Does This Work?
New layout...sort of. I mostly just changed the header and around one color. I'll probably do some tiny modifications later when I'm less tired.
Archive for the ‘Updates’ Category
Naturally
Of course, I log in to find over 100 spam comments pending "approval". All of them were on my beware not to infect your visitors post. Fitting, isn't it?
Anyway, I cleaned them up. I did see two genuine comments by actual humans and approved them, but I might have missed some. Sorry if that's the case. I just completed setting Akismet up, so spam should be less of a problem.
Did I Fix It?
I think I have fixed a tiny problem that remained with the layout (the gap between the main content and the sidebar was too large).
I have also fixed the tags page as it had two sidebars and its title was showing as Page Not Found.
And I fixed the Archives page, which now actually exists.
Updates On My Life
Quite a few things have changed in the past few months. I suppose it's those things that have made me regain interest in blogging.
First, I am far, far less interested in personal blogs than I used to be. I still read a few such blogs, like Jem's, but I'm not interested in starting to read new ones. This will surely reflect itself on the contents of this very blog. I will continue posting about my life, but it will not be the sole focus of this blog. As a side note, there will be no apologies from me for not blogging for x amount of time. I should hope none of you relies on my blog to continue a satisfying life. 
Second, I have moved in with my sister. I used to live with her a few years ago. Things were quite different back then and I feel much better about myself now. I also have the pleasure of living with my cat again. I can also move about whenever I want and there are no rules against drinking alcohol or respecting a curfew. Of course, I still apply my usual respect for others by not yelling around the flat while my not-quite-3-year-old niece is sleeping.
Third, the aforementioned sister is pregnant. It's been less than two months now.
Fourth, in much sadder news, my godmother has passed away. She had had cancer a few years ago. It was gone, but then she went to Brazil and, upon returning, she felt great pain in her back. Turns out her cancer was back. She passed away in January. Naturally, it greatly saddens me. She was a wonderful person and I enjoyed visiting her. I spent a week or so with her every summer for a few years. I wish I could call her sometimes. 
Fifth, I have been in a relationship for a bit over a year and a half now, since December 2009. He's a man named Mario. I met him while living in the house of crazies. We are not living together yet. I don't know if we ever will. We love each other, of course, but my own problems coupled with the fact that he is bipolar can cause occasional difficulties. We seldom argue, that's not the problem. It's his manic episodes that make any relationship difficult. I will probably speak more on the matter in a later post.
Sixth, I have spent a lot of time lately reading a lot of different blogs on lots of topics. Some are your regular thing-to-read-online like digg, others still are oriented towards science or social progress. I'll surely put up a list of blogs I enjoy eventually. Yes, that's two things I promised, but I really do have the intention of keeping up with this blog here. It's possible that there will be weeks during which I don't post at all, just like there could be multiple unrelated posts in a single day. It all depends on many factors.
It’s Alive!
At last, after so many years, I am in possession of my very own domain name and I am ready to show it to the world.
There are still things that would need fixing, mostly the way WordPress enlarges the gap between the content area and the sidebar for reasons I do not understand yet. There are other tiny things that bother me in the way WP displays things, but overall I am rather satisfied (which can be understood as "ah! This website is fugly! How can I show this to the world? I'll be ridiculed!").
Anyway, constructive criticism of ways to improve the site is welcome.
Well, Will You Look At That
Why, it appears to be a brand new domain and layout! Of course, I have run into a million tiny problems and the morning sun is about to get up, so I'll be off to bed and will be fixing things when I return. I have to
- Fix an ugly error which color tweaking has brought upon my header image
- The main page is showing up fine, but WordPress subpages are ugly and often lacking a proper layout
- My posts have successfully been imported, but apparently their association to categories and tags has been lost. I'll be adding them back to categories as soon as possible (after fixing the layout-related horrors), but tags will wait after even that, as I find them less important.
- Double underlining looks ugly. Having the post titles be underlined by being links is redundant considering they are alreay underlined by virtue of being second-level headers.
- Argh. I appear to have made in-post links point to julie.calmbanana.co.uk/bla-bla-bla, so links will take you to the old URLs.
- The Site Map is completely outdated...and I forgot to upload it anyway.
- 404 pages show a strange reaction with a double footer or something. Basically, viewing anything but the main index and links in the main navigation on the right will cause pain to your eyes. In fact, those links (about and whatnot) are the prettiest because they have no strange space between the main content area and the sidebar.
There's probably more I haven't noticed, but I'll be off to bed for now and will fix the main problems when I'm rested properly.
A Much Better Look
I hope you had a merry time for this year's winter (or summer) solstice and wish you a happy new Gregorian year.
As you might have noticed, I finally put up a new layout. It does retain elements from the previous one (noticeably the platypus on the header), but sees a major improvement in color scheme. There might very well still be quirks here and there, but overall it should work fine.
One problem I have is with the header. It worked fine when I didn't see the Delicious bookmarks while working offline, but not I think it looks too huge. Perhaps I'll scrap the bookmarks altogether and replace them with something else. Or maybe try with only 3 bookmarks?
Anyway. If I haven't blogged in a while, it's simply because there isn't much interesting to say. 
I have quit my job. I received RPG Maker VX, Dexter season 2 on DVD and a PlayStation 2 (!, used, from my brother) for Christmas. The later was really unexpected, but I was very happy.
It has been brought to my attention that the platypus on the header image looks a lot like the Pokémon Psyduck. I assure you this was completely unintentional. Psyduck is, well, a duck, but with hands and whatnot that make him look like a platypus. My brother-in-law, who created this cute platypus, has no interest in Pokémon and merely followed my instructions (a goofy looking platypus). It even has claws and a flat tail!
Just a Few More Changes
I've just made a few more changes to the layout, nothing big.
- No more background color on
<h2> - The navigation's background color is the same as the footer.
- The sidebar and the content have the same background color.
- I fixed some broken images due to my using relative URLs.
There are still fourthings which I know need to be worked on: the footer is ugly, the sidebar's background should stretch all the way to the bottom, the sidebar and content are a few pixels wider than the header (I still don't get that one) and, when you do a search through my posts, the content of the posts doesn't show up in the results. Plus, also when doing a search, the "Older Entries" and "Newer entries" links are showing on each side of the first post's title instead of being one line above.
Any suggestions are welcome. I might not implement them, but if it makes sense, I will gladly do it. You can also report broken links, naturally.
The New Puceronie
Here it is, all live and green and blue. It is not perfect. A few things mentioned in a previous post are still left to be fixed, and I'll surely be finding new mistakes and improvements soon. For the moment, though, I will only try finding something to do with the footer, to prettify it, and add to the content.
Visitor input is welcome, of course. Just try not to be too harsh, I'm already nervous enough as it is.
Poking Around
*pokes*
This seems to work fine. Sort of.
I really just finished uploading the theme and making sure it works. There are surely still a few things left to work on. Just now I found myself on an unfinished page, with the content all in text form at the bottom...But this is a good start!
I'm still not telling the world "Come and see", because I want to arrange a few things first. Like this header image, which I don't believe will ever please me (except the platypus part).
Things left to fix, excluding some content to add:
- Get new smilies
Finish styling the top navigationdone- Arrange the category list so it isn't so far off to the right
Arrange the search form so I don't get an error. It must be perfect!done, except the JS part- Do something to the footer
- Remove the "Welcome" message on sub-pages and
add it on the indexdone
