Hello All!! Wow, I can’t believe it’s June already! How’d the time go by so fast? Actually I have a far-fetched theory on that one, but it’ll have to wait for another post sometime. I’d mainly like to talk about the changes to the blog and what I’m doing lately, and also what I hopefully will be doing very soon. By the way, the pic was taken just now with the webcam. Thommen loves being on daddy’s shoulder! click the pic to see full-size.
First, the blog changes. As you all know, I switched to this WordPress format and all but completely ditched Blogger.com. I’m glad I did! The server space I’m using on PowWeb went down once since I started this late April. Blogger has had problems several times a month. Now, PowWeb is going to more reliable servers when they already have a 98% uptime rate. But I digress! I’m very happy with the design theme I settled on, a custom theme designed by Evok Interactive (see sidebar). I know I could have designed my own, but the problem is integration. I haven’t yet learned PHP and MySQL integration, since I’m still finishing up HTML/CSS training, but I will soon. The WordPress blog relies heavily on PHP to do many of its calls. Fortunately, PHP and HTML go hand in hand and integrate well together, so I was able to at least change the font sizes and colors, as well as formatting. I also managed to change the format of viewing the entries so they’re no longer excerpted when you view by category or month.
Earlier this last month, I integrated the “Now Playing” section into the sidebar so you can see what music I’m listening to at the moment. The page refreshes every 2-1/2 minutes to keep it updated. I tested out the comment box to make sure the refresh wouldn’t screw up anybody currently composing a comment. It’s all good! I plan to get some software that will let me broadcast what I’m listening to out on select channels. I will also have an “On The Air” link underneath the artist info when that happens, so you all can listen in. I may limit it to just five listeners, to keep myself out of trouble. Added to this, I recently installed a ImOnline plugin that shows everyone if I’m online and what Instant Messengers they can use to contact me. Finally, I changed the link colors on both the main section and sidebar, so visitors can actually SEE that they are links; before, they were the same color as the rest of the text!
Going back to talk about Blogger. The only reason why I’m not completely nixing my old blog from them is because I visit other blogs on there and if I comment on someone’s entry, I want them to visit that blog and play “follow the link” to this blog! Plus, I have ASCS’s blog on it… That’ll do for now.
Now to talk about business. So far I haven’t gotten around to finishing my Esoterik Graphics site. I should be doing this NOW (!!!), but I wanted to write first. So far, I have that to finish and I also have the whole ASCS site to move and re-design! That is going to be a big job; I spent mucho time designing that. I already started the first phase of the move, which is the main page move to seedcrackers.org. The .com domain is still active for another year, to let everyone adjust. Last weekend, I started and completed a rough draft for a client (my second one!!), and I still have to wait for him to respond with thoughts and suggestions! Going slow is my business and implementation. Hopefully, I’ll be able to speed this up. The big thing dragging me down is my day job. It’s taking up so much energy that, when I get home, I don’t want to do much of anything! Well, I noticed that my energy comes and goes in cycles throughout the year; here’s hoping the upswing will come soon.
I think I’ve just talked my fingers off!!! I have more to blog about, so I may post another, completely unrelated, entry sometime this evening. Until then, cheers!
