I’ve come across a couple of potentially handy blog tools (toys?) lately, but before I tell you about them — things have been freshened up around here; those of you reading by feed might want to come in and take a look.

I solicited lots of advice, and would like to thank those Well bloggers who responded; the Authority Blogger Forum (especially Skellie, Michael Martin, Chris Garrett, and Gerald); etienne (via a Blog Catalog discussion); and amusings and Brent at The Weblog Review.

Let me know what you think of the changes — if they’re noticeable?

Now for the new discoveries, both of which require flash:

The first is profilebuilder — that little blue http://profilebuilder.com/pbvjs?p=sbpoet at the end of my name on the sidebar.

When you click that P, my
profile should open up. I’ve tried it in different browsers, and it
behaves differently in some than in others. Sometimes it opens in a new
tab, sometimes in a new window, and sometimes it acts a bit like a
pleasant popup. Sometimes it comes up blank, and I have to refresh the
page to see it.

Your profile can also be embedded in a page, like this:

http://profilebuilder.com/profile/viewer.swf?profileID=sbpoet

Those links are clickable, though they don’t look it. [If you can’t see my profile, you probably don’t have flash enabled.]

The idea is that you could have just one web profile linked to many
different social networking and other sites across the internet. The
application also allows you to make several different profiles, so you
can choose which to link where.

It seems like a great idea, and I like the feel of the program —
but it is still in beta — and it really is. It has bugs; some features
aren’t yet enabled; and response to customer support requests is —
well, let’s say, slow. Might be worse than slow; I’ll let you know.

The other is the madKast share widget. This handy little gadget adds a green exclamation point
to each post, which, when clicked, opens up a little box so the post
can be bookmarked to just about any bookmarking site, feed reader, or
start page. I’ve temporarily enabled this at Abide, if you’d like to see how it works.

It’s not active here at Watermark because it doesn’t work on category or archive pages; it just slows loading and displays a bad script message. I don’t know if this problem is unique to TypePad blogs, or problematic on other platforms as well.

I hope they get it fixed, because I’d like to use this. That is, I’d like to use it if you’d click it?

I’m also giving TheGoodBlogs a try, and I’ll say this for them — excellent, beyond the call of duty, customer service.

EDITED to add: Josh, madKast.com
co-founder, has already responded in comments. I think this is an
indication of future success — nothing inspires customer loyalty more
than quick and attentive service. At least, nothing inspires my loyalty more.