Archive: Around Town

Eleven years ago today the first issue of the Lansing Star Online hit the Internet.  Today is the exact anniversary of that issue, and today Lansing's free home town online newspaper is still chronicling the doings in our Finger Lakes township.  To celebrate we are also launching a new look.  While we have tried to keep the same functionality we have been adding little features and making small changes leading up to today's makeover.

Functionally, the most significant change is the menu bar.  Now including drop-down menu choices, all the are listed in one menu, rather than the system of changing menus we used before.  For now we are also keeping the menu in the sidebar on the right.  That menu takes you to the main sections of the Star, but it is the horizontal menu just below our logo that has all our pages.  Hover over one of the main sections and more choices pop down.  For instance, hover over Entertainment and you can also get to our Movies and Puzzles pages.

In recent weeks you may have noticed the 'Popular This Week' slider that helps you find the week's articles that interest you.  We also recently added a 'Past Issues' calendar, adding to the Search and Archive as a way to find past articles.  We replaced out contact forms with a better interface.  We also updated our 'Lansing Trivia' display on the Front page and added a page of its own.


We also changed our Friday morning 'new issue reminder' email recently, which makes it easier for us to reliably alert you to new issues each week.  Speaking of the Friday email, did you know we also post some of our top stories on Facebook and Twitter when new issues are published?  'Like' us on Facebook or 'follow' us on Twitter to be alerted to these posts, a great way to be reminded when new issues are published.  We also have a channel in the Apple News app on iPhones and iPads, and we continue to update our RSS feeds each week when new issues are published.

Most importantly, we have made the Star more readable by using a bigger font, and added to the size of the content area, which allows us to make pictures larger.  Clickable links are now red so they will stand out and you can find them more easily.

Over the years we have had a number of wonderful columnists.  For the past few months Monroe Payne's 'Within Reach' and Margaret Snow's 'Dear Margaret' have been appearing most weeks on the Around Town page.  But there is one column that has appeared in every issue since the Lansing Star began.  Look in the right hand sidebar of the Around Town page, and you will find 'Pet of the Week', in which a different adoptable animal appears each week, from the Tompkins County Socienty for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals (SPCA) shelter.  Currently authored by Sarah Post, 'Pet of the Week' has had many authors over the years.  For the first seven years Allison Veaner wrote the column, then Helen T. Clark, Wakana Kirihata, Rochelle Davis, and Ashley Fleming. In all 11 years and over 500 'Pet of the Week' columns the focus has remained on dogs and cats who need a loving home.

Next year we will celebrate a double anniversary.  Not only will it be the Star's 12th, but the Town of Lansing is turning 200 in 2017.  We are looking forward to covering Lansing's bicentennial year, and hope you continue to enjoy the Lansing Star.

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