Well, I’m not complaining. It was actually designed by Mike, so I’m not taking credit for it, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. It’s always kind of cool to see a site you were affiliated with in some small way appear on a CSS gallery site. :)
The movie reminded me of Resident Evil, just with fewer zombies and more Alien vs. Predator creatures. In any case, the movie had some cool graphics, a decent storyline, and some thrills. Overall it was pretty cool, so anyway, that was last night for me. Anyone else seen Doom yet? What’d you think of it?
Cameron Moll elaborated on his “Good designers redesign, great designers realign” phrase in an A List Apart article. Although at first Cameron’s message sparked controversy deep inside of me — I greatly enjoy designing web sites, even if there is no reason to do so — I’ve come to realize that he is indeed correct.
So, following Cameron’s outline, I want to go through a few questions so I can attain my Realigner badge.
First, why am I redesigning? It’s more than the CSS Reboot, and it’s more than the fact that I like to keep my site fresh and spiffy. Those are the reasons of a Redesigner, but in addition to those reasons, I’ve redesigned realigned my site to become more content-oriented and streamlined; I want navigation to be simple yet very accessible, I need a wider sidebar, but I also need a larger, more focused content area. I want to make my del.icio.us links and extended content into more like a secondary blog in the sidebar. Lastly, I want to change the way the site functions when viewing blog entries themselves; you should be able to skip to the comment form, there should be more information about the post, its author (me!), and other posts related to it.
Second, not a whole lot on the site needs to change, but a complete redesign is in order because these changes bring other challenges that a modification of the current design could not fulfill.
Third, the redesign isn’t the prettiest work I’ve ever done, so I don’t expect to get awards for my design. For now, my interest is focused on the content primarily, and the design secondarily. It will look nicer next time I redesign, as I’m sure by then I will have more solid reasons for redesigning (yes, I’m talking about May 1st, but that’s still six months away).
And fourth, obviously because I’m part of the CSS Reboot, I’ll definitely publish the redesign all at once on November 1st. However, for those of you who dislike my redesign so much that you can’t bare to look at it, I will be offering a theme switcher so that you can return to my older design at any time. I must warn, though, that in the future no modifications of past themes will be made, so those designs may become obsolete or even non-functional as I progress through new designs and add new features to the blog.
So, are you a Redesigner or a Realigner?
I’m an honest kind of guy. Not necessarily because it’s rewarding, but because I just believe it’s morally correct. So, let me tell you my story about hosting, and just why my site has been down for almost two days now…
It all started sometime mid-July. Being the #1 poster at the Web Developer Forums, I was only a natural choice for the owner of ISPHost to contact via PM and offer me a free hosting package. (Note: the top I think 5 posters were offered, but four of them turned him down — I didn’t.)
My new friend gave me his Platinum reseller hosting plan free for an unlimited time…well, at least, for as long as I put a link to his site in my signature. The agreement was made and soon I was the happy owner of the best, free hosting around.
However, recently I was notified via email that “commercial links are not allowed in signatures.” Joe, one of the administrators of the WD Forums, said he had to modify my signature for this reason. This isn’t good. Now I am faced with a decision: do I tell my “friend” about this mishap, or do I avoid confrontation and act like the link is still there? Well, one of two things would happen, based on my choice. If I told him, it’s more likely my account will be deleted (but there’s the chance that I can secure and maintain the hosting package through other means, if I’m honest enough to let the host know about it); on the other hand, if I don’t tell him, there may be a spontaneous deletion of my site at any time in the future. Both present complications, but, being an honest guy, I opted for the first. Bad idea.
Hello,
A few months ago, I acquired the Platinum hosting plan from ISPHost for free, in exchange for my linking to your web site from the Web Developer Forums, www.webdeveloper.com/forum/ . However, I have been notified by the administrators of those forums that linking to your site breaches their Acceptable Use Policy. Therefore, I have been forced to remove the link in my signature.
I would like to know if there is any way I can secure and maintain my existing Platinum status at no extra cost to me (for example, linking to you from my own web site or recommending you as my web host to others).
Admittedly, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps you wouldn’t notice that the link had been removed, but I found that irresponsible and in bad taste. In addition, I have reason to believe that you may forget the reason why you permitted to host me without requiring payment, and since I have removed the link, there will be no way for me to secure my free hosting at that point.
Thank you for your time,
Jonathan
The response was a hopeful, yet expecting. “Could you link to another one of my sites from webdevelopers?” My response was that, no, I can’t link to any commercial sites. After that, I got no response. Sunday, I find that my site is offline. Yea, big problem..
So, off goes another email (thank goodness I have more than one) to my friend. Basically I said, “Hey, hold up! You didn’t even notify me or even respond to my last email! Why didn’t you at least say ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but your account has to be removed now, unless you choose to pay for your hosting from this point forward.’ or anything!” He responds back, apologizing for not notifying me (or giving me some time to backup my stuff, which thankfully I had already done) and stating that he assumed I was not interested in purchasing hosting due to the fact that I noted I was interested in maintaining my free status. I can see that being misleading, but it was still an opportunity for him to make some money off me. Why not pitch a sale whenever you can?
Anyway, so I went back to ISPHost’s site and purchased their Gold package for $5/mo. ($60/yr.) and he got me setup almost immediately. I was moved to another DNS, so it took most of today for the domain to propogate again. But anyway, now I’m back up and running. For those of you who’ve sent me email (excluding you, spammers!) please send them again, because more than likely I did not get them.
The moral of the story is, folks, nothing is free, so live with it.
I hope you all enjoy it. I’d be happy to get some feedback from the readership.
Normally, I’d just go ahead and login to cPanel and upload things, etc. But I’ve found that to be just as slow as FTP (though less of a hassle). I’ve been searching for an FTP app for quite awhile, but recently I stumbled upon this heavenly jewel: FileZilla.
This little bugger works like a charm. It connects fast, transfers quickly and accurately, and lets me customize just about everything (including what app opens what type of file for viewing/editing).
So, now it’s your turn to blabber. What FTP app do you use, and why?