We debuted a new feature on this blog yesterday: the ability for readers to post comments. Pretty exciting.

I'd like to personally thank "Jo Jo" for being the first to post a comment on yesterday's blog. I hope it's the first of many. The one below that says it came from Karl Rove was actually written by me in my giddiness to test the new feature.

It was a one-time fee of a hundred bucks and worth it, I think.

That's our goal with suffolknewsherald.com, to provide an opportunity for more interaction with our audience, something that's particularly important to us now.

We're in the midst of a redesign effort at the News-Herald. I wrote about it in Sunday's dinosaur, or rather, print, edition.

To recap, we've decided we've been running the paper too tight, which means we have too many ads for the amount of news space we've been provided. We've already corrected that by adding a full page of sports daily to the paper, which has bumped us up about two pages a day and we think we can grown even more.

Kenneth Boone, a former newspaper consultant, has been in Suffolk this week working with me on this project. Usually when someone in the newspaper business talks about a redesign, they are talking about cosmetic, graphic-oriented stuff. Making the paper prettier, in other words.

We hope to do that for sure, but we're assessing everything we are doing from a news standpoint. We may end up radically changing our content. Whatever we come up with, you can be sure it's going to include a lot more local news, local names and faces. There is no news too small.

It's been neat having Kenneth here, having another set of eyes looking things over and reminding me of what our mission is.

You can help in this effort. We need you to. And with the capability now of posting your comments directly to this blog, it's easier than ever.

Please, help us give you a better newspaper. Take a moment and think about the News-Herald. What are we giving you that you would like to see more of? Less of? Not at all?

For instance, do you read the editorial page? Do we need one every day? Could that space be put to better use? If so, what?

Would you like to see more health and food-oriented content? Society news? Things to do? Public record type information? Do you find city government coverage interesting or boring and a waste of time and space? We want to know. Thanks in advance for your help. I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Oh, I almost forgot. Pauline Prutsok of Summersville, W.Va. celebrates her 81st birthday today. Have a great day, Mom. We love you.