Just back from the last vacation days of the year. Hitting the ground running with a little site redesign to try to improve load times and make things less messy up at the top.
First things first, I had to let go of the slider up at the top.
I was in love with the idea of the slider and actually paid for a custom WordPress design which allowed for it but after having it for about a year I just can’t deny that it is distracting and added to load times.
So poof, it’s gone.
Secondly I changed the theme to allow for a full width scalable format meaning that our contributors can now post larger photos and videos and the blog will detect what size your monitor is and adjust accordingly.
Thirdly, the Navigation buttons are now implemented and stickied at the top of the blog which should allow you to find your way around much more easily. All thanks for our awesome new navigation buttons go to James at Cape Ann Giclee who made them for us.
So in the past couple months, I launched www.capeanneats.com, www.capeannhome.wordpress.com, www.capeannwellness.com, built a new GMG Android App, implemented James’s awesome Cape Ann Arts Calendar, cleaned up the navigation with James’ help, got rid of the slider to improve load times, and increased the blog from a fixed width to a larger format scalable width to display photos and videos larger.
Rest on our laurels after 7 and a half years? Aw, Hellll Nooo.
Keep on pushing baby!
and guess what? we’ve got some more stuff up our sleeve 
#LetsDoThis
Good Morning Gloucester 
I liked the “idea” of the slider too, but It wasn’t doing anything for the site. poof
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Not idle. So positive!
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Wow…and that’s all in your “spare” time! Well done! Always appreciated.
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Good improvements to an already great site! I will miss the panorama but with growth comes change. One small thing. If you ever get back to “improving” the site could you make the menu bar at the top stationary and the rest of the blog pages scroll? That way we don’t have to scroll all the way to the top to change to a different section of the blog. No hurry and I won’t cry if you don’t do it. I may even Google it just to be on the safe side.
One other thing. If you could “encourage” posters to add the names (when possible) of people’s pictures that they post it would help us “out-of-towners” place faces with names. People change so much over the years and if you’re not in Glosta all the time you have a difficult time recognizing your classmates and friends from the past. I certainly understand that this request is a difficult one and sometime impossible to implement. However it would be greatly appreciated by us “out-of-towners” who check the site out daily just to see if they can see any familiar faces.
Anyway you’re doing a great job and you probably don’t realize how much your blog has become an important connection to Glosta by those of us who can’t be there!
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Awesome news. Keep up the good work!
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wow. Great job, thanks for all you do for Gloucester
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Hi Joey. Load time will increase exponentially if you use teaser breaks. i know you tried it in the past, but if you made it mandatory for all contributors, your page loads will be faster and you’ll get more page impressions. Right now you’re serving up the whole enchilada as soon as you land on the page.
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