We've changed. Hope you like our style!

Well, well, well what do we have here then, I hear you ask?  It is very much a case of out with the old and in with the new.  For quite some time now my old site was beginning to annoy me.  Let me explain.  See, the old site lived on my computer which, as it grew, resulted it abnormally long upload times and much frustration on my behalf.  This new site you find yourself looking on actually lives on the internet or at the very least, on somebody elses computer.  My new hosting company, Squarespace, is a perfect fit for a site like IrishMagicNews. It boasts some fabulous features and for those of you new to this style of site let me give you a some pointers on how to get the most from it. 

• Our home page is our blog or journal.  Unlike the old site in which I published a news round-up biweekly, here news will be posted as it becomes available.  You might like to consider setting us as your homepage. Or why not subscribe to our RSS feed.  RSS feeds are essentially a way of you receiving news from multiple web sites in one place.  This one place could be a special feed reader like Google Reader or handier still, your inbox.  For a simple explanation watch this video we found on Youtube.  To find our RSS feed just click on the RSS link at the top of the right sidebar.
• Tags and Categories.  This is an extremely handy feature.  You will notice at the bottom of each story there is information pertaining to that post.  Within this information bar you will notice tags and categories.  For instance at the bottom of this story is the category Site Announcements.  Click on it and it brings up all the stories to date in that category.  The same applies to tags.  You will suss it out as you go along.  Or you can browse our tag cloud over on the right sidebar, click on a tag or category and 'hey presto' up pops all the relevant articles.
• You can also leave a comment on any article.  We do ask that this feature not be used to insult or 'take the Michael.'  Depending on how it goes there is a forum capability within the site structure which I may introduce in the future.
• To submit news just click on the link on the top link menu or send me an email.  If your mail is to publicise events please make sure you include the 5 W's.  Who? Where? When? What time? Why? and also How much?

Over the last few days I have spent a serious amount of time importing our back catalogue of entries.  For some unknown reason Issues 1 to 3 are neither on my PC or on the old server.  If any of you kind souls has downloaded or copied them for posterity perhaps you might forward them on to me.  I thank you in advance.

So there you have it lads.  Enjoy it, Brendan.