OFF TOPIC: About this blog's appearance

I've noticed a steady increase in the number of subscribers to this blog's feed.  After thinking about that a bit, I concluded that a few words about this blog's formatting are in order.

Block Quotes:  I have chosen to adopt the stylistic design element of a large, light gray, offset quote mark at the beginning of block quotes (yes, it is technically unnecessary, but I like it).  There are at least two basic mechanisms for implementing this design choice.  One involves a background image applied to the paragraph.  I do not use that option.  The other method, which I use, involves enclosing actual text in a span element and applying formatting to it.  It is simple to insert the span code in my post text.  However, it is likely that feeds and other non-browser readers will simply display a single quote mark at the beginning of the block quote.  If you are reading these posts off the feed or in a reader that doesn't do much in the way of html formatting, now you know.

The Acrobat.com widget:  I am testing a flash-based tool from adobe that allows pdf files to be embedded in a post and enlarged.  If you don't have flash installed, it won't work.  I haven't looked at it in a feed, but I assume it won't display there either.

Page weight:  With the Acrobat.com widget in particular, and the frequent use of images to enhance post appearance, the blog generates fairly weighty pages.  Basically, you need a broadband connection to comfortably read this blog online.  I am assuming that the viewing demographic has access to broadband.  If you don't, I apologize.

Browsers:  I've examined the blog in Firefox and IE7.  I had to work quite a bit to sort out the code for the background pattern so that it aligned correctly in both of those browsers.  Beyond that, I don't have a lot of control if things aren't working right in other browser variants.  Unless I want to take over all of the code myself, this blog is only semi-customizable.  It's fair to say that with IE7 and Firefox rendering correctly, I've covered the largest browser target that I can, given the restriction on styling the code base behind the blog.

If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment or e-mail me, and I will answer if I am able (or tell you that I don't know).