Limitations in my blogging approach, and what, if anything, to do about them

I’d like to take a minor time out from the SDLC discussion to solicit feedback on how to make this blog more useful. In my post back on March 2nd, I described that I’m actually hosting this blog at http://ResearchExtranet.blogspot.com then exposing into the Click Commerce site at Tom's Blog via an RSS Viewer component. This approach, while allowing me to use a wide array of authoring tools, does have some limitations for the reader. The two I have found the most inconvenient are:

1. BlogSpot recently decided to include an invisible pixel sized image into every post so they can track readership. This seemingly innocuous change is the cause for the Security Warning being displayed by the browser so the user sees a message that looks something like this: “This webpage contains content that will not be delivered using a secure HTTPS connection, which could compromise the security of the entire webpage.”
   
   This happens because http://research.clickcommerce.com is SSL secured for authenticated users and the source URL for the tracking image is not. Though the warning doesn’t translate into a problem actually seeing the blog post, it is annoying. The friendly people at BlogSpot have informed me that they are looking into providing better support for SSL enabled sites. I’m hopeful they will provide a solution so I’m inclined to wait this one out if you are willing to suffer the wait with me. Please let me know if this inconvenience is a major issue for you.
2. There have been times when an image would have done a better job than mere words in making my point. To allow the image to be viewable no matter where you read my blog (ClickCommerce.com, BlogSpot, or your favorite blog reader), the image needs to be available to all and not hosted. I’ve avoided using them because of the mixed content warning which results when presenting an image from a site other than the site where the blog post is viewed. So I put it to you, do you view the blog from locations other than ClickCommerce.com? Would you be willing to see and dismiss the mixed content warning in order to get the benefit of embedded images? An alternative would be for me to post knowledgebase articles and use the blog posts to introduce them. It’s not quite as convenient as having it all in one place, but would avoid the issue with the warning. Please send me your thoughts on how you’d like to see this blog move forward.

And now back to regularly scheduled  programming….

Cheers!
- Tom