Trig New Look

[rg]

just want to congratulate the work and compliment the result of the current amazon link button.

it strikes me that le mot juste for this positioning, etc. is to describe it as 'trig' a word that was a favorite of edward gorey's and who used it whenever apt. it seems to come from sailing and refer to a state of being shipshape, trim, neat and clean.

[Helene]

Many thanks -- we're just hoping it stays put! (It was slightly different last night...)

The other options flashed. Yigads.

[Paul Parish]

Good LUCK, Helene!

d'accord there, rg.

[Mel Johnson]

And thanks to Helene's help, the said banner link now graces the heading of Ballet Talk for Dancers. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Amazon fiddles a little with it once it's been entered into the template. When you select it for import from the Amazon page, it tells you, "we will service this link for you", so I guess that means that they will keep it updated and tinker with it once it's installed.

And "trig" is Naval Officer's slang for what the ratings call "all squared away"; trigonometry, I'll bet.

[Juliet]

MUCH easier to use....I just bought a new vacuum cleaner through it......

[Cliff]

I prefer the old Amazon.com link. The new one is garish.

[carbro]

MUCH easier to use....I just bought a new vacuum cleaner through it......

Ten three-packs of my favorite soap (also through the above link), which has been discontinued by its manufacturer and is no longer available at Drugstore.com. But Amazon still has some!

No, I am not telling which it is! :shhh: Next hurdle: where in my tiny New York apartment to store it.

[Helene]

I'm afraid the old amazon link is no longer available from their site, and our old code modifications were overwritten in the upgrade.

[Paul Parish]

I think it looks good enough and works GREAT -

I especially like the way the PMs are like hand-delivered. It's almost gracious.

Congratulations, and thanks.

[sandik]

"Trig" -- I haven't seen that in awhile, and am grateful for the use! A very apt description of the home improvements here.

[bart]

I love it all, and continue to be in awe.

As a slipshod typist and an endless tinkerer with text, I very much like the choice of Full Edit or Quick Edit.

[Helene]

Logo's back. The bad news is that it looks pretty sloppy on the new toolbar, but I don't have any fancy graphics tools right now to create a clear background to blend it into the very cool toolbar. (I'll be working on that.) The good news is that it actually describes who we are.

Our logo file got wiped out in the upgrade, but my very technical friend told me about www.archive.org, which has a "Wayback Machine" that accesses the archive of web pages that are at least a year old. I was able to find an old Ballet Talk page, right-click on the logo, "Save File As," and upload this to the board using an nifty new feature.

I mention this because he told me that not knowing about www.archive.org was like not knowing about Google -- that's the price of getting info from true techies that you've known since your third day of college -- and I wanted to be sure everyone knew about it, too.

[Helene]

With a few minutes waiting around this morning, I found that "Paint" gives me a few more options than I thought. I still haven't been able to find a way to make a transparent background or do gradations, but I was able to play with the logo a little bit to blend into the background. There aren't any script types for the "talk," so I tried italic.

If anyone has any preferences, please post or PM/email me. Or if there's a way to make a clear background with Paint, I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me.

[Paul Parish]

More Praise!

I typed the name of a video I need into the Amazon box and in no time I'd found it and, yeah, I bought it.

It's really handy.

[sandik]

Ah, the Wayback Machine -- this has saved my sorry self on many ocassions, when I keep muttering "I know I saw this somewhere online..."

I miss the Professor and Sherman.

[Bill]

Helene -- I really like the logo and Amazon link. Many thanks.

[bart]

I second Bill's comments. It was wonderful to see "Ballet Talk" back in its rightful place. Many thanks, Helene.

[tylerls]

Amazon are introducing a new facility, whereby you can design your own store-front for a selection of Amazon products, and then get a cut of the revenue, when people buy something through it. I read a review of it this morning:

Amazon aStores beta review

Perhaps it's a bit of a gimmick at the moment, but I have a feeling that it could mature into something useful. It's probably worth keeping an eye on, in case it can add any value to "Ballet Talk" and "Ballet Talk for Dancers" beyond what the Amazon banner link already provides. E.g.: Create a store with recommended books/DVDs/videos, and occasionally update it so that any new items, or items under discussion, are "featured products".

[Helene]

Thank you for the heads up, tylers! We'll keep our eyes open.

[tylerls]

One advantage of having a "Ballet Talk" store-front would be that board members could post a direct link to a relevant product in their post, in such a way that "Ballet Talk" is still getting a cut.

The Amazon banner seems to work by remembering that your session started off with a search query which included the "tag", "campaign" and "adid" information referring to "Ballet Talk", but by the time it takes you to the product, there's no mention of "Ballet Talk" in the URL. It's just remembering that information for the current session. So if you try to paste that link, it'll take people to the product alright, but Amazon probably won't attribute the traffic to anyone but themselves.

On the other hand, if you copy a URL from one of these "aStores" store-fronts, it takes you back to the same store-front.