I’m writing this from my iphone while I’m sitting in front of my PC. Why? Because I can! And also to test the WordPress app.

I suspect that I will use this in the future but not for full meaty posts. This app doesn’t support the landscape keyboard. It’s ok though, the iphone has decent presictive text. Hmm. Well, I did say decent.

I’ve also uploaded a plugin that will create a special CSS template for mobile browsers. It’s a text only templete at the moment, although in the future I expect to change the colors and maybe even add a small logo image.

The more I type on this thing, the faster I get. It’s pretty cool, but I wonder about adding images and links into the post. I’ll mess with it some more next time.

Thursday is Ciriana’s going away party. I have something special planned for her and I need to go work on it. I’ll he sending pictures to my Flickr in case you want to see her surprise. Also, if anyone wants to give her some words of encouragement, head over to the contact page and send her a message. I know that she’ll appreciate it. There’s an option to send her the message instead of me.

Wow. Look at all I typed with only my little iPhone! Man, this thing is awesome!

Update: I edited the format a bit.   The paragraph tag doesn’t seem to end with every paragraph when using the app, or I am not doing something right.   I also can’t rotate that image, which is good because now it shows what happens when you upload an image using the app.   This is still a very useful add-on to the WordPress bloggin platform, though.

Evil

So… all you visitors still running IE6… um… sorry?   Yea.   Sorry.

I don’t know how long this has been going on, but a rogue script has been crashing the javascript runtime in IE6.   I found out today as I was changing some tiny bits of template code.   I was testing in IE6 when I recieved an Operation Aborted error.   Doh.

Ciriana actually told me a few weeks ago that she couldn’t see certain things on the site from work.   At the time, I thought they were blocking javascripts as a security measure.   Now I know that it was those little   social bookmarking buttons.

I’m not sure which link was causing the issue.   I ripped the piece of code off the templates as soon as I found out it was breaking IE (which doesn’t take much ).   I’ll test that code later, but for now, I removed the links altogether.   Which isn’t a bad thing since I don’t think they were being used anyway.

In my defense, I test all my templates in IE6 and 7, Firefox 2 and 3, Opera, Safari, and now Chrome.   Although the last three rarely give me any issues so I don’t always test with them.   Maybe when I made that change I forgot to test in all browsers.   I’m sure this is a big rookie mistake, and my punishment is loosing whatever readers come to my doorstep with IE6.   Since they can’t load any of the content, they probably just leave.   Sorry.   Gah.   I’ve had those buttons for a long time now.   That means this error has been happening for some time.   :/

Hmm.   On the other hand… why the heck are you still using IE6?   Seriously, now that you can load my site, read this.   If you’re forced to use it, that’s one thing.   All you other people?   You fail.

This is a good learning experience, though.   There is so much involved in designing and maintaining a website and on top of all that, a programmer needs to make sure every bit of code plays nice.   Tough work.   Glad I am more into design.  

You know, now that I think about it, this also explains why Google analytics shows a low visitor count with IE6 browsers.   Damn.   And here I thought I was making a difference.

XD

I am decorating the blog with some nice Christmas stuff.   Started out with that nice little garland of lights and it will continue with a snowman, maybe a snow angel, and a Christmas Tree.   It’s a little late for decorating, I know, but my online time has been a bit slim lately due to other commitments.   Oh well, it will pick up again this week.   In the mean time, enjoy the changes!

Happy Holidays!

Like the new look?   I know what you’re saying, “didn’t he just redesign everything about a month ago?”   Yes, I did.   I realized that I was going in the wrong direction for my blog.   I had WAY too much going on.   Simplify.

Although, not a completely minimal design, the new layout is cleaner and intuitive.   My old logo is not gone, I just need to recolor and resize it so it will fit in the new area.

Some things I want to point out pertaining to design:

The first navigation you see is Pages at the top.   This takes you to my separate pages displaying specific content, like the Shop (working on that too – shirts and stuff) and Photo Albums.   This is laid out at the top in larger font to attract your attention.   I think it’s a very easy layout and I hoped that it wasn’t too confusing with the separate navigation on the right and below.

The right navigation is quick stuff.   You want to contact me, boom, there it is.   Search?   Right there.   Subscribing to the blog is MUCH easier with this new link.   It links to a page, which will also get changed around, that lists the different subscriptions available.   The point of this section is to provide fast and easy access to the entirety of the site without long lists of links.   The search function is a big help to giving readers quick access to content they want to read about.

Finally, the Category navigation.   This might be the straw the broke the camels back – for some.   I actually like it; it is a great way to discover new material on my site.   The search tool allows readers to find something they are looking for.   The category navigation provides readers with material they aren’t looking for.   This is important: if they aren’t looking for it, don’t make it obvious.   Make it available, but don’t force feed it to them.

The sidebars are a pain in the ass.   I want to display sooo much content there, but there is never enough room at the top.   When I browse other blogs, the sidebar is usually cluttered with so many widgets and lists that I just ignore them.   I am guilty of this crime, which is why I didn’t like the dual sidebar with the previous design.   I was trying to display too much info.

The sidebar should be for small bits of content or links.   If they’re too big, they take up lots of primo real estate.   I’m still struggling with perfecting my own philosophy on sidebars, but I think I am headed in the right direction now.

Lastly, the most important area, the content.   The content is why you come here.   This must be easy to read and easy to follow.   Nothing is easier to read than black text on a white background.   It can be boring sometimes, but it’s something that can’t be helped.   Sure, sometimes you can use contrasting colors effectively and still be aesthetically pleasing, but like I said, nothing beats black on white.

Also pertaining to the content layout is the meta data.   The title, date, comments, and tags all have a place.   Do you know where this place is?   It’s hard to figure out a good layout that isn’t the same old layout.   I tried for something different on my last design and I really liked it – it’s not perfect, but it’s a good start.   There may be too much going on – the Share This button may push it over the edge, so expect that to get moved somewhere else.

That’s about it. If anyone wants to use this theme for their blog, it will be provided free at FiveMediaDS.com later this week.   There are some finishing touches I need to go though in the code before I can put it up.   I am going to try and convert it so it can be used in a Blogger blog as well.

As always, let me know what you think.

I consider myself an ok coder, not great, but I understand the basics.   Design is where I am at.   Not that programming is unworthy of my attention, it really can be fun, it’s just very complex and, sometimes, annoying.   Case in point: Internet Explorer.   The bane of every coder’s existence, IE, for short, deviates from the standards that W3 has set up for web development.   To other designers and coders, I am preaching to the choir, but for those that are on the other side of development, the end user, listen up.

This crap is hard enough as it is.   Stop using Internet Explorer, use Firefox… or Opera… even Safari, I don’t care, just stop using IE, especially version 6!   Come on!   Version 7 has been out for months, and I still get hits from users stuck on version 6.   Double u, tee, eff.   Windows XP has auto updates, which means that it should have downloaded IE7 by now, that is unless you turned updates off!   Why would you do that to Windows?   It’s more vulnerable than a drunk depressed 21 year old college girl in a bar.   Turn that puppy back on and please do me a favor and stop using version 6, at least.   If you really care, use Firefox.

OK, rant over.   Go back about your b’ness.