The Rumbling Edge

The Rumbling Edge is getting past three years old, and >625k visits, and its layout then was quickly hacked up and ported over from The Burning Edge back then (Thanks Jesse).

I am looking to revamp the site and would like to have some ideas on what to add / delete / reorganise in order to continue to fulfill its mission on reporting on weekly Thunderbird news. Some ideas I have in mind are:

• Removal of adverts: Ads are a big pain in the eyes of the most of the readers, and I am supportive of removing most of them. Due to an improving financial situation on my side I am able to compromise by having just one ad banner (the one that is currently at the top of each individual blog post), removing the side ad blocks and the ones below the first blog posts. I am sure this will be very much welcomed over the existing situation.
• Improve the readability of the posts: I feel this is necessary, and would invite any help that anyone can offer to refine my style-site.css , changing the fonts and font sizes etc.
• Sort out the sidebar: Some links may no longer be relevant, while some links that should be present are not in. Please offer your suggestions.
• Add automated updates: Some RSS sections to latest mozilla news would be suitable as well.
• Any other ideas.

The final design should be similar to the existing layout and colour scheme and continue to be HTML 4 Transitional compliant within the existing Movabletype 3 infrastructure. I will post with credits to all who have significantly helped out after the redesign has occurred.

I would not be able to do this alone. Thus, I welcome anybody who has experience in CSS / web design / any other relevant skills and who can help redesign the site. I welcome all suggestions to make this become a better portal for weekly Thunderbird build news, in preparation for the upcoming MailCo taking over Thunderbird development.

Please feel free to post your comments below or email me (see the sidebar) for anything regarding The Rumbling Edge.

Edit: Removed lots of ads. Hopefully this makes the entire interface cleaner for a start.

Edit 2: Some CSS changes, default font increased, please let me know if it's too big. Reduced the default number of entries from 7 to 5. Bits of layout changes. Side and top links tidied. Firefox 2 image at sidebar removed.

Edit 3: Some links removed or incorporated into posts to prevent me from rebuilding site templates every time a new version is released. Reverted old search function (yes the old template sucks but taking Google search away feels better) Removed more redundant HTML code. Moved categorical archives section up the sidebar. Renamed some old categories. Ensured all posts are now compliant (previous problems mostly involved the & instead of & symbol) Pulled donation button from sidebar.

Edit 4: Removed some links in individual template, reorganized the Archives by Category in the sidebar, may create new categories to accommodate future product updates.

Edit 5: Many thanks to a reader who wished to remain anonymous. I have implemented some of his recommendations. The order of the links on the left have been suggested by him.

Edit 6: Tweaked the size of the search box on the sidebar. Decided against setting a colour for the titles of each post, it makes the whole site too "colourful". Changed some minor issues with the sidebar.

Edit 7: Changed email address to one that I check more often. Now requires a reCAPTCHA to be solved. Added a "filed under" category name for each post.

Edit for a finalized look: Increased number of posts on front page to 10. Removed obsolete links in sidebar and repaired other ones. Restored search results template to default one for MT 3.3. Added Google Analytics.