Time really flies. It’s been over 2 years since the last redesign and about 1.5 years since the last post. Needless to say, this blog needed something fresh. So I thought I’d bring in a new design, and follow up with some new content. I have to be honest, though, Simon Collison’s redesign really motivated my own redesign — I’m even trying his CSS3 drop shadow effect. I only hope the redesign can be half as good as his.

Technical Stuff

The blog runs on the awesome Textpattern CMS as usual. I’ve added a few simple animation effects, thanks to Color Powered. This also marks my first site using Typekit — I used a combination of League Gothic for most headings, and Calluna for the the body text. The site makes liberal use of alpha transparencies and CSS3 effects.

Some New Content

Much of the activity in the web design blogosphere has been replaced by round-up lists and tutorials. I can only think of a few sites that still focus on web design with some predictable frequency. I don’t know how much I can add to that, but I hope to do a small part. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything longer than short emails — I think it’s time to practice writing again.

More To Come

The site most likely doesn’t work well in IE, and in IE6 I plan to serve a simpler version. A mobile-friendly version is also in the works.

So here is the new site, for better or worse. Let me know what you think!

When I first started this blog, I wanted to it be more of a professional blog. But somewhere near the outset I took a step in a different direction, and this site quickly lost focus. Perhaps that’s why updates here are few and far between. I hope to change that, because I’ve recently launched a new design-focused blog/portfolio, which had the honor of being linked to by my design hero, Cameron Moll.

Hopefully this new blog will let this blog be what it was all along: a personal blog, nothing more. It’s also possible it will cause this blog to wither away for good. I guess we’ll see. Either way, check out the new site: A Simple Cell.

After my little retrospective on my birthday, I felt the need to finish revamping this blog (visually, that is). So here it is, version 4. Be sure you give the browser a good hard refresh. But given the lack of activity here, I doubt it’s necessary for anyone. It’s back to the basics, and making sure I put every single HTML element in its proper place, while maintaining a decently organized stylesheet. Good practice for the upcoming Big Rewrite at work. Moreover, I’m getting better at Textpattern — an awesome CMS IMHO.

New Section

Along with the new design, I decided to add a new section to the blog, just to try to make the blog a little bit more interesting. There I will be spouting hot air about movies, TV shows, musicals, and music that I’ve either enjoyed or endured. I’ve written a few to kick it off.

So What Now?

Hopefully I’ll stick to my little list and post more. More personal projects coming down the pipeline. And of course, stay tuned for the new Goldstar.com