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!
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.
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.
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.
May 1st is quickly approaching. I can't believe we're almost into March already! Where has the time gone? What does May 1 mean to you? It's not only the day I emerged from my Mother's womb (oh man, apparently I've been watching too much Family Guy), but a day when hundreds of designers band together to launch shiny new websites as part of the CSS Reboot. Chances are, a great deal of you had no idea who the hell I was before the last November 1st Reboot. This could be your time to shine. The fine folks over at Webjillion have launched a great new site for this May's Reboot and asked if I would be into doing an interview to share my experience. Of course I agreed to help them out. If you yourself run a site and could use some fresh eyes or maybe would like to expand your reach. You should consider signing up for the May 1 CSS Reboot.
I'm not going to make a New Year's Resolution this year. Last year, for the first time, I made one. I didn't even come close to following it through. While I exceeded my expectations in other areas, the one I had promised myself to improve on was left hanging and has pretty much diminished. And as such, I broke a New Year's tradition this year. Instead of going over to a friend's - who has hosted a radass New Year's Eve party for the past 5 or 6 years, Deanna and I went and saw King Kong. We'll ring in the new year with our daughter Hannah at the stroke of midnight while sipping on our drinks of choice - a cool Keith's for this guy and Spumante Bambino for my lady. Sounds good to me! It's been quite a year. On the family front, we sorted out everything we needed to in regards to our daughter and Deanna's ex. All the paper work is done and things are great. We received the official government document verifying Hannah's name change on December 23, which was by far the best Christmas present we could have asked for. She's now an official Brett! When they moved here from BC nearly 4 years ago, we all had last names. Deanna used to call us a mutt family. Hah!
When I determined how much content I wanted to deliver up front, I knew it would be a challenge to differentiate each section at first glance and to present it all in a way that wasn't overwhelming or seem cluttered. This is where the use of colour comes into play. I love pink, and pink and black is the hottest combo ever. So pink represents this guy right here - whether it be the body of a post or a comment I've left. Green is "external" or off-site links and blue represents user feedback.
Over a week’s passed since the first annual November 1 CSS Reboot. And what a week it’s been! Some how, I ended up on the front page of many design showcase sites that I frequent (list here) – which was awesome to say the least. This brought tons of fresh eyes to my site and […]
Where do I start? The past few days have been incredible around these parts! I joined the CSS Reboot back in August mainly to motivate myself to actually do something with this site and to get my portfolio online (which is on the way). When mid-October rolled around and I was still working on the […]
Update, November 1: The CSS Reboot site is now showcasing all of the new designs. If you like my design and wouldn’t mind taking a minute to vote for me, that’d be radass! You can do so here. It’s sorted by username, so just look for me… about half way down. Whoa, hey… I’m back! […]
Only 19 days until the first bi-annual November 1 CSS Reboot. I signed up months ago to ensure that I actually put some effort into this site. Mostly because I shut down Media Press and still have the site lingering. I fully intended to have a portfolio section as part of this site, but never […]
When I left off, I still had some significant PC hardware to pick up. I’ve since upgraded to a 520 W PSU and a P4 3.2 GHZ processor. Battlefield 2 is running pretty smooth now. I could still use some more ram, but that’ll come in time. I love getting new hardware because it always […]
