Nov 19
THIS is My New Design!
So guys whaddya think? (#):)
I spent the better part of Friday working on the mock for the theme and sometime between then and Saturday morning all the work was gone. So on Sunday I started all over again and managed to get this up this morning. Now it’s not completely done, but I think most of the work is over.
The Solution
I think vs my old theme, this one is much more of an elegant or clean solution. It certainly doesn’t feel as heavy and I think after all the kinks are worked out, this will be something that will last on here for quite a while. As far as readability goes, I’m very happy at being able to incorporate black on white text and I’m hoping that that might help with AdSense earnings too – Though we’ll have to see about that.
More Work to Do
Even though I’m pretty much done, there’s still a bunch of stuff that I have to do to finish this design up. First off is dealing with the sidebar. It’s not exactly what I want yet PLUS I have decided to add in the 125×125 sponsorship blocks. After that I gotta address the footer and touch up the header a bit (since on different monitors that gradient is looking way different). Not to mention actually linking to my RSS feed at the top and including a search bar.
I also want to add a little bit of dynamic goodness with this theme too including randomizing the header that comes up (Bruce Lee can’t be there all the time can he?) and I want to install gallery on this site again and link to it through my picture at the top. Of course I haven’t had a chance to really take too many pictures for the site, but that may change at one point. *shrugs*
So thanks to everyone for the support through this small transition, and I hope you’ll let me know what you think of the new theme!
November 19th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
That picture still plain disturbs me
But the rest is all good Bush!
November 19th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
@Pete – Ha ha ha. Thanks. I think I might try to randomize that picture at the top too, but we’ll see. (#):)
November 19th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Bush, I think I like it! You might have an easier time monetizing with this theme as well. Keep us informed.
Just FYI, the homepage sidebar collapses in IE6 (which many businesses still use). Seems to work fine on single pages.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
@Kyle – IE6? *sigh* I was hoping to avoid all IE/FF issues. Well, back to workin’. Thanks for the heads up Kyle!
November 19th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
LOL, nice pic my friend.
The design isn’t bad, very sleek and and user friendly. I don’t seem to be having any issues with the sidebar. No Bruce Lee, but that’s ok. LOL
November 19th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
@Christine – Depending on when you viewed this theme, there was no Bruce on the individual pages. But I think I’ve fixed that. Now have I fixed that for IE6? Who knows.
And I’m glad you like how things are shaping up. This site really needed to lose some weight. You put that with my faster servers, and I think things are lookin’ bright ’round here!
November 19th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Looks great, buddy! Though I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Superbad yet, but if you have, you’ll know why the image of you munching that hot dog makes me LOL
If you haven’t seen it yet, you MUST. It’s the funniest stinkin’ movie I’ve seen in a while.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Now that’s a smashing picture! I was surprised Bruce didn’t get thrown to the plants heh. Looking good!
November 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
@Mike – Uh oh. Something tells me I need to change that picture STAT. I wonder if that’s on my Netflix queue. ..Wait a tic…It can’t be on DVD yet. Well, it’s added in any event.
@Brown – Maybe not on YOUR browser but on IE6 (checked on my wife’s Dell) things aren’t looking too peachy. *sigh*
November 20th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Ahh – you got him back in the picture! Yay! And I love the photo of you scarfing down the dog! This is now a great design!
November 20th, 2007 at 12:19 am
@Teeni – Ha ha. Thanks a lot! Though again, I’m a bit scared after Mike’s comment. BUT I’m really glad you like it. It’s been getting a lot of positive feedback on here and I’m beginning to wonder if anyone like parts of my old theme better.
If you do, let me know!
P.S. What I really have to do is change the footer because this theme is really starting to look different than the previous one. So much to the point that I need to give myself credit. BUT, I do need to still thank the original author. Oh…I’ll figure that all out too. SO MUCH TO DO!!!
November 20th, 2007 at 7:21 am
That’s what I did with the footer in my blog. IE6 issues? I’ve had IE6 issues right from the start and “accidentally” fixed it when I did my 1st redesign hehe. Good luck buddy!
November 20th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Nice work buddy. I am viewing the site in IE 7 and the Bruce Lee image is extremely shifted to the right. Everything else seems fine though.
November 20th, 2007 at 10:16 am
@Brown – Yeah, hopefully these will be easy fixes but we’ll see.
@Madhur – Looking at my CSS, looks like I positioned a DIV absolute and then never set the top and left. Not sure what I was thinking there. Ha ha
November 21st, 2007 at 12:09 am
Yeah!!! Bruce is back. I can see all of him.
Ok, I’m happy again. LOL
November 21st, 2007 at 9:52 am
Hey Bush
,
Great new look mate.
One comment, would a dark grey rather than a black be better on the eyes?
November 21st, 2007 at 10:19 am
@Christine – I took some time to address though issues yesterday so I’m glad that (hopefully) I’ve worked out everything. Thanks for letting me know!
@John – Glad you like it and I’m not sure if a dark grey would look better but it’s certainly something I’ll look into. Thanks for the idea. *thumbs up*
November 21st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
It looks great Bush! I love your picture there at the top. It really gives it a nice, personal look/feel/welcome. And bringing Bruce back was also an excellent move. Like I commented earlier, “my only suggestion is to add some sort of interesting photo somewhere near the header area…something that kinda personalizes it…kinda sets it apart from the rest.”
And dang man, you hit it right on. A total home run!
BTW, not sure it you know, or if it’s supposed to be that way…but your feed icon is NOT clickable or linked anywhere. You should link that sucker to your site feed so readers can subscribe. Right now I don’t see any way to subscribe to your site feed!
Shine on,
Aaron
November 21st, 2007 at 5:43 pm
@Aaron – Yeah thanks. One of the things that I really wanted to fix from my last theme was how my header area took up soooo much freakin’ room and in my mind didn’t search a real point. Though my current theme’s header still takes up some room, I think it’s scaled down a bit plus I managed to get my ugly mug in there too.
And thanks for reminding me about the feed icon. That’s something that I’m aiming to take care of as soon as I get to my next couple of things I shape up about the design.
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:29 am
Looking good, Bush! I’ve always favored white backgrounds anyway since they’re just easier to read. Keep it up!
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:32 pm
@Mark – Thanks dude, I figured that the black on white would would really resonate with a lot of people. *thumbs up*
November 24th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I love it, straight away we are greeted by a greedy Bush and then Bruce is back!!
Perfect, only problem is I had to go get a calculator to work out the answer to the spam protection! I always had problems with sums containing 7
November 25th, 2007 at 2:15 am
@Forest – Ha ha ha. Don’t feel bad. Where I sent to school for college, they considered Comp Sci an engineering major when it came to math. If they hadn’t, I would’ve been exempted from math courses through my SAT scores. Because they DID, I had to take Calc I 4 times to pass it, and Calc II twice. Argh.
I started to think I was mildly dyslexic.