We Have Drop Shadows!
Alright then! We've got drop shadows! The designer of this K2 skin put out a new version that includes drop shadows around the post area. The three skin images are still bugged though. Every single one is a JPEG and they're all way larger than they need to be. I slimmed them down from 65KB to 4.5KB (using Paint.NET and pngcrush), putting the front page of this site under 80KB, including HTML, images, CSS, and JavaScript.
Next up to bat, fixing the problem with the right edge of italic text being cut off if it hits the edge of the content column. If anyone knows how to fix that, let me know.
Back from Vacation
December 27, 2006 by Jason · 4 Comments
Well, my week-long vacation back to Illinois has ended. All in all, it was a pretty good time. We got rained on the first day or so but after that the weather started to look up (although some snow would have been nice). I got to get out of my normal routine and spend some time with relatives (specifically, my grandmother and two uncles) that I haven't seen in a few years.
While we were there, Dot (my girlfriend) and I spent two days in Chicago and managed to see the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum (including "Sue" the largest, most complete, and best preserved T-Rex found thus far), and the Adler Planetarium. We also took an evening look from the John Hancock Observatory and saw the Blue Man Group perform. We had tickets to the Museum of Science & Industry but ran out of time before we could use them (no problem though, we had the "City Pass" package and even with not using those tickets, we still came out ahead of buying everything separately). We capped off the second evening with a nice dinner at Cafe Spiaggia. While the portions were a bit small (for the prices), the food was excellent and I have NEVER had service as good as what I received while we were there. I would recommend it to anyone who is in the area. I guess that just goes to show that EVERYONE needs a Zagat Survey guide if they're in an area that they're not familiar with.
P.S. - Oh, and I changed the style of the site again. I found a new theme for K2 called "SkyBlack" and then tweaked it a bit to fit in 1024x768 instead of 800x600. I've still got to find a better header (because that "skyblue" text is annoying) but other than that, I'm pretty happy. Expect more updates soon.
The site’s new look
December 7, 2006 by Jason · Leave a Comment
So, I was flipping through MaximumPC while I was eating lunch and I saw that they had mentioned the K2 theme engine as a must-have. I decided to pick it up and install it. For now, it looks almost identical to the default theme I was using but I'll customize it a bit down the road. I'll say one thing for sure though, it does load faster than the default skin did and it is a lot easier to use.
Some notable improvements include the "type and wait" livesearch box (give it a try, just type something and then wait a couple seconds) and live comments with AJAX (no page refreshes).
My new blog
November 19, 2006 by Jason · 2 Comments
To be perfectly honest, I kind of looked down on blogs until this past week. There are two things about them that I simply didn't get.
First, why would anyone think that it was a good idea to put their personal thoughts up on the internet? I mean, what if you had a bad day at work, blasted your employer when you got home, and then ended up getting fired the next day because someone at work read your blog (or worse, it got indexed by Google and all anyone had to do was search for your name)? Sure, you might have gotten a load off your chest by letting it out, but how's that going to help when you're living in a box on the corner a week later because you don't have any income?
Second, why would anyone want to read what other people are thinking? I certainly don't care about what random people are thinking. In fact, most of the time, I don't particularly care about what the people I do know are thinking.
That all really changed this past week when I was on a business trip in Las Vegas for PubCon 2006. While there, I met a ton of interesting people, 99% of which run a blog to post news about their personal lives and their businesses. On top of that, every single person I talked to said that, as a whole, positive things had happened to them since they started their blog. In fact, it hadn't been for a blog, I wouldn't have ended up at a lounge with the guys from LinkWorth and had an outstanding time at what essentially stated out as a business meeting that I assumed would be a boring hour or two before we hit the casinos for more Blackjack and Craps.
In any case, I guess I'm a convert. Hopefully now I'll figure out what all the fuss is.