Blog biz

First, a reminder that comments do actually exist, post-JS-Kit, they’re just annoyingly invisible on the front page (any suggestions on how to rectify this situation are very welcome). You can comment/read comments on the individual post pages (click on the post title).

Second, about 10 days back the NYT wrecked its archive feature, the one I use for the Today -100 posts, and pestering them about it on Twitter doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. I’m a few weeks ahead, but unless they fix it or I find an acceptable alternative, this feature, beloved by literally ones of readers, will be done around June 24th and we’ll never know who the Democrats picked to run for president in 1912.

I can think of two alternatives, but I don’t think either is good enough to sustain us. Instead of an index, I can use the Times Machine feature, which shows images of the paper with links to the stories, but that would leave you with links only subscribers can use. Or there’s ProQuest, which I use for the LA Times, but 1) again, no links, because there’s individualized data in the URLs I wouldn’t care to share with the class, 2) it keeps timing out, 3) it seems to miss a lot of the stories, 4) it’s less readable and more eye-strainy.

Are there other options out there?

Also, I hate the new Gmail design, Google Reader has stopped telling me how many unread articles I have, and I like pineapple but am allergic to it. Someone please fix all that.