If you are reading this then you will have noticed that the new site has been launched, unless this is your first visit, in which case welcome!
Although the site is complete I will be monitoring it and continuing to look at ways to improve it, so please let me have your views and thoughts, either now or anytime in the future. In this post I just want to express my appreciation for the help received from a few people, and give you a run through of the site:
Thank You
Tom Hancocks – I have worked before with Tom (he developed CastCount for me) so I was delighted when he agreed to help me develop this site, especially as this was the first job of this kind he has done. He is a real joy to work with, and I will be doing more with him in the future, so watch this space as we will be making certain elements of this sites code available, along with some other things we are working on together.
Darren Rolfe – I was keen to retain the MyAppleStuff logo and colour scheme, and I think Darren has done a great job with the revised logo and his advice on the fonts, logo etc.
Glenn Wolsey – I need to thank Glenn for his ‘acceptance’ that my theme is in parts a ‘homage’ to his excellent site, although as he himself will agree, it isn’t a direct copy. If you look at the picture of my old site you will see how similar to my old structure this site is. Glenn was also very helpful in the decision making process of a) developing my own theme and b) making the transition to my own domain name.
Paul Stamatiou – I am appreciative of the information that Paul gave me regarding certain plugins that I was looking for, in particular the twitter plugin at the top of the page. Paul has just ‘tweaked’ his own logo and site and it looks very cool.
About the Site
First off, I will be maintaining the coverage of Mac and Mac related products and applications, but I will also be adding more content about the personal and professional aspects of my life.
I am particularly pleased with the way the Vaults section has turned up. Personally I think this is an overlooked aspect of many blogs and I really wanted to make it easier for newcomers to the site to browse through the archives, and for regular readers to find items that they wanted to revisit. On the subject of regular readers I wanted to recognise the frequent participants, and to make life easier for people to participate. First time shouters (my attempt to get away from the ubiquitous “comment”) will receive an acknowledgment email and regular commenters will benefit from the plugin that turns off nofollow for all commenters who have made at least 10 comments.
I am only going with sponsors rather than any adverts, links to other sites etc, so the WWW page has some recommended sites that I regularly spend time on. The RSS page has a list of all my RSS subscriptions for my various online activities. On the subject or RSS feeds, all the old ones should still work, but please take time to check them out and if you haven’t already added me please do.
The Forum has gone. It was a useful experiment, but it isn’t really my thing, and I would rather focus on responding to your shouts and emails.
The Hire page is self explanatory – take a look and if I can help you I would be delighted to talk to you.
So that is about it. All the old content is still on the site. Some of the pictures didn’t make it, and some don’t really work with the new layout, but that is something I will work on going forward. In due course I will post on some of the specifics relating to the process of sorting out the new site, but in the meantime you will no doubt have got the message, and I need to get going on a number of excellent reviews that have been stacking up over the last couple of weeks.
But ………… I couldn’t close without saying a very fond farewell to the old site:
The Old Site
As you can see the old site had evolved towards a very similar layout to this new site. After all there are only so many things you can do with a three column layout, and most blogs present the same or very similar information in their sidebars.
Looks nice – maybe we will get to see more of you now 🙂
i love the new site!!!
The layout of V3.0 is so much easier on the eyes. Fantastic Job Chris and all.
[quote comment=”6212″]The layout of V3.0 is so much easier on the eyes. Fantastic Job Chris and all.[/quote]
Thanks – appreciate that, ditto @ Andie 🙂
Fantastic job Chris – love it 😀
D
[quote comment=”6215″]Fantastic job Chris – love it 😀
D[/quote]
Thanks – I did take into account yout comment re twitter colour, but I like the red 🙂
[quote post=”680″]I have worked before with Tom (he developed CastCount for me) so I was delighted when he agreed to help me develop this site, especially as this was the first job of this kind he has done. He is a real joy to work with, and I will be doing more with him in the future, so watch this space as we will be making certain elements of this sites code available, along with some other things we are working on together.[/quote]
Heh, likewise! Thanks for giving me such a great project to do. Oh and on a side note, that home page link is fixed 🙂
I think the navigation links at the top would look so much nice in the same font as the chris marshall logo.
Everyone uses Ariel/Helvetica. I think it will make the top header bar so much sweeter.
I know I have mentioned it before. At least try it?
[quote comment=”6234″]I think the navigation links at the top would look so much nice in the same font as the chris marshall logo.
Everyone uses Ariel/Helvetica. I think it will make the top header bar so much sweeter.
I know I have mentioned it before. At least try it?[/quote]
Will do – will give it a whirl over on the Sandbox later on (zeroes three font). I also got this suggested as well:
Typography — namely line-height and font-size.
I think they’re both too small but if you had to increase one, I’d definitely bump the line-height up.
I whacked * {line-height:1.7em;} in at the beginning and it looks a lot better… A lot more readable on my screen, at any rate.
Anywhere from 1.5em – 1.8em is good.
And font-size:small; looks better (IMO) but it breaks your sidebars… I’d suggest going up to small on the main content.
And ………
i would indent the text of you posts to line up with the vertical separator of the date, it would make it look a lot cleaner.
Congratulations on reaching Version 3.0 Chris. I’ve been a reader for around 4 months now and have enjoyed almost every entry you have posted during this short period. I love the look of this new theme, and can’t wait for you to release the code to your “Vaults” page 😉
[quote comment=”6249″]Congratulations on reaching Version 3.0 Chris. I’ve been a reader for around 4 months now and have enjoyed almost every entry you have posted during this short period. I love the look of this new theme, and can’t wait for you to release the code to your “Vaults” page ;-)[/quote]
“Almost Every” – damn, must try harder!!
Thanks, and I appreciate your help!
And the Vaults code will be available soon.
I’m just browsing the site from in the University Information Commons (Can’t seem to access the net in my flat… ugh) and anyway, I noticed that there seems to be a slight bug on the Month part of the Vaults. Just so you know, I will try and get this fixed tomorrow when I get home, or as soon as the internet comes back online in my flat… which ever comes first.
Glenn. Currently working on getting the Vaults ready for public use, and trust me, you’ll like it :). Going to try and have it ready within the week.
[quote comment=”6285″]I’m just browsing the site from in the University Information Commons (Can’t seem to access the net in my flat… ugh) and anyway, I noticed that there seems to be a slight bug on the Month part of the Vaults. Just so you know, I will try and get this fixed tomorrow when I get home, or as soon as the internet comes back online in my flat… which ever comes first.
Glenn. Currently working on getting the Vaults ready for public use, and trust me, you’ll like it :). Going to try and have it ready within the week.[/quote]
Thanks – there is also something weird going on with the shouts in the Vaults as well, saying there are a lot more than there actually are.
Hi Chris.
[quote post=”680″]On the subject or RSS feeds, all the old ones should still work[/quote]
For your information, they don’t. Once in a blue moon, I glance at the error window in my feed browser. Today was one of those days and I noticed your site listed. I have now updated my feed reference, but there may still be many others out there who have not yet discovered the change…
In case it helps, the specific error message was:
2007-06-10 18:07:54 +0100: Parse error for MyAppleStuff: The XML parser could not parse the RSS data because it is not an RSS feed. URL: http://myapplestuff.com/feed/atom/Another observation: I prefer to submit (and occasionally read) Comments – not Shouts… Shouting doesn’t seem very grown up or professional. AND IF I WANTED TO SHOUT, I’D DO THIS!
Apart from that, the new design is looking pretty good. 🙂
Gary
Thanks – to be honest I was referring to the feeds that are set up to go through Feedburner. When I first set up the site I didn’t use Feedburner so had no real way of knowing how many subscribers I had. That makes you a long time reader so thanks!!! I will look into it now though.
I can se your point re ‘shouts’ but I wanted to find something less ‘mundane’ than Comments. Shout is a short cut of “Your Shout” or “Shout Out”. I considered ‘thoughts’ as Glenn does, or maybe I should use ‘whisper’ 🙂 You see I can’t say that I want to be grown up or professional on the blog to that extent. I just want to be a little different. I will see what other word appeals – any suggestions?
Cheers
Chris, I love the new site. Very classy look. Good job!
I really appreciate that Rodney, thanks
Chris,
I have stopped by for a while now and this the best layout so far – very nice.
Thanks Ross
I have made a few changes. I have left the font the ‘original’ size as overall I preferred it to a slightly larger font, but I have increased the line depth so there is more white space and I think it makes it easier to read?
I have made the post heading slightly bigger and changed the link font to red rather than a darker gray.
I still need to work on the page font on the navigational bar as these are going to need to be done in photoshop. Hopefully will get that done in the next day or so.
I look forward to hearing you and Tim on TheMacReviewCast!
By the way, I really like what you’ve done with your own website! Very well done, indeed. You tastefully integrate many parts of what’s going on in your interests, profession, and regular life.
Very cool!