Every now and then I tend to get restless with this blog’s design, and these past few days have been a perfect example of this. Though this new design was built from the ground up, it is essentially a refreshed version of the last site design, entitled “Redux”. Hopefully I’ll slow down with the designing and concentrate on the actual content, but in the mean time, I hope you like this new design that I’ve appropriately dubbed Redux 2.
Despite the fact that the keys are quite squished together for a non-laptop keyboard, the fact that it lacks a numpad and some other keys, and above all that it costs a whopping $79, every time I see this keyboard — an intangible object, a computer input device! — I get a little surge of excitement.
Damn you, Apple. The white-on-aluminum gets me every time.
Being a non-dual-booting Mac user, I hit a snare when working on a website the other week. I knew that it worked fine in both Safari and Firefox, but it was untested in Internet Explorer. For as much as people tend to rag on Internet Explorer, it still dominates the browser market share, and because of this, ensuring a site works in Internet Explorer is critical. Even on this blog — one I would think to be pretty technologically savvy — 62% of my visitors use Internet Explorer.
Now, back to my original dilemma: I had a website untested in Internet Explorer, and had no way of getting Internet Explorer on my computer. After some Googling, I came upon Netrenderer. It allows you to paste a URL you’d like tested, and unlike other services, instantly outputs a screenshot of your site as it would appear in IE 6 or 7, based on your preference. Though it does cut off at the fold, or the bottom of the browser window, this has proven to be an invaluable tool for me in ensuring compatibility in IE for sites I design.
Oh yeah, I have a blog — I seem to have forgotten about that. In any case, what’s a guy to do when he lacks interest in actually blogging? Redesign his blog, of course. In launching this theme, this blog is on its third design revision in its near year of operation. I would say that out of every design this is by far my favorite.
Entitled “Redux,” this design is the result of my wanting a more minimal, toned-down design. Hopefully its succeeded in doing this. Also: now with at least improved IE compatibility, as I’ve been too lazy to ensure total compatibility, yet. Also, as of this writing I’ve not ensured W3 validity, but will do so shortly.
Any feedback is appreciated, and hopefully you enjoy the new design.
About five days ago as spring had really sprung, I thought to myself that with the new season a new design for this blog was in order. So, for those five days I worked very hard to almost entirely recreate my design. The result of this effort is what you are looking at now (if you’re in RSS, hop on over!), and I feel it’s a big improvement over the last version.
This design wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for some very kind and helpful I know from Random Shapes. These people include Jake Dahn for his honest opinions and CSS help, Anthony Cole for his critiquing, and Ranjani for her awesome logo.
Again, your feedback/issues you encounter are much appreciated.
Though I’m not a fan of the popular buzzword web framework, Ruby On Rails, I noticed something the other day: there seems to be a correlation between design beauty and use of Rails. Every app or site I’ve stumbled upon that uses the framework has a great, often minimal design that is quite pleasing to the eye. Perhaps it’s the fact that the people who design these sites have similar tastes in methodologies when it comes to programming languages: sweet, clean, and simple.
Those are just my two cents, but still don’t believe me? Check out some of these sites based on Rails:
Then again, it could just be the influence of “Web 2.0″ design concepts that make all these sites look great, but largely similar in terms of design elements (yes, Web 2.0 gets quotes from me). Stupid Web 2.0.
I remember seeing a prototype of this about two years back, and a few days ago I again stumbled upon something called Monome. It’s a really interesting experiment in design and interaction by way of a silver slab of shiny metal with 64 buttons on its face. What you do with them, however, is where things get interesting. Primarily, it’s been used as an interface for MIDI software applications, with each button acting as a trigger for a sound byte; this allows for some unbelievable live performances, with the actual construction of the song being a performance in and of itself. Several examples of this can be seen in the videos on the site.
The real beauty of Monome, however, is that it gives tactility to what is usually cumbersome software. Say, for instance, you want to create a song with several looping instruments. To do this, you need only select buttons on the grid which correspond with sound files on your computer. As seen below, a sweeping bar of illumination literally passes over the buttons you selected in chronological order, playing its assigned sound, and voilà, a song.
The best thing is that this is just one out of a near endless amount of ways you can interact with Monome. More or less, the only limitation to its flexibility in how the buttons interact with your computer and how you interact with the buttons, is your imagination (and some software, too).
Sometimes it takes something really simple in design to allow room for extensibility, in this case via ingenuity and creativity on the users’ end. Monome is a shining example of this.
After toying around with various non custom WordPress themes for the past month or two, dissatisfied, about two weeks ago I sat down, and with my minimal design chops began constructing what you’re seeing right now. It’s a big change for the site, aesthetically and also functionality-wise (read: there’s actually a sidebar now). In addition, I’ve switched from Textpattern to the WordPress platform to manage my blog’s content.
I really couldn’t be happier to finally have a blog that looks and feels such that I can actually be proud of it.
Sidenote: I’ve done only minimal testing with this design, so I’d really appreciate it if you could either contact me, or leave a comment, if you encounter any issues.
To all readers out there, I need your feedback. Just a little bit ago I changed the color scheme of the site. Previously I felt it was a little to bland and plain, and I thought some complimentary shades of blue would look pretty nice. What is/are your opinion(s), as you’re the people/person who, I hope, actually read(s) this?
