He's Got Nifty Banners!

Hi Zuska,
I'm an eighteen year old girl who stumbled upon your blog kind of recently through an odd and complex trail through the blogosphere (that's the first time I've ever used that word, and now I feel funny). As a girl about to start college who intends to major in physics, or possibly engineering, I find your blog very compelling and also downright frightening. I've never commented here before, but I want you to know how important your blog is to me. You're a real eye opener; I'm now more aware of how subtle sexism can be, and I now have an ideas of the difficulties I may face in my chosen field. (I will admit, when I first found your blog and read it and some of the blogs in your blogroll, I briefly entertained the idea of not entering academia and doing something else instead. I then realized that that's not the answer. I need to be aware of the challenges that I could face, but I can't quit now; that would be letting them win. Essentially, you've helped and inspired me more than anyone else I don't know on the internet. I feel a bit silly telling you all this, but I really appreciate what you do.)

Now that I've told everyone my entire life story, a new banner would be nice. I checked out your old blog and those vine things are rather relaxing, while the black and white seems to emphasize the "No One" part of the subheading there; it's kind of impersonal. I don't know how to make a banner, but someone must. Couldn't you just get a picture and stick some words on top of it? A nice font and some colors? I'm clueless. Sorry. Wait! Who did that picture you have in your profile? It's nice. Maybe that could be some sort of inspiration.

-Karen

PS I read "She's Such a Geek!" a couple of months ago before I found your blog, and I LOVED it. It's so great to have a book written by people I can really relate to, so thanks for your contribution to that, too.

As with the first poster, I haven't commented before (mostly because I would simply be agreeing with the post), but I do enjoy reading. I think a more colorful banner would be great. Neurophilosophy really does have nice banners, and I think the busy design works well since the SciBlogs are otherwise rather plain.

In keeping with the blog title and your position as delivering messages from on high I think the banner should look epic with science touches, which can be easily accomplished with an old-fashioned font and pretty science pictures.

I vote for a banner entry contest, and since I had some spare time and photoshop skills I'd also like to submit the first entry:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x19/malyze/zuska_banner1.jpg

First let me say to Karen: thank you so much; I am honored to have you for a reader and it makes me so happy to hear I've inspired you. And I'm glad you liked She's Such a Geek! We wrote for young women like you. Going in with eyes wide open is good. Thinking scientifically, doing science, is wonderful; it sucks to have to deal with the morons, but you are right, you can't let them make you quit before you've ever started.

Malyze, that is an awesome banner! I'm excited! Okay, let's have a contest!

I don't know what kind of blog template editor they supply you with at Sciencblogs. But, I do notice that the html source for the Neurophilosophy blog has the following lines:

<div class="masthead">
<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/" accesskey="1" rel="nofollow nofollow">
<img src="http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/banners/4.jpg" /></a>
</div>

whereas this blog has in lieu of that:

<div class="masthead">
<h1><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/" accesskey="1" rel="nofollow nofollow">Thus Spake Zuska</a></h1>
<p>A Blog For All and No One</p>
</div>

Now, you say you want to use http://radio.weblogs.com/0147021/images/woodsHeader.gif
as a header in your blog now. The html source for your old RadioUserLand blog template has:

<td bgcolor="#DBE3CD" width="100%">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="100%"><font size="+2" color="#000000"><b> </b></font>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="9">
<tr>
<td><font size="+1" color="#000000"><b><a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0147021/" style="color:Black; text-decoration:none" rel="nofollow nofollow">
Thus Spake Zuska
</a> </b></font><br>
<font color="#55734E" class="small"><i>
A Blog for All and No One
</i></font></td>

Is it not possible to simply cut and paste (with perhaps some modifications) your old banner html code into the masthead portion of your new blog html template?

Absinthe, I'm sorry I didn't find your comment till today - it got caught in the spam filter and I didn't check comments for a few days (computer vacation for the neck and shoulder...) Thanks for the code tip!

I am not sure if I am allowed to use that old banner outside Radio Userland...I will have to check into that, and see if I need permission or if it is just free to be used.

Holy crap Absinthe, Zuska - don't do it that way, that is way more code than necessary. Do it like this:

Or, if you really like the rotating/random banner, like this:

<?php echo rand(1, 6); ?>.gif" />

Where the numbers rand(x, y) are the numbers x-y which your images are labeled with (eg - banner1.gif, banner2.gif, etc)

http://redheadedstepchild.org/zuska.html

Holy crap Absinthe, Zuska - don't do it that way, that is way more code than necessary. Do it like this:

<div class="masthead">
<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/" accesskey="1" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://URL/to/image/you/want.gif" /></a>
</div>

Or, if you really like the rotating/random banner, like this:

<div class="masthead">
<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/" accesskey="1" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://URL/to/image/you/want<?php echo rand(1, 6); ?>.gif" /></a>
</div>

Where the numbers rand(x, y) are the numbers x-y which your images are labeled with (eg - banner1.gif, banner2.gif, etc)

http://redheadedstepchild.org/zuska.html

A., sorry, sorry, your comments got hung up by the spam filter too. And I don't know why the second one did, it only had one link in it - should have gotten through. I have got to remind myself to check the junk comments folder more often!

Okay, nifty banner!

One teeny tiny request though, for would-be banner designers: please include the blog subtitle in the banner design so that the full name "Thus Spake Zuska: A Blog For All And No One" is in the banner (you don't have to include the semicolon).

I am not sure how that would work with yours, A. and that's a bummer because it's otherwise nifty.

Tsk. You underestimate me? Check again.

And this is why I am not an artist! I did totally underestimate! Alexis, it's gorgeous!

Haha. Thanks, although "artist" might be going a little far. Hope you get some other cool ones with time.
-A.

Malyze...if you see this comment...is it possible to add the words "A Blog For All And No One" to the banner you designed, in smaller type than the "Thus Spake Zuska"?
Let me know if you can by comment here or by email. My email is under the contact tab above.