Greenlee Gazette Makes the Grade; High School Anyway

This is an interesting little widget. You type in your blog's address, it analyzes the text, and reports on your writing level (reading level, for you folks out there). It might get skewed a bit by the excerpts, but I'm pleased to say I didn't land in "Jr. High School!"

I'll have to try again with some individual posts to see where I rank. Maybe I need to knock off the colloquialisms. But I definitely need to keep using words like "colloquialisms!"

Looking for Cool Widgets for Blogger

This site doesn't yet get many comments, or emails to the editor, though I'm happy to say we do get lots of visits. But after nearly six months of blogging, I'm growing a little bored with my layout, and thought I'd try to get readers to suggest possible changes.

Being on Blogger, my choices are a little more limited than in some of the expensive blogging programs. But I've visited a few other blogspot addresses, and have seen some cool widgets and layouts and features that I have no idea how to implement.

Of course, I know how to work the Google, and have managed to find a few easy add-ons. I have a little Sudoku puzzle for The Other Half, a famous quotes widget too, and of course the Backwards Bush Countdown. But those were easy breezy.

What I'm looking for is less bells-and-whistles, and more user-friendly. I'd like to have a "most popular posts" widget. I'd like my "previous posts" list to be scrollable, so that it doesn't take up too much room. And I'd like my template to retain a "newspaper" feel, but have a little more oomph.

So, if you've found this site and have any ideas, drop me a line at editor@greenleegazette.com or just leave a comment to this post. I'd really appreciate it! I have the week of Christmas off, and am going to try to implement some design changes then. Thanks, all!

UPDATE: If you've found this post while looking for widgets, the ones in my sidebar should have links in them that allow you to add them to your blog with just a couple of clicks.