″ monitor (if you have one). Unfortunately if I make it any narrower, it will make it so that the text in many of the tables will have to be reduced to being almost illegible, in order to fit. I do apologise that you’ll have to scroll – but it has to be that wide. Cheers!

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Tree with a Wordpress blog? Here’s a cute theme

Keeva — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:03:31 +0000

I know I’m meant to not be here, but I found this the other day and thought it was really cute.
http://www.skinpress.com/orangy/
It would suit a Wordpress tree blogger who is looking for a nice, light makeover.
Enjoy

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Hiatus

Keeva — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:14:36 +0000

Hi everyone.
You may have noticed in the last few weeks that my posts have been infrequent and pretty low-quality.
I’m working on some big personal projects at the moment, and I have next to no time to play the game or to devote to my beloved TBJ. Lately I’ve barely had time to post – in fact I’ve barely been able to read my favourite blogs at all
I’m not happy with the current state of things – I would prefer to take a break from blogging for a short time, rather than continue posting content that I feel is mediocre and below the standard that I expect from myself (and that you guys all expect from me).
I’ve also gone “casual” in my guild and have cut my raiding back to almost nothing. Luckily, with the ICC buffs, fewer healers are needed; plus our healer team kicks ass, and we have a good officer team who can survive without me – so now is probably an opportune time for me to step out, because it doesn’t impact on the guild too badly. It sucks a bit – I’ll miss the first Lich King kill, and I miss my guild (even though I’m still around). But I really do need to focus on RL for now.
So, rather than force out sub-par posts, I’m going to press pause on TBJ – just for a little while. I’d rather step back for a while than write posts that are disappointing.
Aka’Magosh!

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Getting with the program, part 2: Twitter

Keeva — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:25:57 +0000

Yeah, I said I’d never do it.. but here I am. Tweeting.
I just found that there were a lot of times that I wanted to say something quick, but didn’t feel it warranted a blog post, or perhaps didn’t have the time to put one together, anyway. So I relented, and signed up for a twitter account, to tie into my blog.

You can see a handful of tweets on the sidebar on the left. It will probably be a mix of WoW stuff and random personal snippets.
I’m embracing the modern age, and whatnot.

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How to add Wowhead links to your blog

Keeva — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:50:17 +0000

Another blogger asked me how to get the Wowhead mouseover links to work in her blog. For example, when you mouseover this item, you can see its Wowhead tooltip: Support Girdle
This is a really handy thing to have – it makes it nice and easy on your readers; they don’t have to click the link (or go search for the item) to check out its stats. They won’t have to worry about going looking for the item to know what you’re talking about.
It’s actually very easy to implement this – it will take you about 2 minutes of your time. The script itself lives over at Wowhead.com; you just have to paste some code into your blog to point to it. Then, any time you post a Wowhead item link, it will automatically convert to a mouseover.
Adding Wowhead links to Blogger/Blogspot blogs

Go to your dashboard, go to Layout, and in the widget section, make a new widget.
Choose html/java, because it’s going to just be a bit of code pasted in. Don’t give it a title; this way it will show in your dashboard list of widgets as “html/javascript” but wont show on your blog’s widget list. It’ll be working for you behind the scenes.
Paste this in:
Save, and you’re done!

Adding Wowhead links to Wordpress blogs
Note: I run self-hosted Wordpress blog, and I can control the layout of my site entirely. I assume that Wordpress-hosted blogs are similar, you will just need to navigate to your template to paste the code in.

Go to your dashboard; under Appearance, click on Edit.
Open Header template file (putting it in the header means it will function on each page of your blog), and inside the tag, paste this in:

Posting a mouseover link

Go to wowhead and grab your item’s address/link, eg http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1215
When you write your post, you’ll need to write the link like this:
Support Girdle

That’s it!

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