Keith Lord - Online Portfolio

So I have been thinking of upgrading the old DJC forums. The problem is going from v1.3.1 to v2+, means you need to completely rewrite the skin.

Seems they are relying on CSS sheets more in the newer versions which is nice, made skinning a lot easier. Still not brilliant though and trying to remember what effects what on a forum that has so many pages causes headaches. I did have to dive into the root HTML files and add some new elements in order to get what I wanted.

So the new forum skin looks ok, I might write a better skin later but its no longer at the top of my “to do” list. Seems more integrated with the new site build too which is nice, there are some elements that kind of break out of their boxes (basically when one is setting up a new registration).

My main concern is the upgrade messing up the SQL database, but I have plenty of time to figure that out. The forums won’t go up until the new build is released, and until I fix this issue with the “News” section thats not going to be up any time soon.

Really optimistic about the new site, content is better sorted, easier to find for new players and old players plus a lot of new info to be added.

Sirrus is apparently cider….did Atrus’ sons really exist or the product of his imagination during a booze filled bender?

Found this site on Digg,

Rather clever concepts I think, nice execution of design too, wish I had thought of it.

website: dialog05

Now I admit I approached IE7 with a biased view on it. I like many others feel that Internet Explorer is a poor browser, and the constant jumping through hoops I need to do to get my sites displaying in IE properly has annoyed me so much that I don’t ever see myself seriously using another IE product for the rest of my days.

After reading this article I am a little paranoid when it comes to Microsoft’s installation set up, I know that some programs and applications like to force you into agreeing with a policy you hate just to see the software work.

As a result I was looking at this more from a web site designer than using it for every day browsing.

Anyway I installed it, rebooted, and opened the program. It crashed right off the bat, I was impressed, and by impressed I mean bemused.

I am most aware that it is beta and there are going to be some issues. I think it crashed pretty much every time I used it, I gave it 3 or 4 tries before uninstalling it on the last try.

First thing I checked when I opened the browser was my websites, I wanted to see if they worked in IE7 (given that my sites, aside from the current DJC build, are all valid XHTML and CSS, I don’t see why it shouldn’t) which they did.

As for the User Interface, I wasn’t impressed. I find that they tend to go for the looks over the usability which is a sign of a bad design in my opinion.
Even in the image above you can see one of the issues I kept having regarding the URL bar.

One item I did like is the apparent ability for new tabs to have a different homepage set up, something I think FireFox could use.

This isn’t a huge in depth look at IE as the consent crashing kind of stopped me from taking a good look, it is more a brief look or an initial thought of the browser.

Just found out Lamb have split up, this saddens me greatly as they are one of my favorite groups.
Apparently Lou Rhodes has a solo album out so I shall have to pick that up she has such a wonderful voice. Oddly enough the cover to Beloved One looks very similar to the cover for Between Darkness and Wonder.

So you want to bring your website out of the stone age and into the future? Web 2.0 can help you here. We here at TweekCorp enjoy shiny new things and are always looking to the future (one way or another). This quick guide put together by our web team is here to help.

Colour Scheme

First think you need to know about web 2.0 is less is more so more is cool so you will be wanting 4 colours here;

For our example we shall be using the D’ni Jazz Club site as an example.

Before we forget you will also need to use gradients, because no site is complete without them.

Tag

Web 2.0 optimizes content using tags to make it easier for people to share information and post cool articles on their blogs, so remember to tag everything you write.

Now that you have tagged all your content you need a web 2.0 tags navigation section like so;

Images

Web 2.0 loves minimal design so big images are often a no-no, instead we use small images and not to forget that ones site would be nothing with out the magical web 2.0 star graphic.

Feeds

No self respecting web 2.0 site would be seen without an RSS feed, how would your visitors syndicate your content on their blogs?

bake for 2.0 minutes

So now it is time to combine all the elements and there we go, you are now web 2.0 make sure you validate your XHTML and CSS.

congratulations welcome to the future of the web remember for those who don’t believe us? just take a look at our web 2.0 dnijazzclub.com site below.

click to see full version