Heyo! I'm Matt Brett, and I'm a freelance web designer from Ontario, Canada. I specialize in WordPress development and generally making things that are awesome. When I'm not working, I'm playing video games, and I've published over 100 game reviews in the past few years.

Heyo! I'm Matt Brett, and I'm a freelance web designer from Ontario, Canada. I specialize in WordPress development, and have been known to spend my evenings playing video games.

Category archive: This Site 23 articles

2012 Redesign

After weeks of working 10-12 hour days and losing many weekends, I'm stoked to roll out this redesign, and am hoping it will reignite my blogging spark.

Times, They Are A-Changing

The main goal of this redesign was to better balance work and play, and to step up the professional end so people know I mean business.

Redesign ’08: Structure and Style

It’s almost a month to the day since I launched my redesign, and I figure it’s about time that I open up in regards to how this all came together, and later, how everything works. My previous design was online for nearly 3 years, and shortly after launch, I wrote a couple articles sharing some [...]

At Long Last…

It's been nearly three years since I broke onto the scene with my previous design. And for many reasons, I was in no rush to replace it. But at the same time, I've been itching to redesign for quite some time. In fact, if you follow me on Twitter or Flickr, you've seen mention and proof of a redesign in progress for what seems like, ever. I'm proud and excited to be releasing my latest effort into the wild, at long last! If you're reading this in your feed reader, be sure to hit my domain to check it out.

Reader Poll: Keep Reviews or Ditch Them?

For some time now, I've been toying with the idea of ditching my "formal" game reviews for lower key, casual observations. Take this post where I discuss my thoughts on Dead Rising and Saints Row after spending some time with the demos of each game. Now compare it to each game's review. Another good example of a casual, open-ended post is my take on Splinter Cell: Double Agent after playing the first few missions. I never did get around to reviewing that game.

The Return of the Black

I did something tonight that I have never done before. I thought about changing my site back to the black design and just went ahead and did it. I didn't second guess myself, I didn't try and work it into my schedule. I dropped what I was doing and sat here for a solid 7 hour stretch and just fuckin' did it. So, why the change?

Modifications: My Site, My Career

If you've been here before, you might have a question or two for me right about now. For those that were using the Back in Black style, I apologize. It will be back (again). Let me explain just what is going on around here. Since July of 2005, I've been working from home. Up until recently, for other people. Some shit went down and I found myself in a situation where I needed to find a new source of income stat!

1&1 Fucked up My Flow

I had a good week's worth of posts planned out, that is until 1&1 decided to crap out on me. On Tuesday afternoon around 1pm my site returned a 404 in three different languages. This love error was displayed to the world for the following two hours. All the while, I was calling their 1-800 "expert technical support" help line to find out WTF was up. Not once did I even get put in a queue. For the most part, I would hear an obnoxious beep followed by "We're sorry, all of our circuits are busy right now. Please calling back later." Do you realize how infuriating that is when your site is offline and you can't even be queued for support?

Back in Black

I've accomplished something I've always wanted to do with my site - have multiple styles and let the user choose their preference. As promised, I deliver onto you, "Back in Black", which is essentially my latest revision with the old colours. A bit more bold, as all the links are coloured where as they were only underlined with colour in my previous incarnation. The style switcher stores a cookie on your computer, so every time you come back (granted you haven't cleared your cookies) you'll see the style of your choice. Fun!

Rebooted!

Well, here we are. A day early (just like last time) with a fresh, new site. Well, sort of. If you've been here before, you're no doubt squinting due to the brightness. I'm sure you weren't expecting to see a site of mine on anything but a black background. I really wanted to do something drastic, but at the same time, maintain the level of organization that has brought me so much love. Hence the white background, but familiar three column layout.

You Can Always Tell…

when a blogger is working on a new site. Posting becomes nearly non-existent and I must apologize for that. Whenever I saw someone neglecting their site because they're working on a new design I said to myself that I would never do that. Well it seems I'm no better, but I now understand why this happens. The fact of the matter is - launching a new design for a blog is a lot of work. Especially if you have a fairly customized installation and are running a lot of plugins, which I am. It takes a lot of planning and there are several areas which require tons of attention to detail.

So, I’m Rebooting May 1

As I mentioned last time I wrote on this subject, I've been debating whether or not to take part in the May 1 CSS Reboot. Last night while waiting for something to upload, I cracked open my most recent PSD of the homepage layout, dated October 16, 2005. Roughly two-and-a-half hours later, I had made a fair bit of progress and was feeling good about where it seems to be going. I immediately made my way over to the CSS Reboot site and signed up. You see, if I don't have a deadline, I don't get shit done. And hey, the November 1 CSS Reboot helped me roll this bad boy out, so let's see how May 1 does for my personal domain.

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