Ian Daniel Stewart

N.B. I was publishing with blogger when I wrote this post and now it’s not at all accurate. Read at your own peril!

Prompted by a post at Myrtias here is an explanation, tour and review of the Upper Fort Stewart sidebar as it stands today. I say “as it stands today” because I just can’t leave the thing alone. I’m always tinkering with it, adding stuff to it, pruning it back and then rearranging it. All in an effort to make it more interesting and useful for you, my readers. I hope it is.

Updates

Here we have two options for viewing the RSS feed. What’s an RSS feed you ask? Good question. Every time I publish a post it’s also spit out across the internet in a Rich Site Summary, or RSS. Sort of like each post sent out in an open email to whoever wants to read it. You can catch this open email, or feed, in what’s called a feed reader. The two most popular are free and online: Bloglines and Google Reader. It’s a great, fast, efficient way to keep up with blogs and specialized news.

Sign up with Bloglines or Google Reader, come back to Upper Fort Stewart, and click on the Subscribe to the RSS web feed link to try it out.

Alternately, you can subscribe to the feed with a service provided by FeedBlitz. Enter your email in the field in my sidebar, click subscribe and they’ll walk you through the rest.

And if you’re currently reading this post in a reader: thanks for subscribing!

Upper Fort Who?

Hey, it’s me! Just a short bio so I’m not some anonymous weirdo on the internet talking about Batman and edification. Now, I’m the weirdo you know.

This is also where I keep the link to my Blogger profile and the link to my email. I’m really glad I included a link to my email. I worried about it for a week before I put it on but the spam to cool people ratio has, so far, been really low.

Labels and Blog Archive

Almost every post has at least one label. This one is labeled blogging. I have my labels displayed in what’s called a cloud. Labels in the cloud become larger and brighter as they are more frequently written about. Labels less frequently written about are smaller and duller. I won’t comment on the brightness or dullness of the actual content of the posts.

Try searching through the older posts by clicking on a specific label or by month in the Blog Archive.

Recent Comments

I love it when you comment on one of my posts. I love it so much I have a customized Recent Comments section that shows off what you have to say. Try it out – click on the comments link at the bottom of this post and have your say. Sample comments: “Ian, stop blogging about blogging.” or “Ian, I subscribed to your feed, thanks for the info on feed readers.” or “Ian, I really liked your keyboards with the Stones – what are you up to now?”

Recent Items of Interest

At least once a week and no more than once a day I select something to share with you and pop the link up under here. It’s usually something bookish, from a bookish blog, or amuses me enough to want to post about except it’s so terribly off topic I can’t bring myself to do it and place it here. If you’re curious, I use Google Reader to accomplish this magical feat of blogging-do.

Links

Bookish links and Not-so-bookish links. Click on them, won’t you? Excellent blogs and websites hide behind here. I think you’ll like them.

Recommended Books

It is here, under Recommended Books, that I plan on sharing any interesting books I’ve read that I suspect you may not have read and might like reading. They’re all links to Amazon pages that carry a little marker with my name on it. If you buy one of these books Amazon credits me and pays me back in books. I think that’s pretty cool – if you don’t, that’s fair, but I still want you to read these books! They’re all really good. Look for them in your locally-owned bookstores, bargain bins of big chains, and at the used book-sellers. That’s what I would do.