Welcome to Blaqenedwyte 2.0
filed in Blogging/Web on Oct.23, 2005
Welcome to the new and improved Blaqenedwyte Blog. Thanks for clicking over. If you happened upon this blog in someway other than clicking a link from my old blog, you are especially welcome!
Why?
So, why did I feel the need to create a new blog? …or… What was wrong with my old blog? Both good and fair questions. There are two answers really. The easy answer is that WordPress gives me freedom and functionality that Blogger could not provide. Both of which add to my peronal enjoyment of blogging. Because if I didn’t enjoy blogging, I wouldn’t do it. The second answer is more complex, but just as relevant. I’m a knowledge hound. I love to learn new things. Even better, I love to teach myself new things. WordPress gave me the opportunity to learn a new way to blog. Learn new code. Have a new experience. And in the process, redefine myself. The old photo of me on the Big Wheel was cool and all, but I wanted to move onto something a little more sophisticated now.
Not that my old blog was suffering. I started the web counter at the bottom of the page a couple months after I started blogging and managed to log over 16,400 visitors. That’s an average of over 900 visitors per month, 220+ visitors per week, and over 30 hits a day. Not too shabby considering I have nothing interesting to say! (yes, I used a calculator to figure out those averages.)
Things I’m Still Tweaking:
My blogroll is showing my links in a random order. I’m trying to figure out the sorting process so I can have them appear in the order I desire.Well, I can sort it by link ID, but in order to alter the link ID I need to go into the code (instead of using the admin panel), so it’s not perfect. All new links will end up at the bottom of the list in the order they were added, unless I get myself into a “I really want to mess up my code today” sort of mood.I want to show “Recent Posts”and “Recent Comments”in the sidebar – but haven’t been able to get it to work yet.- Still deciding if I want one of those calendars that seem to be popular on blogs nowadays… seem kinda dorky to me…
So, please leave me your feedback and let me know what you think of the new header, layout, and site in general. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
October 24th, 2005 on 10:20 am
I like the new template. Nice use of gradient. The only feedback I have is that the left side of your masthead looks a little tight. Airing out those four elements on the left would be my only suggestion. What code does WP use?
October 24th, 2005 on 11:03 am
Yeah, I agree on the masthead DG. I think I’ll keep looking for a new font for the title as well, but yeah, it’s a little crammed. WP uses a combination of HTML, PHP and CSS.
October 24th, 2005 on 2:03 pm
So this template will work just fine on Blogger, but you’re switching to WP for it’s features, right?
October 24th, 2005 on 2:06 pm
yep, nothing special about the template design itself, but the functionality of WP is far superior to blogspot.
October 24th, 2005 on 3:15 pm
One thing I noticed, and it may just be me, but when I click on an individual post, the template doesn’t seem to be the same. I am guessing your “Theme” includes a main .php and possibly a single.php, or something that makes a one-post page look different to the main/front page. The header and footer areas appear to be the same, but the middle section seems to be squeezed in by 5 pixels or so on each side. I am using FF 1.0.6 on OS X.4, but the problem also appears in Safari. I haven’t checked at work on my PC yet.
And I see you haven’t had much luck with the recent comments. Drop me a line by email, or IM me and I’ll see if I can help.
October 24th, 2005 on 3:46 pm
Yeah Greg. That’s something I noticed too. It’s happening because I expanded the main template to be a little wider than it was. I need to go into the CSS and find the code style that dictates the inner pages width and change those as well.
I did try and input the Recent Comments and it broke my sidebar, so I removed it. I’ll hopefully try again later tonight. I may get a hold of you if I need help – thanks.
October 25th, 2005 on 11:28 am
Hi Ken…
Couple of things:
Are you attaching pics? My computer is not showing any and…
Will your old blogs be accessible. I ask because I wanted to print your piece on the canoe trip and never got around to it…
Later
October 25th, 2005 on 11:55 am
Hey Jason –
So far in this new blog, I have only one post with a photo (the newest coffee one). As for my old blog, you can still find it here eicherdesign.com/oldblog. As for the photos on the old blog, they’re all broken right now. I’ll go through soon and fix the links – and I’ll start with the canoe trip post for you. 🙂
October 26th, 2005 on 7:27 am
Cool…thanks Ken.