I’ve been whittling away at this at random hours in between 642 other small projects, so feel free to click through and have a look at my handiwork.
Major goals of this minor redesign included:
- Play with the header graphic. (Done.)
- Fix the FriendFeed stream and make it useful. (Done.)
- Clean things up, remove some widget bloat, figure out a better way to present that sort of thing. (Sort of done.)
- Do all this in Django for fun and sport. (Not even close. Still WordPress, which I still enjoy, and built on the Sandbox theme as it has been for years now.)
There’s also a bit of BIGness to everything, much of which I advise you to blame on Wilson Miner, though I haven’t a fraction of his skill at this sort of thing.
I’m sure I’ll continue to fiddle with the sidebar and bottom bits for days to come, so don’t grow accustomed to any of this if you’re some sort of person who often reads this thing in a manner that doesn’t involve your RSS reader or phone. No idea who you people are.
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Comments
9 responses to “Minor redesign of this here blog”
Things that need work:
The Work page, but I still like the idea of that living as a one-off custom portfolio. Now *that* could be a fun Django project.
That contact form is still busted.
This comment form wants more of the light blue around it to fill in the gaps, I think. No, it doesn’t.I have a feeling the single post tags are bumping right up against the comments.What did I do with the related posts?Found ’em.BTW, I haven’t bothered to even glance at this in passing in IE 6, 7, or 8. Or Opera.
1. It’s not 2009, yet 😉
2. I would put the greatest hits somewhere at the top. I assume someone will miss those.
3. People will also certainly miss your robust collection of people in your old blog roll, who seem to have been replaced by only a select few 😉
Nick
1. I’m ahead of the game.
2. Eh. The ‘greatest hits’ bit is mostly there for first-time visitors, and in the previous design it was top-right, which probably was more visible, but I don’t want to push the Friendfeed stream down any lower, really.
3. Yeah, working on that – see Twitter for details.
Hi, Ryan. Great blog…found you through Twitter. I live just outside of Detroit (Dearborn, MI) and found something I thought you might like: http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/hockey/comments/big_media_changes_in_detroit/
BTW…I’m an independent print publisher of alternative news — “The Onion meets Dearborn, MI” — and am finally moving online. Took a minute because I LOVE print, but I need to be realistic.
Peace,
Dennis
Keep up the great job!
Ryan–
What are some beginning resources that you’d suggest for learning about Python and Django? I’m a true novice, but I can see the potential of Django for a lot of different news projects. I’ve looked at the basic sites (djangoproject.com, djangobook.com) and some of the blogs of the well-known folks (Holovaty, Bennett, Miner, Croft). What are some other things you’d suggest? How did you begin using Django?
@Jeff – To be clear, although I’ve been learning Django for ReportingOn and other projects, this here blog is still plain old WordPress.
That said, the Django Book (online, where it’s up to date) and every tutorial I can find have been my best resources. Check out my Delicious links tagged with Django if that helps.
Also, take a look at questions about Django on Stack Overflow. I subscribe to the feed for that tag and read the answers whenever I can understand the questions. 😉
Sorry, Ryan. I see that you had already posted a link to the news about Detroit print downsizing.
Peace,
Dennis
That logo is like a kaleidoscope!
Ryan,
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and like it a lot . . . a wonder if the header graphic seems a bit too ‘busy’ . . . just my two cents . . . otherwise, rock on!
-John