Archive for Site News & Updates
Exciting Site Updates!
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Courtesy of moleitau on Flickr
Those of you who got a slew of duplicate emails last night are aware that I spent the better part of yesterday tinkering with the site. I apologize for those emails and have disabled the offending plugin, so that won’t happen again. Not all is lost, though, as I do have some exciting updates to report.
- All of the blog posts on EiH are now licensed under a Creative Commons license. What does that mean for you? It means that you are free to share and distribute content from this site as long as you attribute the work and you don’t use it for commercial purposes. I believe in openness and the main goal here is to spread knowledge. You can see more info about this license on the bottom of the page.
- I changed the layout of the sidebar. You may have noticed that the 125×125 ads are gone, leaving only an ad for the EiH Recommended Reading Shop and an unobtrusive ad on the bottom. I felt that the ads were taking away from the purpose of the site and they weren’t performing too well anyway.
- Finally, I switched providers for email updates. I used to have Feedburner handle it, then I saw how ugly the emails were, so I switched to Mailchimp. As you can see on the right, the form is just a little bit different, but when you receive the emails in your inbox, they’ll be prettier. In addition, if you subscribe via email you also get signed up for the monthly EiH newsletter which will recap the month and preview upcoming events, articles, etc. For those that wish to subscribe via RSS, there is now a stylized icon in the “Join the Social” section.
Thank you to all that have supported me in this endeavor, and I hope that these changes enhance your experience. Let me know in the comments what you think or if you have any suggestions.
EiH a “Very Interesting Blog”
Posted by: | CommentsI’m always looking for constructive feedback about this blog, so last week I requested a review from Find a New Blog, a blog review site. From the look of things, they enjoyed EiH, and they gave a pretty flattering review. I even got them to stick around and read the post about my hometown:
Completely different and varying, whilst I’m aware of the Gettysburg Address, i’ve never even heard of Deltona in Florida, yet I still felt compelled to read through the entire post.
He had even more good stuff to say about EiH, so head on over to Find a New Blog to read the rest of the review and to submit your own blog for review. Do you agree with the review? What would you like to see on EiH? Pull no punches, I’m a tough guy 
Book Recommendation: The Mental Floss History of the World
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Last week I participated in a trivia contest over at the American Presidents Blog called the First Lady Trivia Challenge. I won, and the prize that I received is a copy of The Mental Floss History of the World. I’ve only skimmed through it, since I have a bevy over other books I’d like to finish by the end of the spring, but I like what I see ,so far. With that in mind, I just wanted to let you know that I added it to the EiH Recommended Reading Shop. If you enjoy books like Guns, Germs, and Steel but prefer a touch of humor (just a touch), then you’ll enjoy this book.
Happy Reading!
Do you Like the Redesign?
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been contemplating a redesign for a while now. For starters, the theme I was using didn’t allow for too much customizing, and also had an encrypted footer. I found out I was giving backlinks to gambling sites. Besides, I thought the theme looked a little too corporate, which didn’t help with all the ads all over the place. After reading the Jack’s guest post over at Problogger, Does Your Blog Look Like NASCAR, I knew it was time to change. So, here’s a list of things that I changed.
- Created a new header to reflect that it was a personal site, and that you’re liable to find anything on here.
- Changed the background to make it look like those old school composition notebooks.
- Put full blog posts (instead of excerpts) on the front page.
- Got rid of Disqus and switched back to the standard WordPress commenting system. I liked Disqus’ social media integration, but at times it seemed to cause the page to load too slowly.
What do you think? Take the survey below, and feel free to leave your opinion in the comments.
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My First Guest Post
Posted by: | CommentsThe guys at Babeled were nice enough to allow me to guest post on their site today. I was nervous because it was my first guest post, but it appears to have passed muster. Follow the link below to take part in this historic event.
Would You Buy 50 Years of 50 States?
Posted by: | CommentsThe 50 Years of 50 States series was an incredible success, so I’m considering publishing the series either as a book or an ebook. This is a pretty major endeavor, so I wanted to ask my readers what they thought, so would you buy 50 Years of 50 States? Feel free to discuss the idea in the comments.
8 Ways to Access Everything Is History
Posted by: | CommentsI like to think of EiH as more than just a blog, if for no other reason than that I hate the word (I prefer online magazine). So, in an effort to keep EiH from being just another blog, there are now multiple ways to access the site.
- EverythingIsHistory.mobi – The mobile version of the site, which renders beautifully on an iPhone, Android, or touch BlackBerry. Perfect for getting your EiH fix on the go.
EverythingIsHistory.mobi
- RSS – This is the syndicated version of EiH, which can be read in your favorite RSS reader, or even delivered directly to your inbox.
- RSS on the Kindle – If you’re lucky enough to own a Kindle, then you can read EiH on it.
- Twitter – Similar to RSS, but also featuring links to other interesting sites. Also, and this is my favorite feature, I post hourly on this day tweets.
- Posterous – I use this as an extension of Twitter because 140 characters isn’t always enough. For this reason, the EiH Posterous site is a great respository of quotes.
- Facebook Group – This is a group dedicated to the discussion of potential EiH articles, or current articles. Actually, you’re welcome to discuss anything you want in the Facebook group.
- Newsletter – This is your source for inside info about EiH, plus access to other exclusive EiH news. Wanna know what’s going on behind the scenes? The EiH newsletter is for you!
- Technorati – If you’re a fellow online magazine writer…ok, fine…blogger, then you can find EiH on Technorati. EiH is also listed in other blog directories, which you can find in the sidebar on the right.
There you have it, Everything Is History is available just about anywhere you are. Just give it a matter of time, and I’ll have a channel on Youtube. Yup, EiH is gonna take over the video scene next.
