40 comments

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  Stacie

  2 years ago

  I love it! Absolutely love the L&F, the different views, everything. Job well done. Looking forward to reading the effectiveness of the new design. Oh, like the "opinions" instead of comments.
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  Jonic

  2 years ago

  Thanks for the shout-out man :) Be sure to pass any bug reports on to me... Although I'm a little embarrassed about being called an uber-designer, I don't really feel like I did much!
  
  I love this new version of the site, but I'm almost sick of looking at it now!
  
  Oh, btw, the only bit of the site that's fluid is the nav container with the blue background... Most of it's glued in place pretty solidly...
  
  A fluid layout on this design would be a pain because of the three nav images, the content column would have to fit under them to give the page it's grid-like sensibility, but obviously the images won't stretch as the content would... It would throw out most of the design's grid and most likely look crap... That's why I made it fixed, but I forgot to tell you!
  
  Sorry man, didn't mean to make a liar out of you!
  
  Thanks again! Hope y'all like it!
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• 

  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Stacie: L&F? Forgive me I'm feeling dense right now. :)
  
  Jonic: You made it come alive man. :)
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• 

  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  Nice overhaul and some great concepts. It's hard to tell that the "BEST" section is your handpicking, as currently it seems to be in order of most comments.
  
  I should note four things (not because I'm anal .. because I think you would want to see some feedback!)
  
  1) While my screen is minimum 1152x864 .. I often read in my bloglines, then click on a headline and up pops a window .. not full screen image view. In Here, your top search field and input button right aligns to the size of window. When that happens, despite scroll bar to see the full screen and right columns .. the top "Subscribe to Technosailor" block disappears. I guess that's because of the fluid width over the two sidebar columns. It wouldn't work i.m.o. having the fluid width over the text because it's nice centered below the 3 images - Maybe you don't need fluid width with a 1024×768 view?
  
  2) Unless "The Current" has great significance to you personally .. just having that as "HOME" would work just as well and maintain some normality!
  
  3) Is it possible to increase the pixel size of the main text column words? It's too small for me - I normally just go straight to View/Text Size/ from my IEv7 window and just increase the text size for readability - all the other text looks too big with that orange and distracts you from the reading.
  
  4) And finally .. the top "Your Opinion" right-aligned image on the posts cover the text of the second line of words .. perhaps adding some type of "hspace" to your CSS for boxes and images?
  
  Oh - Bonus suggestion .. with the advent of Photoshop .. I would like to see AARON in a "Pretty Little Box" graphic somewhere ... maybe you standing in a Pirate's treasure chest? Hmm. Some box. Maybe. Maybe not.
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• 

  Stacie

  2 years ago

  Look and Feel. It's very clean and user friendly.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Hart: 1... Hmmm. I'll have to see if Jonic can do anything with that. 2, The other two items begin with "The" and Current is consistent with the nautical feel. 3, you have high res. The font will be small. I'm catering to 1024x768 and you can override the font with Ctrl-ScrollWheel. 4, will talk to Jonic. Bonus, Heh... Perhaps :)
  
  Stacie: Gotcha :)
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  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  Oh.. I didn't get the nautical "current" reference.. D'oh! But, while you are at it .. why not think of other terms for the other boxes? e.g. The Conversation could be .. the Starboard (almost like two meanings there) .. The Best could be .. The Round Up? The Bridge? The Rudder? .. (my mind is pretty much blank on that one).
  
  and speaking of nautical terms ... it would be nice if you "Anchor"ed your name in the header title - so we see the name Technosailer in the tabs/top of page. It currently just says "[post title] - Technology, Blogging and New Media". It's nice when you have many windows opened in addition to tabs, and see them stacked up on your task bar - with a name for easy reference.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Ah forgot to do that. Thanks, Hart
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• 

  Eric Coleman

  2 years ago

  Aaron,
  
  wanted to say congrats... looks awsome :)
  
  There is however a weird "checkbox" appearing on the right side, in one of the adverts...
  
  Check it out: http://dropbox.aplosmedia.com/techno-checkbox.png
  
  Regards,
  Eric
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• 

  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Thanks Eric. That's part of the ad.
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• 

  Eric Coleman

  2 years ago

  Hahahaha...
  
  Funny, I couldn't figure out what it's purpose was, and I kept clicking it wondering when it was going to take me to some site :p
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Too bad the ads aren't pay per click. ;)
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Oh check that, Hart. I misunderstood your comment. Sorry, I do the titles that way for SEO.
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• 

  David Krug

  2 years ago

  Any chance I can take a look inside this plugin?
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Not a chance at all. :)
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• 

  Ingrid

  2 years ago

  Looove it. Great job, guys. :)
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• 

  Ajay

  2 years ago

  Firstly congrats on the new look.
  
  Nice to read your observations on why you went by this look. The idea of having a good sidebar has really got me thinking on getting to work on my blog sidebar to make it better targetted.
  
  Just one thing I would like to ask is why is your feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/technosailor/YXQk
  I mean the YXQk at the end? Is it because of the feedburner redirector plugin?
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Ajay: Thanks, yes and it is a Feedburner assigned Feed. :)
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  Jonic

  2 years ago

  I have no idea why Steve Smith made people do that... If you're already burning your feed you can just put the exising feedburner address into the plugin and it will work...
  
  I think the plugin assumes that whoever's using it doesn't know what feedburner is...
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• 

  Ajay

  2 years ago

  Your welcome. It's great to read how people design their sites and why they did it. Good learning process :)
  
  The Notify me of followup comments below doesn't have a checkbox to uncheck... or is it just me? I noticed the same on Firefox and IE.
  
  Would love it if you can provide me your comments on my blog...
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• 

  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Actually, it does have a checkbox. It's up in the adspace in the top right though. Something is nudging it over there but I'm not sure what and haven't had a chance to work on it. Thats the phantom checkbox that Eric referred to above that I thought was part of the ad.
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• 

  BillyG

  2 years ago

  Love the sailor idea, don't forget to validate...
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• 

  Geren

  2 years ago

  Aaron, I love the design, but mostly, I like the "conversation." I've been trying to figure out how to do the same thing, but just can't seem to make it fly. If there are any hints you'd care to share ..... Thanks!
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• 

  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Nice, Geren. Another MD blogger. :)
  
  I'll say it's all in massaging the Loop. Using the posts_* filters provided by WordPress (but undocumented, so you'll have to play with them) and a lot of patience. Even once you filter the query through filters, the Loop still likes to reorder the posts by ID so I had to to reorder the posts array when it was all done. It was ugly.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  I'd add that I am available for paid consulting/WordPress gigs for folks looking to accomplish similar feats. Email me at the contact address in the sidebar. :)
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  Peter Smith

  2 years ago

  Thats funny, I couldn’t figure out what was it’s purpose and I kept on clicking it wondering when it was going to take me to some othere site or page.
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• 

  Peter Smith

  2 years ago

  After reading your article I thought of giving a comment about beauty and to share it with other readers. Beauty is an inherent and innate aspect of one’s being which captivates the eyes of the outer world. In general sense, it is a positive reflection to one’s entire nature.
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  Brian Clark

  2 years ago

  I've played with it for a couple days, and I like it. Different than I would have envisioned, but good stuff usually is. :)
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  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  I like that "Because Akismet Cares.." graphic. Is that publicly available or unique to this blog? I know my PetLvr blog is up to almost 38000 now .. I think that's neat - but, couldn't find it on Akismet's pages.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  It's not publically available. I got the code from Andy Skelton. He had a widget he wrote for his blog and I twisted his arm to let me use it too. I'm hoping Automattic will include it in the Akismet plugin.
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• 

  Jonic

  2 years ago

  Just a quick not to say that in that last night I rewrote all of the CSS for this blog. All of it...
  
  Most of the issues that have been raised in this discussion have been corrected, and it's not looks exactly like it was supposed to.
  
  Leave a note here if you have a bug report/further suggestion :)
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  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  It's nice. Maybe by the time I upgrade that petlvr blog from v1.5.2 to a version that supports widgets it will be publicly available. // thanks.
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  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  Hi Jonic - while I'm here... the top is still a little weird when the window is NOT maximized (IEv7b3). The right box is all blue with no text, the RSS graphic is below it where the large ad box is ... and if you put the mouse over it the orange mouseover shows next to it .. and, the sidebar is moved to below the last entry on the page. I took pictures. 1 2.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Hart: Um, yeah. You need to upgrade. ;) 2.0.4 will be out in days. Recommend you upgrade then as there are significant security issues that are resolved in it that affects all previous versions of WP.
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  HART (1-800-HART)

  2 years ago

  I've been slowly upgrading all my sites. The ones with the most plugins takes the longest. PS.. can you edit the code for URL #2 on the 12:39 post for Jonic? Needs
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  Rick

  2 years ago

  This is a cool idea. But it is not immediately obvious from the name what the conversation view is. And, whatever view you're in, the little bit of explanatory text below the graphics stays stuck on explaining the standard view.
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Oops, thanks, Rick. Will get that description text working. Hadn't realized it wasn't working...
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  Aaron

  2 years ago

  Rick - Actually, the sticky text is working. What browser are you using?
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  Rick

  2 years ago

  Strange. I tried it in Safari and Firefox, both on Mac OS X 10.4 and got the same problem. But now I've tried it in Camino, Safari, and Firefox, and it works fine. I do think it would be nice to have pop-up text (or whatever you call it), where the explanation appears just by hovering rather than having to try it out before getting an explanation of what it is.
  
  Also, in the Conversation view, "receive" is misspelt!
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  Vinnie

  2 years ago

  I hate Trebuchet for long passages of text (just a personal thing I guess) but otherwise it looks awesome :)
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