Star Tech

Strengthening The Cuckoo's Nest

Cuckoo, you are a writer of many moods - and that is a compliment. A blog is a mirror to the writer's soul and your site reflects many facets of your personality. I like the fact that you are willing to tackle a variety of issues and a variety of subjects.

Your post Fabio Cannavaro from 29 November last year is a great example of your ability to kick up your (high) heels and laugh with your readers. You took a sequence of photographs and put them to witty captions and left us with something to chuckle over. Well done, for there must always be a special place for laughter in today's world.

The post Tears of Joy tells a story that is relevant to anyone, irrespective of race, creed or religion. The simplest stories are the stories that ``carry'' the most effectively from one location to another. The post That was Indu was heart-warming and memorable because it spoke to us all. We all knew people like Indu and because of that, I raced through the story to find out what happened to her.

There is a capricious nature to your blog and that, to me, is a very endearing quality. It's like reading a newspaper and flicking from the news pages to the opinion pages, to social commentary and then to the humour columns - all in one. The post Finally Back made me laugh because you openly debated the logic of joining three little kids under a hose to escape the heat.

On the technical side, I'd advise you to look closely at the problem of your sidebar with your personal information and the chat box. At the moment, it's sitting down the right-hand side of the screen, below your last post. I haven't looked into the details of your template, but it looks as if there is an easy fix. I think the width of your left-hand textbox has exceeded the prescribed margin, or the width of your post area has exceeded the original parameters. You
just need to check the original details on your template and then try and track down exactly where the width has been exceeded. Once this is done, the right-hand textbox will revert to its intended position.

Why is this important? Because the casual or first-time reader wants to know who a blogger is. They want to put a face or a name to a good blog. And it is our responsibility to give them as many clues as possible to remember us.