We're looking for a few hip, happenin' people (ie, nobody who's likely to work in our department) to tell us what they think about the new Triangle.com website.

This is an example of a photo gallery showing up in a blog. Only the first eight pics in the gallery will show here, and it can be used to direct folks to the full gallery.

How close did we get with the mini-redesign (which we are calling "the re-redesign") of newsobserver.com that we launched last week? Check some of the new features and tell us your thoughts.

UPDATED: We're going to do this on a Wednesday, but 3 weeks from now. Too many people in the newsroom are out for the holidays...

On Wednesday afternoon, 12/16, you'll be getting an early holiday present from us.

Over the past three months, we've been looking at reader feedback on the new newsobserver.com site. From both you and our editorial staff, the answer came loud and clear: you want your newspaper site to have MORE NEWS, higher up on the page, and less whitespace.

Well, we listened. And on Wednesday, you can look forward to the following changes:

• The big auto-rotating featured story area on the home page? GONE. Will be replaced by the major news stories of the day, with all of the related content right there, listed in an easy-to-read (and click) format.
• The big brown multimedia nav bar cutting across the entire page? GONE. Well, actually just reduced, and moved into a more manageable area in the right column.
• If you liked the featured story area, and/or the multimedia bar: we're introducing an "Editor's Picks" area where the bar used to be. It will promote special content and features, in a less eye-jarring format than the multi-bar.

We've already modified the site navigation so that you're presented with the easier to use mouseover effect, giving access to the subsections in all our major content areas.

Since a picture is still worth a thousand words, here's a link to a large-scale mockup of what our new homepage will look like. Major section fronts will get a similar treatment as well.

We hope this will go a long way towards making the site what you want. Let us know how far we have come, and/or how much further we have to go.

At long last, the News & Observer is available on the Kindle platform.  We are very excited about this - we only got news that it was happening about 5 minutes ago.

A Kindle subscription to the N&O is $6.99/month.  Single copies are only $.50 - so you save a quarter off of the newsstand rate.

Like most of the other Kindle versions of newspapers, it's a little different from the printed paper.  All of the locally-written stories are there, although you may not see all of the nationally-syndicated news from AP and other wire services.  Also, the stories may be in a different order.  We'll be working with Amazon to improve our morning delivery and make it look as close as possible to what you'll see on the newsstand.  But it's definitely worth a look.

Enjoy!

Starting yesterday afternoon,  Kaspersky antivirus is reporting a trojan virus (Trojan-Downloader.JS.Iframe.bxv) on our website. 

This is a false report.  Searching the internet for 'Kaspersky thickbox' has revealed this is a new problem that has affected many websites that are using the popular jquery thickbox library.  Kaspersky has been notified of this problem.

 In the meantime, you can safely ignore the false alarm and continue reading our website.

If you are using an older web browser, by now you have seen the little popup window (well, it's not REALLY a popup window, but why split hairs) encouraging you to upgrade to the latest version of it. 

Please, oh please, do.  Especially if you are using IE6.

Why?  Well, you would not believe the manpower we in Interactive Media expend trying to make our sites look the same no matter what web browser you use to visit them. Manpower we would RATHER spend making the site easier to use, fixing real bugs, and helping the writers tell the stories they want to tell on the web.

And it's not YOUR fault.  It's the fault of the companies that build and upgrade these browsers, who periodically change the way that the browser processes a web page before displaying it on your screen.  

So support your local tech-geeks - upgrade your browser today.  And enjoy the good karma that flows into you when you do.

You had a lot to say about the new site in the first 48 hours of its life.  Here we compile the feedback and give you some answers, and as always, ask for more questions.

And a glimpse into our grand advertising plan...

Thanks to you, our new site will be even better than we had hoped.  Too bad Google almost spoiled the big reveal...

The News & Observer E-edition is a web-based product for those of you who (like me) still have a fondness for the printed version of our newspaper.  It was a LONG time in coming.  The company that powers it, Olive Software, takes care of the online presentation and functionality, but we still have to send them the actual printed paper every night, in electronic format. 

But that's a whole other story... 

 More importantly: we've had the E-edition for a little more than a year now, but it's been missing possibly the most vital tool ever invented for bridging the generation gap: comics.  The comics section isn't actually printed at the N&O, so we have to get the electronic version of it separately from the rest of the paper, and only recently has our Circulation department secured the rights to this content.  Thanks, Scott!

Upshot: you will see the full-color comics section in the E-edition starting on  8/2.

Oh - if you HAVEN'T seen what the E-edition looks like, check out the demo.  If you're a 7-day print subscriber, it's FREE!  If you live too far away for delivery, you can also get a straight-up subscription to the E-edition for $5.  To subscribe, click here.