Monday By Noon was born February 7th, 2006 and personally I think the site has come a long way in less than a year. There’s lots left to do and I thought it might be nice to give a bit of an overview on the past year and shed some light on a few diamonds that may have been lost in the rough for any new readers.
Before I get to that…
I’d like to take a minute and thank you. Yes, you, the one reading. Without your time, Monday By Noon would be one of the many forgotten websites floating around the Internet and I’d like to honestly thank you. More than once have the comments posted in response to an article increased the value of the document as a whole. I consider myself lucky to have such intelligent people take the time out of their day to read something I’ve written, and even more, to put some serious thought into a response.
I’d also like to give a great thanks to 9rules. My acceptance into the network was truly a milestone for the site. The people I’ve come in contact with as a direct result of my membership have become friends and true assets. Thanks to 9rules, I’ve been able to have conversations with the developers I’ve looked up to for so long, so thank you 9rules.
Some articles that may have been missed
As with every site, there are going to be some articles that act as it’s “claim to fame”. I’ve definitely got a couple. Firstly it was Effective Style with em. This was an article I had written about using relative font size (specifically em units) to control the character size of your document. I was blown away by the response, and in my opinion, a really intelligent conversation was held after the piece was published.
A couple weeks later, I put out a new mashup technique I had come up with; Suckerfish HoverLightbox. It was a blend of three very popular technologies, and it seems to have been accepted pretty well. As a bit of a spoiler: I plan on releasing a new and improved version sometime early in the new year, so look out for it!
You can’t always judge the popularity of an article on how many comments it’s got. But it Validates!, I think, is one of those articles. It was written as a bit of response to Dustin Diaz’s CSS Naked Day, which I’m still head over heels about (when it’s in the proper environment).
Another article that really took me by surprise with it’s popularity was Linux and Web Development Intro. I wasn’t sure if people would be that interested in whether or not I was able to operate successfully in a FOSS environment. The follow-up article, Linux and Web Development Part 2 was another big hit, and explained how my move to Linux was one of the best changes I’ve ever made.
Partial Versus Full RSS Feeds was a bit of a summation surrounding the pros and cons of partial or full content feeds for your site. The conversation after the article is what really stands out in my mind. There were lengthy, well thought out opinions given, and readers really had a great talk about RSS.
Which was my favorite?
All in all, I have had a complete blast writing for Monday By Noon. I’m so glad that it seems other people have found it to be useful as well. I can’t honestly say that I have a top favorite article written in the past year, I’m just so happy people are reading them.
Well… which was your favorite?
I don’t mean to put anyone on the spot, but which article was your favorite (if any)? Do you have any suggestions for this upcoming year? I’ve got a lot of things planned that I really hope materialize soon, as they’ll really make the site more useful and helpful to prospective and current readers alike.
I tried a few methods of feed tracking, but wasn’t pleased with the results, so I don’t really know how many people are simply subscribing to the site. I’d take it as a great Christmas present if you’d take a second and post a quick comment just letting me know how you currently read the site, if you’re a subscriber. Personally I don’t think statistics and numbers correlate with the value of a site, it would simply be for my own curiosity.
Again, thank you
Thanks again for such a great year. It was well beyond what I thought could be done in a year and a completely great surprise. Have a very Merry Christmas.
Comments
I found ‘Partial Versus Full RSS Feeds’ the most interesting of your articles, partly because of the conversation that followed as you say. I had been wondering which to go with before hand and that article put forward some important points to consider.
As for my reading habits, I am subscribed to your feed but 90% of the time read the articles within the site by following the link rather than reading within my feed reader (Google Reader if that’s of interest). This is purely because I like to read content within it’s original setting and see how the author has chosen to display it. Also, related items in the sidebar and footer are always useful for me and I miss out on those when reading off-site.
Hope that helps. All the best for the coming year.
Like yourself, I cannot settle for just one article amongst the many presented here!
What I will say instead is that each and every article has had some effect on the way I continue to draw and design my web site constructions.
I look forward to MBN articles in 2007!
You’re on my Mozilla favorite bookmark bar with your M12 icon there that i can literally access anytime. I might email you a screenshot of its prominent location.
Oh, and my favorite article from the past year is the one talking about alternate stylesheet for print.
I’ve been following this blog for about two months now, really interesting articles!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment, everyone. I really appreciate it and hope to come up with some good pieces in the coming year. Thanks again!
It’s been a good year Jon and I bet you’re psyched (and overwhelmed) when thinking about how you’ll have 50 someodd more articles this time next year.
My favorite article in terms of entertainment was the ‘Google Vs. Web Standards’ series. I found it amusing how far from standard their webdesign was.
My favorite informative article has to be ‘Effective style with em.’ I wasn’t quite sure what the deal was with em/ex/etc and you helped clear all that up.