over the last week or so there has been a number of changes to the RSS news feed ticker thingee, its not too big a deal for me because i can always disable or adblock the script in my browser, but its getting ridiculously large - when I looked at it today, it was 16 lines long.

Thats almost half the height of my browser window at 1440 x 900 resolution. Assuming you were looking at the full page with ads, page graphics and all that it seems a little overbearing - is this the intended size and effect?

My apologies if this is something that is a work in progress....

...and for anyone that wants to disable the script for the ticker in firefox, use the Adblock extension and add these filters:


http://www.sitcomsonline.com/rssticker*
http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/dynamicfeed/gfdynamicfeedcontrol*

It's still being tweaked and it's not necesarily the final ticker we'll be using. I've tried about 5-6 looking for the ideal one. The problem with the old ticker was that it would never update until 4-5 hours after something was posted. I could customize the number of items, but I don't really see the difference between having 4 items listed vs. 7. I don't think it takes up a huge amount of real estate. I'm viewing it on a 1028 x 768 monitor. The actual ticker would be about 1/3 of the page. I think people have been accustomed to scrolling down on various internet sites over the last few years. Most people probably won't even wait for it to load after seeing it on the first page. I think the actual number of lines is more in the neighborhood of 13-14 and not 16... If people don't find it useful, then they can block it on their own. It's my site and I feel I like I should be able to present it in the way I want to. Pavan does a wonderful job with the blog and I'm going to do everything I can to promote it. It's actually more popular than the main page of the site.

hey no problem, I'm just trying to provide some constructive feedback

everyones screen resolution and font size may be a little different and so the experience may be different - my eyesight isn't that great and I bump up the font size for easier reading, which means I may have to hit page down 3 times before I get to see content.

I don't think I could make the font any smaller without people needing a magnifying glass to read it. If you are increasing the font size, then I could see what you are saying. It doesn't look so big at the designed level. I actually decreased the font sizes from the default.

Why promote blocking the ticker robyrob? It doesn't freeze anything or it isn't an ad with a virus or anything. I understand the pop-ups and ads, but the ticker? It gives more exposure to the growing blog which is growing all the time. It's been very successful and I thank all of you for reading it everyday. I am trying my best to give readers something that they can't see elsewhere every single day. What other place updates daily? A post everyday since Aug. 2005 and I have no plans on ever stopping (until my death maybe LOL). Thanks for the feedback, though!

Why promote blocking the ticker robyrob? It doesn't freeze anything or it isn't an ad with a virus or anything. I understand the pop-ups and ads, but the ticker? It gives more exposure to the growing blog which is growing all the time. It's been very successful and I thank all of you for reading it everyday. I am trying my best to give readers something that they can't see elsewhere every single day. What other place updates daily? A post everyday since Aug. 2005 and I have no plans on ever stopping (until my death maybe LOL). Thanks for the feedback, though!
when you come here every day, you see it many times a day and the blog only changes once a day - I don't need to read it on every single page I view.

I can see the need to advertise it for people that don't come here often or don't know about it, and i'm not saying that you shouldn't promote it, just that for people that are already aware of it they dont need it.

I'll have to see if I can set a cookie for it or make it collapsible. It was a bit of a pain to set up and customize, so I don't know how easy that will be. It's still a work in progress.

Can we get an extension for your obscenely long signature? :)

There is now a button on the right side of the news ticker frame that allows you to collapse the ticker.

I think I'm going to leave the ticker on. I'm used to it now, and I'm always clicking on a headline that grabs me. I guess I needed the blog delivered to my doorstop, lol. It's quite impressive, Pavan. I can see you put a lot of work into it.

Thanks for the comments, Janice. And thanks for reading!

Pavan I want you to know that you always do an awsome Job at reporting on your News Blog's and I always read your news blogs keep up the good work my friend.

I don't mind the ticker - Whenever I come on here before the blog story is up, I just click that day's story on the ticker to read it. No big deal, and it's not like you can't scroll down to get rid of it ;)

I love the blog, Pavan. Every day is very insightful to read - I always read it before reading other news of the day. You do a great job with it! :)