Had to pull a work overnight, but both things that needed doing took almost no time at all to complete. So, since I was already all jacked up on all sorts of coffee, rather than going to bed immediately, I went and redesigned my website. I’m now using the Fluid Blue theme, edited to use my original logo in the title and a dynamic menu, which I may not ever actually use… though I really should put together an About Me, New here?, and My Favorite Posts page. I also brought back the large category icons, mostly because the icon for Privilege made no sense whatsoever in the tiny version. It’s a band from a Cuban cigar, for what it’s worth.
Additionally, I enabled more descriptive permalinks, though every old link of the ?p=#### will still direct to the proper post. Hopefully this will give me a bit better search engine stats. And I cleaned up the side bar so there are fewer widgets — left the “important” ones, meaning the ones that provide me with information I like to see on a regular basis.
Whaddaya think? (Silence means you think it’s the most amazing thing ever.)
14 comments
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Ben Zvan
July 28, 2011 at 10:52 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Remember that thing I was saying about Canadian flags and maple leaves? Just sayin’.
jthibeault
July 28, 2011 at 10:54 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
While you were here I should have gotten an image of a Canadian flag and set it as your laptop’s wallpaper. Tiled of course.
James
July 28, 2011 at 12:17 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not sure why, but I’m getting a horizontal scrollbar in the new design. Looks like it’s pushing the right edge by 2px.
Dan Johnson
July 28, 2011 at 12:46 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I get the left-right scroll here, as well. Glad to see the category icons again.
Jason Thibeault
July 28, 2011 at 1:05 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thinking it’s the long link in my Twitter feed at the moment. Will do something about that shortly.
Jason Thibeault
July 28, 2011 at 1:08 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yup… deleted that tweet, now the scrollbar’s fine. Need to fix both the Twitter feed and my URL shortening. :/
Greg Laden
July 28, 2011 at 1:10 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Looks great. I’d add some white space in recent comments wiget if you can.
Jason Thibeault
July 28, 2011 at 1:41 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And more space ye shall have. I am a benevolent blog dictator, am I not? :D
Mike Haubrich
July 28, 2011 at 11:54 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just because Greg’s a doctor, doesn’t mean you have to do what he says.
Jason Thibeault
July 28, 2011 at 11:56 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Okay Mike! I’ll never do anything Greg says again! See how good I am about requests? :D
Troythulu
July 30, 2011 at 8:39 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I must say that I like the redesigned site. A lot.
Mind if I steal some of your ideas?
There’s that quote attributed to Asimov about stealing from the best…
…or maybe people who really know what they’re doing.
Jason Thibeault
July 30, 2011 at 8:54 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You flatter me, Troy. Steal whatever you’d like — the category images are all (as far as I know) public domain, edited to fit 48×48; WordPress and the theme are open-source and free, with a suite of free WordPress plugins to do some of the special stuff I’m doing like polls, comment voting, category images or that Blogger-style blogroll. The only thing I’d appreciate it if you didn’t steal, is the top logo. Since I’m the Lousy Canuck and you are not. :)
Glendon Mellow
July 31, 2011 at 3:51 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like it. I like the blue leaf.
It says something. Something important about our national identity. Or hockey.
Troythulu
July 31, 2011 at 10:18 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Consider the top logo NOT stolen!
I just did some adjustments to the header and background on teh bloggy, with a cute little fractal that just by accident happens to look like Cthulhu, much more appropriate I think, than the indigo sunburst I was using.
It’s amazing what I sometimes find in my old image files.