One thing about blogger, when you save a post as a draft so that you can finish it up and post it later, the timestamp is of when the post is saved. Shouldn’t it be of the time that it was posted.
Because of this you may miss my post about the redesign.
| Your Birthdate: September 18 |
 You are a cohesive force – able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check – you know when to emote and when to repress. Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities Your power color: Crimson red Your power symbol: Snowflake Your power month: September |
This is wrong. Except for September!
(hat tip to Margeaux)
I did a quick write-up on the changes at BrowserMetrics early this morning, but I don’t think it does justice to, if at all mentions, the design process I went through. After most design/development, I feel it productive to have a postmortem where the process and the product are evaluated for the good and bad of it.
Layout and CSS
In the late 90s, I worked in a web design company helping to churn out pages for lame ass businesses. We did everything with tables. This layout doesn’t use any of that. It is purely CSS driven. I am proud of that. I took me some time to find out how it works. Now that I do know how it does, I want to tweak this layout some more.
My last template centered everything in two small tidy columns that didn’t fill all the entire screen. I wanted to try to use the screen to its fullmost. First, the content area of the posts needed to be larger. It now sits fixed to the left size with a generous width. Notice, that when you enlarge the browser window that the posts don’t change size. That’s what I was going for.
The sidebar I wanted to consolidate. It was too cluttered especially my blogroll. I changed this by trying to shrink the lengths of the lists. Notice that more than one link happens per line.
Color
I knew I wanted a black background. This is to validate BlueRyder’s idea that this blog is dark. Just kidding. Black looks so much cooler or at least a non-white background. Non-white is my text editor at work’s colors for documents. It’ll make it easier to blog at work. Just kidding, again.
The color scheme I chose is mainly black and orange. Unfortunately, this is also the colors for the hometown birds. I have wanted to try out this color scheme out a long time ago, but never had a decent opportunity.
Did you know that the text isn’t purely white? It’s slightly yellow and it compliments the black.
The links are a subtle orange which also compliments the darker main orange color. It’s not the bright one I am used too, but I like it. I hope you too.
Sidebar Tricks
Check out the cache section which is autoatically generated via Blogger tags. I print especially via some javascript.
Mainly the javascript is used to add the ‘|’ after each link printed. For the archive links, I had to create a column effect with javascript. It’s basically every third link I don’t print the ‘|.’ So there’s some programming done here. I wonder if it is taking some time to do this. Perhaps some performance checks needed to executed for those who are still on dialup.
What I like
The layout. The colors. A new blog.
What I don’t like
The CSS. The lack of a proper footer (I wanted another grey bar to rest at the bottom.
Since moving to the new, non-beta blogger, I had been wanting to update the site template. I don’t like the new templates offered, so I stuck with the old style blogger tags. I don’t get all the cool functionality that the new blogger offers, but that’s a trade-off I can learn to live with. It was a design decision.
In this new template, I learned all about Cascading Style Sheets and the old blogger template tags. The style sheet for this new layout is messy. It could probably be tighter, as could the layout.
Maybe sometime in the future I will learn the new blogger template stuff, but until then I hope they don’t change the old template tags.
Please let me know what you think of the design. Let me know if using the sight is intuitive. And please let me know if some things don’t work.
Leave feedback in the comments.
If you remember, I was wondering who’ll host the Oscars for technical achievement. It was Maggie Gyllenhaal. While she’s not what I consider hot, she’s still female. Easy on the eyes as well, but she’s no
Rachel McAdams.
You think the 11th iteration of a reality show would be boring to watch. Except if that show is the Amazing Race. It’s the All-Star show. Past racers once again globe trotting for a million dollars.
I can’t hate any of them. They all rock. I don’t know any of the season one racers, but I’m gonna be glad to meet them.
Of course, I have my favorites. Terri and Ian. Rob and Amber.
It always make me laugh!
** UPDATE **
Rob and Amber are the reality team monsters!
I hope they don’t philiminate in this episode. Damn, he just said will.
*** UPDATE ***
I hate the first leg eliminations. Sorry, Jon Vito and Jill. I wanted see them a bit longer.
The Amazing Race is a cruel mistress!
See you next episode.
The Year of the Boar. It’s my kind of year!
Like many latchkey kids, I grew up with television as my babysitter. She watched over me as I watched her. Slowly, steadily, and inevitably, she has shaped my life.
It was always awesome to watch show’s over and over again. Syndication made that possible. I don’t know how many times I saw the complete runs of Taxi, Three’s Company or Seinfeld, but I’ve seen them over and over that their episode plotlines run into each and have become indestinguishable.
So imagine my surprise at finding that many television shows have replaced their syndication revenue stream with that of DVD. It is a godsend that the producers are now releasing their shows on DVD. Plenty of the ones out of syndication or even the unpopular ones can now be found at your local Best Buy. So if you want ot catch up or just catch a show you’ve missed, rent the DVD and enjoy.
But what to watch?
These are four discs that are in my personal TV on DVD library. Each of these discs I find to be essential in grokking the show’s concept. If you like to learn more, put them on your netflix queue.
The X-Files: Season 5, Disc 1
The X-Files was the first television show to be released on DVD. I loved that show. I queued the request to buy the first season a couple of months in advance on Amazon. It was originally priced as $129.00, but early buyers could get it for $90. That price today is outrageous as the discs can be got for as little as $30, but I guess they didn’t know who’s going to buy it. That disc sold well.
My choice disc, season five, disc one, will help you grokk The X-Files. It comes from the beginning of the end of the show’s run. Around this time the show “jumped the shark.” It still had another five years left, but the show before season five is completely different than the show after it. Yet, the four episodes on this disc still capture The X-Files in all its glory.
These were the first episodes after the movie. It opens with a standalone episode for the Lone Gunmen, “Unusual Suspects,” which is one of my favorites. There goes the idea of continuing the momentum from the movie. But then it does dive back into the conspiracy with “Redux” and “Redux II“. You would think these episodes would try to resolve lingering plotlines from the movie and the previous season’s cliffhanger. It does and doesn’t leaving many plotlines dangling and unleashing a few more. Finally, you get another standalone episode, “Detour,” which finds our favorite FBI agents lost in the woods just as they have always been. Not a particularly strong episode, but it does have Scully singing. Mmmm, Scully!
After this season, the show officially moved production from wet and dank Vancouver to sunny LA. The tone changed and thus began it’s steady decline.
Northern Exposure: Season 3, Disc 3
The packaging of the first two Northern Exposure discs was highly regarded as dumb. It was a neat little parka. Sounds as stupid as those iPod socks. Also, the first two seasons were short, because the show was a summer/spring replacement. The cost for these two discs were $40, as outrageous a price as The X-Files discs.
With season three, the producers have put the discs in the standard slip case and finally have some idea of what episodes are on each disc.
I have chosen season three’s disc three side B to best represent the show. It is the last few episodes of their magnificent season 3, and they go on hiatus with a set of strong episodes. The show ignites the lustful emotions between Joel and Maggie by locking them up in the same hotel room in Juneau in “It Happened in Juneau.” This episode sums up the love-hate-love that the two main characters go through. It’s as silly as all your other “will they or won’t they” plotlines. Next is “Our Wedding.” Not Joel and Maggie’s, bit Adam and Eve. Bringing fun for everyone but the groom. Finally, on this disc, you have the best episode of the show ever, “Cicely.” You come to know about the town of Cicely and how it became the “Alaskan Riviera.” It also keys you on the magic between the cast and of the place that is Northern Exposure.
News Radio: Season 3, Disc 1
I would like to have you watch every disc of this show, but I have to choose one which is unfair to the rest of them. You already know of my passion for this show if you stick around for NewsRadio Quote Month.
As the show opens it’s third season, it finds itself looking to stay on television. It’s not that the show was bad, but just the executives at NBC who were. They couldn’t give this most funniest of shows a decent time slot. It didn’t follow the nineties Friends-like template. It harkened back to workplace comedies which have been as old as the lembego trick.
When you watch this disc, you’ll find nine of the most funniest sitcoms episodes. They’ll make you want to watch all the rest of the discs.
“President” with Jimmy James running for and losing out in one day. A side plot is Matthew’s mustache. “Review” is for all those office drones who have to ge through this process. You’ll instantly recognize the cringe-inducing factor of this suckful work place phenomena. “Message Chair” is to remind you of the loss of Phil Hartman. “Arcade” is to remind you of all the quarters you pumped into video games as a kid. StarGate Defender! Plus Lisa Miller and the SAT. “Holloween” and “Award Show” highlight the ensemble cast at their goofiest. “Daydream” sums up all those dream episodes in television rather succinctly. “Movie Star” has James Caan intrigued by the spaz, and “Stocks” has you wishing for more secret of management advice from Jimmy James.
I think I’ll pop this disc in and watch a few eps…
The Simpsons: Season 2, Disc 4
This past Christmas I had received five seasons worth of this show on DVD. That’s an insane amount to view, especially since they are all from the waning years of the show. Yes it’s still on, but have you watched it? Religiously? Like you did when you were younger? I thought so.
Yet, the Simpsons still has it’s funny sides. I had to dive into the early run of the show to be reminded of the fact.
“Lisa’s Substitute” is the classic episode with Dustin Hoffman voicing the Jewish cowboy teacher that Lisa has a crush on. “The War of the Simpsons” has Homer catching General Sherman, beatin the mighty catfish down, but releasing it because of his love for Marge. “Three Men and A Comic Book” has Milhouse, Bart, and Martin fighting over the titular comic book. Reminds me of the time that my brother ripped up one of mine. “Blood Feud” a mediocre fare that is still better than today’s show.
I have a few more shows on DVD, but they aren’t my favorites.
Share with me yours.
