Writing is good for you. Know thyself. Putting your thoughts out for public consumption can be a sobering experience.
Does that mean your motive is wholly selfish?
No. I'm just not making any promises, nor encouraging any expectations. That way, any value that readers find is a bonus.
Note also that Tommyjournal is a way of not bothering my friends with emails that say "check this out". If I come across things on the web that I want to call to people's attention, I'd rather do it on Tommyjournal (which people read when they feel like it) rather than intruding on friends with emails.
Aren't lots of online journals boring and self-indulgent?
Yes.
Can I link to your journal entries?
But of course. From November 2004 onward, each entry's date is a link with a stable URL for that entry; please link to that rather than to the main Tommyjournal page.
Can I hotlink to your images?
I'd rather you didn't. Just ask me for permission to make copies for your own site; I'm easy.
If you do hotlink to my images, be aware that they may change at any time, without notice. You have been warned.
How is the journal organized?
Entries are in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top). Before August 2009, all of the current month and the previous month's entries were on the main tommyjournal.com page; now it's some arbitrary number of entries. All previous months are archived, accessible by links on the main page. Reader comments are organized the opposite way (earliest comments first).
Why do your RSS and Atom feeds only give the date and title for each entry (i.e., no content)?
Two reasons. I prefer that each entry's appearance be predictable (a specific width, stylesheet, and so on); if the feeds included content, I couldn't control how entries were rendered by other viewers. And... it was less work to set up the simple feeds. :)
How come I'm not seeing a date before each entry?
Your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or you have it disabled.
Are there any Easter eggs?
Most images are titled; holding the cursor still over an image will show the title (if your browser doesn't suck).
Each entry (from 2007 onward) is titled; titles are included in the RSS and Atom feeds, and are also displayable by holding the cursor over the first word in the entry's header (i.e., the day of the week).
There may or may not be additional Easter eggs, including but not limited to occasional snarky comments in the HTML source.
Why did you send me spam?
I didn't. Spammers occasionally impersonate me; that is, they send spam email with return addresses that use my domain name (tommyjournal.com). I wish this didn't happen, but there is nothing I can do to stop it.
What HTML tags does your comment system support?
So far, <B>, <I>, <BLOCKQUOTE>, and <A HREF="url">, (upper or lower case) and the respective closing tags (</B>, </I>, ...). Try the preview button to see if you like what they do. The code that recognizes <A HREF="url"> is primitive, but it should work as long as you stick to that syntax. Previewing is especially recommended if you're using <A HREF="url">. If you can't get it to work at all, please let me know.
Why do I have to type a word for verification?
I was getting deluged with spam comments before I added that hurdle.
Why is your verification word so legible (most are hard to read)?
Legible words are less ugly, don't you think?
Why did you write your own code to handle comments instead of using Haloscan or something?
I prefer that my pages don't depend on other servers and don't have ads, and I wanted the response time to be as short as possible.
How come your comment system doesn't remember my name?
For now, Tommyjournal doesn't use cookies--which keeps things simple.
Why are the date and time for each comment noted in Pacific Time?
Because California is where it's at.
Can I specify the banner font like I could in 2009?
No, but for 2010 you can specify the color of the pattern at the right side of the page with a parameter in the URL, e.g. http://www.tommyjournal.com/?c=004387 for teal. The color digits are decimal rrggbb, and no it doesn't go brighter than 999999 (equivalent to html color #636363).
Anything else?
Yeah--I'd be grateful if you could report any broken links, hard-to-read rendering in your favorite browser, and so on (and maybe even comment on what I've written, if you're so inclined).
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"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
-Tim Berners-Lee in Technology Review, July 1996
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