Site Update #1

by gbabbits -

The Babbit's Grimoire has been live for about a month now and it's coming along smoothly!

While there have been a few bugs I've fixed in the code already, the majority of changes have come as feature improvements. For example, I've replaced static images on the Library and Reviews landing pages with dynamic sections that highlight the latest from each category!

I've been able to write a few blog entries so far too. I've tried to write two a week but I don't know what my "schedule" will be yet, and the holidays have shifted things a little. Coming up with a solid schedule in the first month or two, especially with the holidays, is going to be difficult. So far though, the biggest hurdle that affects everything is data entry.

Library Additions

Data entry? Do what?!

Yeah, I have to enter in all of the info for the items in my library. All of the books, decks, videos, and tricks! This takes time, which takes away from actual blog entries themselves, but it's necessary so no complaints!

I just added a handful of new items if you want to check any of them out:

I'm trying to make things as detailed as possible and not just copy + paste from the vendor's website, so it takes a bit of time for each item. I'm learning a lot in the process though, so so far it's all fun. I can imagine a month or two from now I probably won't have the same opinion =P

Other Updates

I mentioned already the changes to the Library and Reviews pages, I was pretty happy those went in so smoothly. I also created a new Contact page and a Privacy Policy.

Why a privacy policy? Well, I don't really collect any information here on the site (except whatever you might submit from the Contact page) and I have no plans on changing that. So that's good. However, I added in Affiliate links and I figured that that might warrant one.

But, why affiliate links? I wish I could say "because adding them in will make it rain cash money,", but that's simply not true =P. I'm already linking to a ton of possible products so as a blog, it just makes sense to affiliate with the companies that offer said products. From my understanding, if things go well there's even potential of being able to offer special discounts on products for you! That probably won't happen for a while though, but how cool would that be =]

What's Next?

Oh my, what's next indeed. For one, more data entry. A lot more data entry -- I think I have somewhere between 500 and 1000 unique decks, and maybe 100 books? By the time I get close to entering them all in, obviously the collection will have grown! Oh, and that doesn't include the videos and tricks, which both actually jumped quite a bit during the recent Black Friday sales.

I'm also excited to create a "related content" type of widget that will appear on pages. Like, for example, when you're reading a blog post about Gaffs it could include a few related links for things like Drawing Room Deceptions or Flap 2.0 by Hondo, or other blog posts on the topic. I need more content on the site before something like this would really be useful, but thinking about it's creation now is important because I have to make the "data entry" tooling supportive of it from these earlier stages (that way I don't have to go back and update everything later).

Also, photos. I'm adding in info for decks right now and while I'm trying to be as thorough as possible, I feel like it could really benefit from more photos -- like a photo gallery for each. My intent was to include photos as part of the deck review, but I doubt I'll be reviewing every deck (who needs a review for each NOC color, I mean really =P). we'll see though, this is something that can be updated in the future.

Plenty to do, and it'll all come in time. If there's anything you'd like to see on the site (i.e. more reviews, more photos, a different feature or two, etc), please feel free to let me know and I can see about adding it to my queue!

 

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