I just noticed that I have a very skinny blog, relative to almost everyone else.

No, it hasn't lost weight--we designed it that way years ago, to be friendly to as many browsers and screen resolutions as possible. It also makes for nice square paragraphs in posts, as opposed to long, wide, spaghetti-ish things like some other people's posts who I could mention.

But it wastes a lot of real estate on the screen for those using modern, large monitors with high resolution. So, should I do a redesign? (I'm thinking about this anyway, as part of running ads, and establishing some prominent ad space).

I like it as is, but if you want to broaden things out, just don't overdo it. There are a lot of folks with older monitors out there...

Being friendly to multiple browsers and screen resolutions does not mean forcing your page to use a specfic lowest common denominator font size. Take a look at Slashdot (not the best HTML in the world, but they've now got resolution independence right). Load http://slashdot.org/ then try resizing your window and flipping through (Ctrl+mousewheel on Firefox) font sizes. Even at 640x480 nothing degrades much (although the graphics at the top should have been written to wrap to a new row rather than overlap), and even then it's all still readable without horizontal scrolling. Yet, go up to 1600x1200 (increasing font size accordingly, of course) and you don't get any wasted screen space at the page sides.

Moreover, achieving this effect is usually even easier than coding to a fixed screen resolution. I saved a local copy of the current http://www.transterrestrial.com/index.html, and all I had to do to get it to scale properly (i.e., to have twice as much simultaneously visible text on my screen) was remove a half dozen width="" attributes from table and td tags.

With some simple HTML coding you should be able to have the text in the middle..... frameset cols="," *should* work on most browsers....

Your posts are like a newspaper column. IMO, easier to read than the wide formats.

I agree that it's much easier to read the narrower posts, and don't mind the "wasted" real-estate. Even Lileks has near full-screen graphic, but still sticks to a narrower column for the writing.

If you want to go wider, you might go to a two-column "recent post" section, or move the "Readers' Favorites" section next to the recent posts, and put additional ad space along either side. That way, you can keep your text column the same, but make your advertisers happy because they'd almost always be at the top of the page, with the new posts.

I must admit, though, that one of the things I like the best about this site is the LACK of all of the moving ads and flash ads for t-shirts. I leave TTM up all day on my PC at work, and never have to worry about going into epileptic seizures when I switch over to it, unlike some other blogs.

Yea I can't say I've really noticed the front page being to narrow. I usually think that the comments section could stand to be a bit wider however. Or at the very least let us use the word medic-ation and afra-id

I usually think that the comments section could stand to be a bit wider however. Or at the very least let us use the word medic-ation and afra-id

Unfortunately, the first word you listed is one of the more frequent buzz-words in spam, especially because of male-pattern baldness and impotence.

Having the comment window be resizable, however, would definitely help, IMHO. Not necessarily for the width, but the height of the window for longer comments.

IMHO, the solution is something some call "liquid" design which I think some of the earlier responses allude to. It resizes certain page components according to percentages of the browsers current width. The theme I use on rocketforge.org uses it, although I have a left and right sidebar so that decreases the available space somewhat. If I turned one of 'em off I could easily make rocketforge fit in the same width as TTM if that's what the viewers browser was limited to.

As I recall, the rule of thumb in publishing is that there should be 9 to 11 words per line. By this metric, your design is about right. Maybe very slightly too narrow.

I like it the way it is. I read a couple of blogs that simply fail at the snazzy resize thing in very annoying ways. Though to be sure, if the content remains as good, I'll return regardless... I'll just have to fix it on my end.

Why not do like the Cool Kids are, and offer skins? One for narrow, one for dynamic-sized to fit the window?

I find the page very readable...nothing much to change at all. I do think the 'Post a Comment' could use some improvement.

You have the recent posts link on the right. Have you considered links to posts by category or by poster? All Rand or all Sam, or by Satire, Space, Stupid....etc. Just a thought.

;-)

For a given font size, there is an optimimum column width. 9-11 words sounds about right, maybe a little wider. Any more than that, and the eye strains to find the start of the next line, any less, and the eye works too hard moving from line to line.

Blogs that have their text width resize with the browser window are exhibiting poor design. Yours is just fine. I'd maybe make the text column slightly wider, but not much.

Also, there's nothing wrong with white space, and it's a fine design element. Less visual clutter on the screen. Too many amateur web designers think they have to fill every square inch of screen real estate with *something, and the result is usually a noisy mess.

For blog designs I've done, I design the page for 1024 x 768 displays (the 800 x 600 guys just have to get with the times). Set the sidebar width to whatever makes sense for the content that's in it. With the real estate that's left, put in some reasonable margins, and use the rest of the space for your blog text. Then set your font size to get the width/words relationship right. Center the whole thing (like yours is). If you want to make it a little snazzier, put a heavier border around the whole page, or even fake up a light shadow so it looks like the blog is distinct from the rest of the background.

Stay skinny. I like it.
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You could provide multiple stylesheets, with a link rel to allow people to switch between them. I did this after a correspondent noted her difficulty in reading light type on a dark background. It's not difficult.

The point Dan seems to miss is that not everyone uses their browser maximized. Therefore, while my sceeen is big enough to display the work of silly people who think in terms of "800x600", "1024x768", and so on, I do not want to waste that capability on the mere browser.

I'd say, a resizable page is the way to go. However, it is harder to implement.

Owning a small screen, I have to say I prefer things the way they are. Besides, why mess with a good thing?

FYI, as a matter of human psych, narrower collumns are more quickly read and easily comprehended than wider ones. There's a reason newspapers are formatted the way they are.