1000 Words

I managed to fix up some progress meters last night. I'm hoping these won't crash when NaNoWriMo comes around; they're pretty lightweight... well, at least I think they are...

I have a progress meter for each of my running multi-chapter stories. My Life Would Suck Without You doesn't have one since it is a drabble fic and those aren't really planned out; I barf them out at random.

The target count for each fic is just an approximation. There really isn't a set limit for the chapters, so I just give it a rough estimate. These numbers will probably change with each new chapter. For example, I'm currently focused on Only Human since Precious People is being mean to me, and I've already exceeded the 5000 word mark I had intended, so I just added a couple thousand more onto the meter.

These meters will hopefully keep everyone updated with each fic's progress. I'll try to update them each time I've written a huge chunk. It also encourages me to keep working, seeing how much I've done - I'm a horrible procrastinator. Sometimes I think this blog is just another excuse to do something without really doing it... aaaaand, that makes no sense at all. Do ignore me.

Now, on to the playlist. I embedded it through a site called MixPod, and I had a bit of problem with it. See, on the right hand column is the player. The one currently used is the ninja skin. I liked it on first sight, but it's got several disadvantages: you can't adjust the volume and you can't view the playlist's songs all at once. There was another skin which looked like the imeem player, and it allowed both of that. Now this was the problem: it was too big and it didn't fit well in the space I had intended it to. In fact, it didn't fit well anywhere on the page.

I've decided to go with the ninja skin for now, since there were no other suitable ones I could find. It's not too user friendly without the volume control, but I've tried to do something about that. The playlist will not play unless you click on the play button, so hopefully no one will be falling off their chair in surprise when music blasts out of their speakers. The other thing is the volume. I know every person prefers different volumes when listening to their music, and I know that different speakers and computer volume will affect the sound as well. I've lowered it to about half its original volume; I figure that it's more troublesome to have a startling eruption of loud music than to turn up your volume because you can't hear it. It's set to volumes I'm comfortable with and I'm sorry if it's a bit of a hassle for other people out there. There's nothing I can really do about it unless a better skin comes out.

The playlist is just something I randomly decided to include, anyway. It's actually more for my benefit, since having a separate music application is sometimes a little annoying when I've got too many windows open. It's just a small compilation of songs I prefer - not necessary my favourites, but I did have fun choosing the songs. I'll add and delete some as I go. It's currently got... 47 tracks. I'm hesitant to cram it full because that would probably slow it down and cause problems. I can't imagine why anyone would listen to this for longer than 10 minutes anyway - the blog isn't that much of an exploration ground. Unless you get sidetracked by the sudoku, of course.

After spending a good six hours today playing around with this blog, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this! :D