by Travis
Update: All commenting issues have been resolved. You should get no more error message when commenting, and the “notify me of follow-up comments” function is working properly again. Thanks for your patience as I worked to resolve this! ~ TJP
This is an “at home” Around the Common Room post – in other words, stuff about The Hog’s Head.
- October should be a fun month here at The Hog’s Head. We’re going to read Lovecraft stories together again – the difference this year being that we won’t be putting Potter aside like last year. It will be one of many activities throughout the month, including, of course, giveaways, podcasts, and an overall celebration of the weird tale and scary elements in the Potter stories. You’ll also want to know that the Lovecraft stories I’ve chosen have free audio-versions available, so you’ll be able to read and/or listen to the story. So stay tuned! A month from now will be a lot of fun, and we’ve got a very special guest blogger joining us – announcement on that to follow.
- This weekend, I’ll be doing an interview with John Granger on his new book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures. I’ll get it posted as soon as I get the go-ahead from Zossima.
- There are some changes to the look of the site forthcoming, though Michael’s great artwork will still be right up there at the top. Basically, we’ll be transitioning to a slightly more professional look in a more user-friendly template. I’m very excited about it, and I’m 98% sure that 98% of you will love it.
- Alright, one off-site matter: HP Progs is giving away copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, including standard and deluxe editions. Enter their video contest to win. I’ve got a great idea for a video, but who knows if I’ll have time to record it. (And, of course, don’t forget that you can pre-order the Tales from the Hog’s Head Bookstore.)
- Comments: Anybody having difficulty with their comments? There have been a few odd glitches since we upgraded to the most recent version of Wordpress. If you post a comment, and it doesn’t show up, please send an E-owl. We can usually find it and restore it. Update: For what it’s worth, I just tried posting a comment, got an error message, but when I went back, the comment was, indeed, up. I’ll keep looking into this.
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{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Travis,
After you interview John for, he should interview you.
October sounds like it’s going to be fun. Here’s another idea you can kick around: a post asking people for their favorite ghost stories, featuring a link – so others can read it if so inclined – and explaining why they liked the story. There are a lot of sites which feature ghost stories, including this one:
http://www.horrormasters.com/Themes/ghosts.htm
We could even use a rating system of skulls and shivers, ranging from one S&S for a mildly scary story all the way to four S&S for a story which makes you pull the covers up over your head at night.
Well, I can already notice one thing wrong with the comments. Even though Red Rocker has left a post, the comment counter is showing 0 responses. We’ll see what it says after I leave this comment.
I’ve also noticed that although I click the notify me of follow up comments box, lately I haven’t been getting notified of follow up comments.
I’ve already eowled another problem to you all.
But other than all that, I’m excited & looking forward to what you’ve got going here!
Okay, the counter updated to two comments.
I’m really annoyed with this upgrade to Wordpress 2.6.1. All sorts of comments issues. Check this one out: I usually receive email updates for all comments for my posts. Since this upgrade, I’ve stopped receiving those, AND ALL comments are suddenly appearing in my Google Reader.
I’ll keep looking into it.
One thought re: the “subscribe to comments” function. It’s altogether possible that the newer Wordpress version doesn’t play nice with that plugin. This means that we’ll need to wait for a plugin upgrade.
Travis, thanks for the update of all the exciting events coming up in October.
Looking forward to your interview with John Granger and any previews we can glean about his new book, ‘The Deathly Hallows Lectures’.
Any insights you can share about your own new book on a future Podcast perhaps is something I know we would all look forward to.
I’m looking forward to next month. I’ll be doing a literary countdown to Halloween throughout the month of October with a new text each day on my blog, and I would invite everyone who is interested to drop by!
Thanks for stopping by, Amy. We love what you do at your blog, and like last year, I’ll have your RSS feed in our sidebar (probably in the new design!), so people who visit here regularly can click on over to you each day also (if they don’t do so already).
I am only too happy that there is another Halloween/Ghost theme during the month of October. I was so sad to have missed the chance to participate last year… And Red Rocker, do they need to be ghost stories, or can they be general supernatural scary stories ?
Oh, and btw – I know it’s been said in the too blurry past – but did John Granger ever release new editions of his books after the release of Deathly Hallows ? I can imagine there was a whole new bunch of stuff to write about !
I can’t wait for John’s book! Glad to hear there is going to be a new one. Looking for God in Harry Potter has had an influence on my own storytelling… (In introduced my to the idea of Alchemy and creatures as Christ symbols.)
I also am looking forward to Amy’s countdown.
Also: I keep getting this message after I post a comment. But I’m not sure if it has been every time:
The e-mail could not be sent.
Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function…
Welcome to the club, Shane. That’s the message I get a lot. They are working on it & at least the comments seem to post. Wordpress won’t be able to thwart us for long.
Looks like The Classic Tales podcast has started Halloween early. Harrison is doing Guy de Maupassant’s Fear and the Graveyard this episode. Will hopefully listen to it sometime this week.
Thanks so much, Travis! I really appreciate it. I look forward to all the October goings on here – and pointing others in your direction, too!
And thanks for the kind words, Shane!
Shane, everyone who comments is getting that message right now. I called Bluehost, they said they fixed it, and it’s not fixed. I’m still trying to figure it out.
Victoria, John’s Tyndale book, Looking for God in Harry Potter, has been updated and is available under a new title: How Harry Cast His Spell. His book that entirely focuses on Deathly Hallows, entitled The Deathly Hallows Lectures, will be out soon, and I’m interviewing him tomorrow about it. There is also a revision of Unlocking Harry Potter in the works, and he’s also signed with Penguin books to write something on Harry as a door to great English lit.
I deleted all the “test” comments.
The error is definitely not about the theme. I activated a different theme, and I was still getting the error. It must have something to do with the host, so I’ll have to call them again tomorrow.
Travis,
I didn’t realise John Granger was a nom de plume! Or that he was so politically active.
Travis –
Thanks for that update. I have been meaning to get John’s books for a while, but after Deathly Hallows came out I thought, well he’ll probably revise so I’ll hold out. I put How Harry Cast His Spell on my Amazon list and wait for the word on Unlocking Harry Potter, I’m sure that’ll buzz around here too.
Oeh ! John’s new book proposal sounds good !
Bingo! I figured it out! I had added a plugin that sent a welcome email to new commenters. Something in this plugin was screwing with the comments. I’ve deactivated that plugin, and I’m not getting the error message anymore.
Anyone else?
fine here
Still not getting notification of follow up comments but we’ll see after I post this message under the new pluginless regime.
revgeorge, do let me know if you’re still having difficulty with receiving email follow-ups. You might want to try unsubscribing and then resubscribing to threads you want to follow.
Ah, and the buggy poll post has vanished from the RSS too now. Guess that solves everything. Too bad you can’t use that plugin Travis, but oh well if we hadn’t anything manual left to do, what would do with our day…?
Travis, the commenting following seems to be resolved now. Thanks.
Is this the final new look, or is it still in transition?
I like the menu bar on the top. And the HTML tag reminders below. And lots of room for comments. Maybe a bit too much because the comments are crowding the second column (ads, log of recent comments, tags, polls and what not).
A lot of white space on the right. Maybe the white space can go between the comments on the left and the what not on the right.
Where’s the art work? Without it it feels like we’ve lost our identity. It could be any site.
OK, restart your commentary! I want feedback on this. This is the template, but tweaking it is a community project.
Tell you what. With that larger banner image, the blood underneath the severed hog’s head is REALLY noticeable.
Background color change coming in just a few moments.
Glad the picture is back. I’d stopped seeing the blood, but now that you mention it, it is pretty bloody. Why not make it black so it looks less bloody? (if Michael’s ok with that and doesn’t pull a Howard Roark).
I think that the three columns (comments, log/polls/tags, and ads) look too crowded at the top. It looks better further down, when the middle and right hand columns end and all you have is the comments column. Not sure what you can do about it, though, because you probably want to give equal prominence to recent comments (which I always find very useful) and the ads. Also, I’m kind of fond of the pictures of Tales of Beedle the Bard: they convey the flavour of the HP books.
I notice that your comments have a light aqua background. Is that your theme colour? Will we all have our own theme colours? If so, I pick …. red.
The light aqua is just there so you can quickly find your own comments. I don’t think I can personalize it.
The crowding at the top will be taken care of when I re-activate the image placeholder at the top of the sidebar area – it’s a spot that rotates images (so a different one loads each time you load the page). I just have to find some images that work well there. (My book’s cover will be one of them, when it’s finalized).
Better or worse with the parchment background?
I didn’t see it without the parchment background–but I like it with, if that’s what’s still there. It’s softer on the eyes than the all white sort.
I’m looking forward to your interview with John. Guess what I’m currently reading? I also have How Harry Cast His Spell, then found Deathly Hallows lecture and ordered that. I’m reading that one first.
Who would have guessed last year that there would be so many Harry Potter related books this fall, plus a 10 year anniversary release of Sorcerer’s Stone and then Beedle the Bard.
Oh, and you can count me in the 98% that like the changes. Very nice.
Pat
Pat, when did you order DHL? Do you have it already, or has it yet to ship?
Oh, wait. You’re “reading that one first.” I guess you already answered that question. The only reason I ask is because there’s an updated version that will release soon, which is really quite different than the one you have. Zossima couldn’t pull it from Amazon quickly, so they just didn’t publicize it.
So, when will the updated version of DH Lectures be available? I have, apparently, the one that shouldn’t have been put out. But I’m not going to give it back!
Design changes are okay. Seem to work for me, mostly. However, I know this site will be way large to view on my ultra mobile laptop.
You mean it’s too wide now? It won’t fit in the screen?
For what it’s worth, I preferred the color you did BEFORE the parchment, which is the one I saw when I checked this morning. I think the parchment looks a little chintzy.
So far, feedback on the parchment is about 50/50. Some thing it’s great, some think the plain color was better.
Yes, the site doesn’t fully display on my computer screen. That is, I have to scroll over to the right to read the whole screen.
I also don’t go in for the parchment look. The plain white I thought was better.
Travis, I do already have DHL. I got it a week or two ago, I don’t remember. I found it on-line, Amazon, I think. It was available earlier than that, but I didn’t know it. It’s great, btw.
So, there’s a newer version? How is it different?
I wondered about the width. It’s all showing on my laptop, but I’m not sure it would if I didn’t have the wider screen.
Pat
What do people mean by the “parchment look”? Is it the background as you type in your comment? Because I just get grey – no texture. Put me with the 50% who don’t like it. But it’s not a deal breaker, it’s not even the rift in the lute that by and by will make the music mute. Nothing can mute me for long, I fear.
I was just pulling your leg with the personalized colours.
No, not the background as you type in your comment. The surrounding border. I think you use IE, which means there’s probably hardly anything there. IE tends to run wider.
I usually have “Favorites” open on the sidebar, which takes away the border. When I take away “Favorites” I can see the parchment effect. I kind of like it, particularly with the dark border, and at the top. But really a non-issue for me.
Terrible news at HogPro, about how they’ve butchered HBP. Bad in itself, and worse as an indicator of things to come. I love DH too much to risk seeing it demeaned by an inadequate script.
I saw that a couple of days ago and for some reason decided not to post it.
Why wouldn’t you post it, Travis? After all, no one on this site would be fixated on the bad characterization of Dumbledore by Michael Gambon, which is now seemingly coupled with bad script writing. No one at all would harp on that.
BTW, I am now able to see the full web page.
Wow. Just got my first look at this in IE. This is REALLY wide in IE! I might need to put a “best viewed in Firefox or Safari” icon someone in the sidebar.
I got curious and opened up the site with Firefox (I have both on my computer, but I prefer IE). It’s really skinny in Firefox.
Maybe it’s just what I’m used to, but for now I prefer IE.
I exclusively use Firefox & while the layout of the page at first was too large to fit on the screen, it seems to have been fixed now for Firefox.