example of comment form

The technical work that took place yesterday went great…well I think it did. You will be the judge of that as you look around the blog today.

Most of the remodeling took place behind the scenes, but you will notice some changes.

I liked how the blog looked so we tried to keep the colors the same as well as the location of the photo links and sidebar options.

The comment form doesn’t have labels like the old one. See the photo at the top of this post? That shows you where you’ll need to type the comment, your name, and your email to submit a comment. The box to the right of the Email box can be left blank. I’m checking with my theme designer to see if labels can be added to the comment form. Using the * to mark the label is confusing to me. It took me a few minutes to discover which was which when I was testing the site.

arrows to show menu

I especially liked the suggested similar posts that appeared under my daily writings on the old theme and wanted to keep that feature. This one is even better as it shares additional posts from the archives. If you hover over the boxes you’ll see little directional arrows pop up (see photo above). You can click on them to see several related posts instead of just the three that are shown.

I hope the dust-bunnies left over from moving things around have all been swept up, but if you notice anything amiss or have any trouble let me know. You can leave a comment or email me at blindpigandtheacorn @ gmail.com.

Last night’s video: My Appalachia – A Memoir | Angels Among Us, Seeing The First Train, & Scoundrels.

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57 Comments

  1. All looks good to me! I am no expert on anything technological so don’t take my word for it. LOL. Just keep the good stories coming & I am satisfied. One commenter mentioned an easier way to interact with the other commenters. One thing I would love is some sort of notification that someone else replied to you, but I have no idea if that is even possible. That is the one thing I like about the YouTube comments. I need to do some ‘rearranging’ myself. My whole house is a mess. Hubby & I have been making summer sausage (some call it Croghan Bologne or Ring Bologne) for DAYS. My kitchen, hallway, pantry, are a disaster. But we made 30 lbs of sausage & I am relieved its done. Younger daughter just got a 6 pt. tonight and we are so proud. & we helped our neighbor process his first buck – a 6 pt, too. But this has all led to my house being tossed upside down. I don’t like starting the week with an unkempt house. Ugh.

  2. Welcome back Tipper and family, Only one day without you and the day just did not feel complete when not having a posting from you.

  3. Well done, Tipper !!!

    The new look and feel is enough like the old one that it doesn’t feel strange at all. I like it. I especially like the scrolling panel of pic-links that take you to other posts.

    For future planning . . .
    I’m still wishing for control of the order of posts. I like to read them in the order they were posted which requires scrolling from ‘bottom’ to ‘top’ which feels unnatural to me. I’d also like to see the ability to edit one’s own posts as I frequently find typos or sentences I could have written better.
    I’m still also wishing for a Blind Pig and the Acorn forum so all of us fans can interact with each other more easily.

    Good job!!!! Glad we only had to miss one day.

  4. My wife stumbled upon you and your videos as she loves trying new recipes. She’s not well and it is relaxing for her to come home from her job and watch you and your family do the things you do. I was also swept up by your videos because so many things remind me of “down home”.
    We are in our late 50’s and so much of the things you do and say ring home with me as I’m originally from the southern Missouri Ozark hills. We were very poor growing up in those days all the way down to having to use an outhouse. And minimal indoor plumbing. My wife and I now live near where she grew up in southeastern Nebraska where we have converted our basement into an apartment and our son, daughter-in-law, and three year old grandson now reside. It’s a blessing to have the family together while my wife fights her cancer. I will hopefully retire soon so I can have time to do so many of the things you do in your videos. Thanks for giving us something wholesome to watch while this world spins out of control. God Bless you and your family.
    Sincerely,
    Ed

    1. Eddie, I know a lot about growing up poor and I can also relate to many things on Tipper’s blog. What I want to tell you more than anything else is I will be praying for your wife, you, and the rest of the family.

    2. Hi Randy, I am so sorry to hear about your wife’s illness. I do hope the best for both of you. Also, I love both the Southern Appalachian Mountains and the Southern Ozark Mountains. These are the two most beautiful places in the South. As you can tell I am from the South and would not want to live any other place than the Southern United States.

  5. I like it – especially the directional arrows on the bottom labeled similar posts. Being able to hover over one brings a few more similar posts to see. In the past, I have noticed some older posts that I missed probably because of being on vacation and at that time it is another joy to read. Like finding an old precious memory come to your mind. The only thing that I noticed regarding the comments is that there is a line drawn between each comment. If they were there before, somehow I didn’t notice them:)

  6. A little harder to leave a reply to a specific individual, but I eventually can get it. (or maybe it’s my computer)
    The site looks great. Thanks for your hard work!!

  7. It looks good Tipper. Love your daily posts and watching you and your family on YouTube. We’re having our first really airish day here in southeast Texas. It’s 46 degrees at almost 10 am.

  8. Hmmm hope I figure this out OK. I like the larger font and (I think) different typeface. Thanks for your endeavours to stay up with changes – definitely not easy nor fun.

  9. Congratulations! Sorry, I didn’t notice any bunnies for you. But I did notice a bunch more old posts to peruse in my spare time. Site looks great!!!

  10. Happy ur back online! I like the ‘new’ layout! Seems all went well!! In my (limited) experience w/ computer updates, the ‘opportunities’ always show up in about a month!! lol Just as a sidebar, I really enjoy reading ur blog every morning and watching both your & ur girls YT channels. Thanks for all u and ur daughters do!

  11. I like how you rearranged the furniture…lol. The page looks great and I think easier to navigate, plus easier for my old eyes to read. I won’t have to enlarge the comment box to see what I’ve typed or others comments to read. I like how I can now swipe through the past blogs to see them instead of scrolling to search for one. You did great Tipper! No dust bunnies left from what I can see. Thank you and glad to have you back!

  12. I love your new furniture Tipper, So fresh, clear, and clean. My eyes noticed the difference right off. Better is better this time. Thanks for doing this. I love it even more now!

  13. This is exciting! Congratulations on keeping this great resource evolving! (I was just braggin on you a few days ago. Someone ask me an Appalachian folkways question and I said to search this site!)

  14. Good morning, I like the changes, did some random searching, found new posts and old, well done! I bet your happy it’s completed, back to the part you enjoy. Have a blessed day!

  15. Missed you yesterday, reading your blog is one of the first things I do every morning. My grandson and his friends are somewhere over your way this morning, they plan on doing some hiking today.

  16. Glad you are back. I

    I am with you Tipper about using asterisks alone to mark fields. If you don’t add labels (Comment, Name, Email Address) you probably will not get any comments from new readers. An asterisk doesn’t tell the user what information to input. Your old readers may accidentally reverse name and email address. Then there those of us with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s who may forget comments altogether.

    Personally I don’t like using a toggle menu to hide important categories of blog posts: Home, Appalachian Dialect, Appalachian Food, Grannyisms, Music. Your readers likely have varying technical skill sets. Some may not know that three horizontal lines represents a menu. They may miss the wonderful richness these categories provide.

    Then as you note, the sidebar offering links to other blogs seems to be gone.

    Once upon a time I worked in user support, and I have done lots of new system testing. I could not “break” the system. It works. I just think it could be better. I offer these comments hoping they help.

  17. One thing I woushed you hadda done is put the comment box at the top of the list so we would comment before we read other peoples thoughts. You know, like when you have an idee but you read where somebody else has a similar idee so you just see “me too” and don’t say anything!
    Another thing I thought of, if I had told you beforehand, you might have done it already. I just made it my fault not yours didn’t I?

    One thing I think I’ll do when I comment is to include words from my past that I don’t hear anymore and see if anybody notices

  18. So far everything is working on my end and looks great!!! Hope this new arrangement works for you and you don’t run into problems.

  19. yay your back, and sounds like answered prayers of a easy transition to your updated format.

    It’s showing to beat the band in East Central Illinois this morning❄️☺️❄️❄️❄️☺️❄️ our first snow, and I started my Christmas decorating yesterday, have the tree up with lights at least so yay And….the house feels like the holidays (even though we are empty-nesters) bc I’m making the homemade chicken and noodles for our church Thanksgiving tomorrow. I made 5gallon of broth and deboned 3 whole chickens yesterday, I’m making the noodles today and leaving them to dry until tomorrow’s cooking.

    Hope you enjoy your Sat as much as I’m going to!

  20. Love title here. I really thought you rearranged your house (haha). This looks good and it looks like all is well. Have a great day and keep ’em coming. Much love from SC!

  21. Good morning. Mine doesn’t look anything like you showed. However, I’m not updating nor have I for literal months or years. (I’m a total rebel) and show no IP which works for me! Best of wishes as you are always working and building and improving- it shows!!!

  22. And you are back, praise the Lord. Amazing how we got used to something and the first time it is not there, it seems like the days doesn’t start out right. And the reading yesterday was awesome. Have a Blessed weekend Tipper.

  23. So happy you are back! I look forward early each day to reading your post.

    A day without Tipper is like a day without sunshine.

  24. I’m glad to see you back! I know it was only one day, but I missed you. Now I’ve written this let’s see if I can get it to post!

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