A new design (more a realign than a redesign really) for LBRB and the alteration of some functionality.
The biggest change in functionality is that from now on you’ll be offered the chance to sign in to comment. In order to make this as easy as possible I’ve signed up with the RPX service which allows LB/RB to offer you several easy passwordless ways to comment. If you have a Facebook, GMail, Yahoo, Flickr etc etc account then you no longer need to do anything but click. This does not store your passwords anywhere, its simply an easy way for technology to talk to each other to make life easier for you the user. If you’re still not happy with that you can still elect to sign in anonymously. The biggest advantage for LB/RB for doing this is making the site harder to spam.
The biggest change in interface is I guess the ad placeholders. LB/RB has to bow to the inevitable and do all it can to get some money through the door. But please rest assured the ads will be vetted and will not feature anything contrary to the editorial direction of this site. Its the first time in its nigh on 6 years online adverts have been placed. A necessary evil I guess.
If you have a Gravatar your goods will be displayed 🙂 If you don’t – go get one!
Its been made easy for you to add LB/RB to various Social Networking apps and sites. If we’ve missed one out your want to see please contact us.
Efforts have been made to make the site work primarily on Firefox, IE6, 7 and 8, Opera, Chrome and Safari. There are still some very minor niggles in IE6 but mainly we’re good to go. I’m also aware that Archives aren’t available right now.
You might also note that there is no search box. There’s a reason for this 🙂 keep watching the top right column just above the block of four ads.
Go and play with it, you won’t break it and if you do or you find a bug please contact us.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Very nice!
Chrome made it then 😉
Firefox actually, Chrome was a no-go (but the site looks great in it). OTOH I’m using the latest in the beta channel (2.0.169.1), so it’s not a stable release.
Just a test run for the future.
One more test drive. Sorry, I can’t keep up with all the latest techie stuff.
am liking it—-
Looks good Kev! (IE7 1280×1024)
When I think back to the first version of LBRB I saw … yikes! I feel like a blogasaur.
Whew! I had to go through a really LOOOONNNNGGGG rigamarole with Yahoo to signed in, registered, etc. Have to see if it takes.
(I like the new look, easier to read.)
It’s terrible! The font, the font! Or rather the size, the size. It’s titchy, far too titchy. I’ll need a magnifying glass to see that. Oh dear, does that sound a bit critical? How can I make my point more politely without writing in CAPITALS.
Cheers dears
Its fine to be critical Maddy 🙂 I can’t make the font too much bigger but if you tell which browser you use I can show you how to make things easier to read.
It looks pretty good. My Safari (version 3.2.1) is reporting that “There were 3 errors opening the page,” but heck if I can see anything wrong.
Oooooh! You can edit your own comments after they’ve posted? Nifty!
Did we lost email notifications from migrated posts? Or is there a chance that email notifications are not working as expected?
The mobile version is quite nice on the iPhone, but acknowledging the real estate concerns, it would be nice to be able to see the recent comments tab from the mobile devices.
– pD
I’ll see what Safari says for me Margaret. Its probably Javascript related.
pD – I really wanted to keep them but they were incompatible with the new comment login method and I have so many spam issues that something had to go for the greater good – sorry 😦
Looks good on IE7 and Firefox to me. Someday, over a beer or two, you can explain why this is a “realign” and not a “redesign”, eh?
Well, a realign expands on what was already in place, so the core LBRB colours (red, greys) are unchanged. The idea of multiple items on front page is unchanged but what is changed is certain functionality and branding elements have evolved.
As oppose to redesign which is a total overhaul of brand. 🙂
Dang, there go those beers! Clever, Kev.
No *way* those beers go 😉 hell, I can spin that sort of crap all night!
There’s nothing I appreciate more than email notifications 😦
I promise to try and find a way to get them back if I can 🙂
The quotation typeface in italics is especially hard to read. I had to press control & + twice to see it on Firefox!
Other than that it looks nice.
For posts or comments Sharon, or both?
In the post about mercury poisoning, when you are quoting the scientist. Then the words are very small.
Though I might have no problems at all tomorrow morning when the 2nd glass of wine is out of my system.
Yes, the blockquote style has too small a font. Let’s see if that’s also the case here in the comment:
Edit: yep.
Sharon wrote:
I had to press control & + twice to see it on Firefox!
Ahhh, that works!!! Glad to learn that. Where can I learn all these tricks like that?
OK, I’ve removed the italics. Lets see what that does for you all 🙂
And Clay – for you 😉
Jeez, you rearranged the furniture again. Looks good but I’m still stumbling around.
Hi Kev –
Is there no search capability? Also the archives don’t look to be functional (blank screen in IE7). In order to post something to the ‘Features of Autism’ discussion, I had to go back to email, find the link, and hop directly to the thread. I couldn’t reckon a way to get there from through the site.
– pD
I know sorry. Search solution is go to ‘stuff’ page follow the link to dedicated LBRB search engine – this will install an LBRB searc engine into your list of engines in top right of IE7.
Right, archives are (finally) working.