Ramani of Hackosphere came up with what he described as a lightning-fast Neo template with which a visitor can navigate the blog very fast because when he goes to a new page, the entire page wouldn't reload. The sidebars stuff wouldn't reload while only the post and comments are displayed immediately. Also, new comment is displayed before the old comments (the other way around from the standard New Blogger templates) and the comments are divided into pages of 10 comments each, making a huge difference in blogs which received many comments.
However, Ramani pointed out some limitations like for bloggers who display AdSense ads will receive very few impressions (plus if that is true, the ads would not change with the content of the post, which will lead to less relevant ads). However, he says he will come up with a solution for that.
Update 5 May 2007: Someone commented that the whole page reload and not just the main column, as you can confirm with the demonstratin blog Gizmos and Gadgets. I did mention above that Ramani may do something about it because AdSense user may not be happy with it and that he may do something about it. He must have already done that, but didn't update the post and mention the alteration. I think I will try to contact Ramani to provide 2 versions of his Neo template so that his visitors will get to choose.
I have used Ramani's Neo template for this blog: Gizmos and Gadgets and I have AdSense ads in it. Ramani must have made modifications to overcome the limitations mentioned above because whenever I surf to a new post, the sidebars reload and new AdSense ads are displayed. You can test this out for yourself by surfing to different posts of the blog.
Ramani used to require USD10 for the template, but has now kindly made it free for everyone. If you want to use the Neo template, surf over to Neo for everyone. You will see a link "Download the Neo template" somewhere in the middle of the post. Right-click on the link and select "Save link as ..." (This is for FireFox. Wordings will be different browsers but will be similar), and download it to a place in your computer which you can locate easily when you need it.
Note: See update below
For instruction to backup your current template and upload the new Neo template, refer to Backing up the current template and changing to a new template.
BTW, this Neo template is a fixed width template. If you are viewing Gizmos and Gadgets with a wide screen (1024 x 768 screen resolution), you will see the content extending almost the whole width of the screen. If you want to observe how a visitor with a small screen (800 x 600) view the blog, type or copy-paste
javascript:top.resizeTo(800,600)
into the address bar of the browser and press the ENTER key. The window will resize to 800 x 600 and part of the right side of the content will be hidden, and you will see a horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the page. To see the hidden part, you will have to scroll horizontally to see it. This may discourage visitors with small screen from visiting the blog again, and if a significant percentage of your visitors are using the 800 x 600 screen resolution, you may want to consider using other templates such as the one I am using for this blog (this one uses Ramani's Minima template as described in New Blogger 3 column templates modified by Ramani of Hackosphere (click BACK button to get back to this page.
The reasons why I use this template is because Statcounter tells me 5-20% of my visitors are still using the 800 x 600 screen resolution (you can get this from the "System Stats"). Other reasons are stated here: What is the best template for your blog. If you are worried about small screen visitors, you may also consider fluid width templates where the main column width will adjust to the visitor's screen resolution in such a way that the whole width of the blog is displayed. You may find fluid width templates at New Blogger 3 column templates modified by Charlemagne Stavanger.
More New Blogger templated
New Blogger template modified by Stavanger
Dots New Blogger template with Header
New Blogger templates modified by Ramani
New Blogger templates by Isnaini
New Blogger templates by Thur
New Blogger template by Final Sense
New Blogger templates by BloggerBuster
Update 18 July 2007: Got an alert from Ramani of Hackosphere which I will just paste here as I have no time to check:
"Yes, it has happened. And they didn't even inform me before doing this. That's why bvibes.com is down and Neo template doesn't work. Don't ever host with A2 hosting. I am going to show them the middle finger and move back to Yahoo.
Neo users can pickup the entire Neo script from here, add it to your template and be happy. It will take some time for me to move over the bvibes database and code. So, it maybe down for a few more days. I really don't want to host with them anymore."
Note: If you have any problem, just add a comment.
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