My name is Jonathan Fenocchi, and this blog is version 2 of Jona’s Blog. Although there’s a name-change involved, the direction of my blog has not changed in a negative way. As you can see by viewing the categories I will be posting entries in, I will talk a lot about Web development, design, and technology altogether. Better still, I’ve constructed a sort of research area for my experimentations and such, much like Cameron Adams has done. The focus of my blog has changed to something slightly remarkable. I’m not going to change the world by doing something remarkable; I’m going to change it in part with others who are doing things that are just slightly remarkable. We’re a team, though we may compete and disagree at times, and we form an Internet that is accessible, useful, and entertaining for everyone.
If you’re looking for past entries that I’ve made (and were no doubt helpful), I have some bad news. Unfortunately, during the upgrading process (moving from my custom blogware to Wordpress), I lost my entire database. As you may have already guessed, I didn’t back it up, and as a result every single entry I’d ever made was deleted. If I was asked to give advice, I would say two things: back up your database weekly (at least), and more importantly: don’t share a database with other software (like running custom blogware in the same database as PHPBB).
Having said all that, please let me know what you like or dislike about the design, and let me know if there is additional functionality you’d like me to implement (e.g., gravatars, LiveSearch, etc.). I have a lot of ideas that aren’t in place yet, so if it’s something obvious I have probably already thought of it, but ideas are welcome regardless.
Lookin’ good Jona.
May 1st, 2005 at 7:20 am
Interesting. You do love your über long sidebar, don’t you? The colors are interesting, very bold, I wasn’t expecting it.
May 1st, 2005 at 10:09 am
This is a solid design man, nice work. One problem is that on the home page the right column is huge, and really unneccesary. Why not set it up so it only displays the first 10 in the list or something so we don’t have to see all your links over and over, like how you had it on your other design. I’m not quite sure what you can do with this, but the excerpt, then entry makes the page look really cluttered, maybe make the excerpt text a bit larger, and add more padding to it? That might solve it.
May 1st, 2005 at 12:49 pm
I’m REALLY against pink, but that’s just me. Also, I agree with the others about the right column. Perhaps put your blogroll on another page, or else just generate a few links (10 or so) at random on page load.
And for some reason the striped background doesn’t appear on the homepage for me…
May 1st, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Thanks for the comments, guys. I’ve made some changes based on your suggestions.
May 1st, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Looks like a clean rip off of this site: www.steinruckdesign.com/
Good job.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:31 am
I admit I got some ideas from Steinruck, but I never ripped a thing. All CSS, HTML and graphics are 100% original.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:55 am
To Anonymous: If you wish to make a statement, it’s always best to atleast leave your own information. How can anyone take an anonymous, siteless person seriously?
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:53 am
Well I think it looks great!
Brilliant work Jona. Took me a while to actually find your reboot. Maybe you should fiddle with your links on www.cmmwebdesign.com to send you here.
Like the new name also. Top stuff!
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:03 am
i like it! the color scheme is interesting, but not bad. good job, jona!
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:27 pm
@Martin Neczypor: The truth of the information stands regardless of its source.
@Jona:Well, I commend you for creating your own stuff, but it’s a little too close for comfort. You know what I mean?
When creating pieces of design one often finds inspiration in other things, but to create it in such a way that it closely resembles another piece is can hardly be considered original work.
It’s like if another sports gear company came out and had a logo that looked like a checkmark with squared edges instead of round ones. One might instantly think it’s a Nike copycat.
See what I mean?
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Wow, nice design Jona. I like the use of sIFR; for example, the “Leave a Remark” text. Yeah, when I see this I find myself reminiscing of Steinruck a little..
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:02 pm
The inspiration wasn’t exclusively from Steinruck. I had the idea in mind before I found Steinruck, excluding the header. The layout and navigation were inspired by a pillow that I saw at a store. I understand that it resembles Steinruck too much, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. If you want my most honest opinion, I don’t like the design anymore. I wanted to make a new design, but I didn’t have time before May 1st to start from scratch. I’m hoping to get a chance to redesign again sometime in the early summer.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:04 pm
The only part of it that I think looks like Steinruck is the header, like you said. The nav there and the nav on your site are slightly similar, but I can tell you didn’t build off Steinruck on that. (also, for anyone who cares, I have a new [and unfinished] site– jasongranger.com)
May 3rd, 2005 at 9:58 am
Haha, way to plug it, Sanim! ;o) I’d be interested in seeing what your blog turns out to look like. Oh, and by the way, Wordpress is a lot easier to use and manage than Textpattern when it comes to blogging; at least, that’s been my experience (not everyone agrees with me).
May 3rd, 2005 at 10:18 am
i think you forgot the steinruck stars in your header.
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:52 pm
The purpose of the design was not to copy Steinruck’s web site. I didn’t add the stars because I didn’t even look at Steinruck hard enough to notice them. I saw Steinruck’s design and I liked the header idea, so I stole it.
May 3rd, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Nice attempt Young Man reminded me of the Hitchhikers “Mostly Brilliant”.
Don’t like the Flash though would have preferred SVG.
May 4th, 2005 at 7:50 am
What Flash, Robert? I didn’t use any Flash on my redesign, except for the sIFR headers. I chose them to use the font I wanted to use for my headers which I would otherwise be unable to use. SVG is only supported by Opera as it stands now, and I don’t know if it’s even possible to use SVG to generate text. If it is, it doesn’t seem like it would be the most efficient way.
May 4th, 2005 at 10:00 am
It won’t be too long before Firefox has in enabled as default and we all know Amaya has had partial support for years. I was seeing how brave you were and yes SVG can generate text.
May 5th, 2005 at 8:59 am
It can? Really? Well, this is news to me! I’ve looked at SVG numerous times, but since there was no support for it at the time, I hadn’t looked very far. I will definitely keep SVG in mind. I will have to do some JavaScript + SVG experimentation in Opera soon.
May 5th, 2005 at 12:12 pm