I hope you knew that I'd comment/critique a new design.

First, I subscribe to your blog in google reader, and sometimes i zip through it and open up a lot of things at once and then work my way through it all slowly. I did that this time, so by the time I got to your post, I forgot what I had opened. It took me maybe halfway through your post before I realized it was you. Ha!

Now for a serious critique: In short posts like this one, one has to scroll down quite a ways to get to the archives button at the bottom. I've always thought that the archives button (or if one's blog has it, the "previous" or "more posts" button) should be conveniently located near the end of a post.

Another critique: when I just hit "preview" to preview my comment, the whole thing was centered, and it made me scroll horizontally to read the whole thing. And part of it was over the blue papery texture on the left of the screen, making it quite hard to read.

another bug: when I clicked the "home" link way up top, I got "Page not found - /obscureblog/main.php"...

Joe: I believe your second bug comment has been addressed (the main.php problem), let me know if it hasn't. Thank you for letting me know about the comment preview bug - I hadn't tested that yet.

As for the archives, the link is basically in the same place it was on the old layout, but I could add an archives button to the end of each post if that seemed like it would add functionality.

Cute design, but i (and my horizontal scrolling pinky finger) curse you (and your high-resolution, high aspect-ratio apple monitor) for moving up to 1200 pixels.

I agree with Yaworm. Too wide.

Also, the load time is much, much longer than the old site. This is especially apparent when loading the site over a cellular data connection.

Have you considered making an iPhone version of the page? i.engagget.com is an excellent example.

I haven't considered making an iPhone version, that might be interesting to consider. I am going to experiment with reducing the size of some of the image files to see if I can reduce the load time without losing much in the way of image quality.

I'm surprised that anybody has a problem with the width. I guess Yaworm has that tiny laptop, but Jim I know you view the site on either a laptop with a big screen or large monitor - can you spare a brother 200 pixels?

I've got ample width on my notebook and desktop display. However, I rarely have my browser sized that wide. Text reads better if it is narrow; you have your text framed appropriately, but many sites do not.

So, I don't have a problem with it personally, I just feel that it is a poor design choice from an ergonomic perspective.

Jim, are you sure you are using the word ergonomic correctly in this context? Are you sure you want to go out on that limb and possibly be the guy that uses big words incorrectly? Do you know anybody who does that who you might not want to emulate?

Sadly, dictionaries don't seem to exist in London.

Narrow page == reduced eye strain, that was my thought process. Which is true, but not directly relevant to the point I was trying to make. I have to make my browser window wider than normal to view OCN. Then I go to another page aferwards, and all the text is running across the screen for 1200 pixels and my eyeballs hurt, so I need to resize the window again. Rinse, repeat.

Remember when TBS had all their shows starting at 5 minutes after the hour, so that once you started watching TBS you (theoretically) wouldn't be able to stop? That's how I like to think of OCN@1200 pixels. It's like starting Saved By The Bell at 5:05 instead of 5:00.

That worked out, right?