Marktopia

Once again, Marktopia has a new design with some changes to the way some stuff was done with the organization of the site as well.  The first thing I want to do is give credit to PSHero.com for their Interstate Road Sign tutorial in Photoshop.  The wonderful detail it gave set the theme for the new design and allowed me to add more texture to the site.

The next thing you will notice is that the Categories are back.  When Wordpress introduced the tagging feature, I jumped all over it and abandoned the categories.  It allowed me to do the tag cloud I had on the previous design and made me feel all Web 2.0.  When working on this new design though, I realized without categories, I had lost some focus for what I blog about.  I decided to look at my content a little harder and found everything could fit into 5 neat buckets, Music, Personal, Pick of the Week, Reviews and Web Technology.  I went through the lengthy task of adding a category to each post so now if you only want to follow one type of post on my site, you can use the RSS feed for that category.

This is also a nice lesson for other bloggers, use categories and tags together on your site.  Combining few categories with many different tags gives you a well rounded organization for your site and can also help you better define what you want your site to be.  I would love to hear opinions of the site, so feel free to comment below.

As I mentioned in my 500th post, I am working on a new design.  Before going too far though, I wanted to get some thoughts from the people that read the site.  Right now I have a single post at a time on the site with links to the last 5 further down.  Do people prefer having more posts on the front of the site, is one good or do you read the site through RSS so it doesn’t matter?  What about colors?  I have a fondness for more natural blues, browns, greens, etc but would a cleaner (read: less color) design work better?  Also, because the single post is at the top of the page, do the things like tags and other content get lost or forgotten for you?  I am looking for constructive critism so feel free to post any and all suggestions.  I realize this is my site, but I also want it to work for you, the reader.

We have a milestone, this is the 500th post for My Tungsten Marktopia.  I have spent the last couple of days trying to think of something meaningful or clever to write for it.  I realized that those things didn’t happen for about 75% of the previous 499 posts, so why start now.

I will reflect that this blog has gone through many changes technology and design-wise.  It started as a Blogger site, then to Movable Type and finally to Wordpress.  Blogger lasted about 6 months, Movable Type about 6 as well, and Wordpress has been going strong for about 4 years now.  There was an experiment with Drupal for about 3 months in there, however it was not able to import from Wordpress and I could not export from it either, so those have been washed from memory.

I don’t have an exact list of the number of designs the site has gone through, but I would estimate around 30 or so.  I like making designs and with some books I have read recently, a new one is in the works again.  Every time I make a design, about 3/4 of the way through I start to get new ideas that I cannot implement, but I will say it again, I hope the new design will stick around for awhile.

So almost 5 years after I started, we are at 500.  I hope it doesn’t take another 5 to get to 1000, but who knows.  For all of you that read this, thanks for your support!

For those of you in RSS readers, I ask that you take a look at Marktopia in a browser as there is a new design that I am planning on sticking with for awhile. I will change the photo at the top occasionally, but the overall design will be sticking around. The other big news is that all of my old blog posts, dating back to the MyTungsten days. They are all tagged and searchable on the site so have at it.

As you may have noticed, there is a new look to Marktopia once again.¬? I figured a nice new clean look before the wedding would be nice, and it is something to distract from the wedding planning as things are starting to pick up some.¬? It also means that with a new design, after the wedding I can start working on the comics database.¬? I have been scouting for a good database example for Rails and most have small bits and pieces.¬? What I am really looking for is a good example of a has_many_and_belongs_to and how to use it for the admin view.

In addition to the new Marktopia look, there is a new site just in time for the wedding called markandrebekah.net.¬? Since we got a free domain with our new host, we decided a combo domain where we will be able to host our pictures would be good.¬? Rebekah did the design for markandrebekah.net so kudos to her.¬? She is also going to be styling the photo program we will use on the site.¬? I am looking at Gallery2, especially since the nightly builds are including a tagging/keyword feature.¬? If anyone is aware of a php photo album that does tagging, feel free to comment about it so we can check it out.

As you may have noticed, Marktopia has a new look once again.? The colors stayed similiar, some stuff shifted around and I can now take advantage of the Wordpress Widgets engine to add things to the site.? This is pretty exciting as it will not take much work at all to change things on the sidebar.? The one thing missing on the sidebar right now is the Now Reading stuff.? This is because I found out there is a new version that does lots of cool new stuff, including making a dynamic page displaying lots more information, including reviews.? I am going to need to take a look at this in more detail before putting it up on the site to make sure it works with the overall theme of the site.? That will be coming soon, as will a new comics section that I have been wanting to work on for awhile now.

So I keep reading about writing blogs that you should write about things you know and/or like. I am going to try to start following that mantra by keeping to a few topics on the blog and trying to update more frequently. Here will be the key topics:

• Web Development - I am not a pro at this, but it is something I enjoy and feel I can write about
• Comics - I have been collecting for almost a year now and know my stuff about the Marvel Universe, so I feel it is time to start writing about it
• Music and Movies - These will be less frequent, but I occasonally feel like ranting about a new movie or something
• Life Events - Things like tornados and weddings fall under this category

I am also getting closer to the new Marktopia theme, it is coming along nicely so I am hoping sometime soon for a unveiling.

Since getting my new computer, I have been using Safari as my web browser. It isn’t really bloated and some of the bookmark stuff is nice with it, so I decided to stick with it. I remember reading that many newer sites have issues in Safari, but kinda ignored that at first. Now I have run into about 3 or 4 sites that just don’t work in Safari, including the rich text editor for Wordpress.

The question is, do I keep with Safari and be one of those people that rants and raves about how all these sites are ignoring the Mac user, or do I try out Camino or Firefox and know that things will work then? Right now I am leaning towards Camino since it is a Universal binary and will likely run better than Firefox on my laptop, but I am open to other thoughts.

I havn’t posted in awhile, so I figured I should put something up here to make sure people don’t think I have abandoned the site.? First off, I am still working on the new site layout, however not as much as I would like to.? This is mainly because I am either lazy or have other things to do after work.? I do have the testbed setup with the widget engine installed.? The widgets are actually rather slick and will make it much easier to make the sidebar changes I occasionally like to do.? Speaking of sidebar changes, I have updated the link to Rebekah’s site and added her new RSS feed in as well.? I also got rid of two of the things on the side, the movie reviews section and the comics section.? I have decided to stop doing the movie reviews.? We have gone through lots of movies since the last review and I don’t want to go back and do more, so instead, they are done for now.? The comics section also isn’t getting updated, mainly because I don’t want to put more effort into the currect comics section when I am working on a new one.? Lastly, I finished Speaker for the Dead and it reminded me how good of a book it is.? I actually think that it is better than Ender’s Game.? I am taking a quick break from starting Xenocide to read the classic comic Watchmen.? Wolcott loaned it to me awhile back so I should get started so I can return it soon.

Lots of stuff has been going on in my life, some good, some bad.  First off the bad, I am sick.  Not just kinda sick, more like go to the ER and get 3 liters of fluids sick.  Also bad is that Rebekah has this same sick.  Today we are both feeling better, but we still need to eat something before really turning the corner.  I am hoping that I can make the Tech Forum tomorrow, but I also don’t want to push myself hard with very little food in my system.

On the good news side, for my birthday I bought myself a Nintendo DS.  I am pretty impressed with it so far, the two screens are used pretty neat and the games I got are all lots of fun.  They are Mario Kart, Metroid Prime Hunters and Advance Wars.  I am playing Advance Wars the most right now, it reminds me of a more advanced version of Rampart with some Civ and Command & Conquer thrown in.

I mentioned last time that I would post more on my tornado experience, I just havn’t gotten around to it.  It is going to be lengthy and with everything else going on (a trip to Chicago to see my parents and the illness) I havn’t had a chance to, but it is coming.  I also have some more pics on my camera that I will post soon.

Finally, I have gotten a bit of the web design kick again.  I like the Marktopia design, but reading up on some web design tips, I realize it could be improved.  I am using Inkscape to design the site first, then work on building the CSS around it.  This is the first real attempt at designing something, then putting the CSS around it, so we will see how it goes.