A Redesign for Life
There comes a time when any further tinkering with Movable Type templates and plug-ins, and upgrading MT because the plug-ins won’t work, and considering switching to WordPress but not having the time to figure it out, and trying to get the links blog to appear in the main blog, and testing out all of the various archives, and coming up with a way of having some entries display with a title and some without yet still giving those without an individual archive, and getting the whitespace around every possible permutation and combination of posts right, and trouble-shooting link styles in CSS, and tweaking the background image so that the snail is in just the right position for people to realise there’s a mouseover menu next to it, and wondering where to put the old “Aussie Blogs” link in the bottom menu without messing up the layout, then deciding it’s easier just to drop it because who follows blog-ring links these days anyway, and hoping the whole thing looks tolerable on IE for Windows, and getting sick to death of the whole thing before you’ve even started using it, all have to be put to one side and the big button that says “save” decisively pressed.
So, welcome to this year’s Speedysnail. How many times in the past couple of months have I wished that I hadn’t developed this habit of redesigning the whole site at the end of each year? (Six.) How sick did I get of seeing the latest hiatus page and the first? (Somewhat, and extremely.) Why didn’t I just use the first design I mocked up last November? (Because it looked like a Victorian sitting room, and the colour scheme is the same one Apple just ditched after realising that no-one wants to carry around an iPod mini that looks like it was whittled out of oak.) Was this the longest Speedysnail hiatus ever, or what? (Yes—ten days longer than the one from November 2001 to January 2002.) And what the hell have I been doing all that time, anyway? (Stay tuned. I’ve got to keep something in reserve to write about.)
12 March 2005
it looks just as fab on gareth's PC :) glad you're back on deck!!
Added by shauny on 12 March 2005.
That’s a relief. And welcome back (in the real life sense), you two!
Added by Rory on 12 March 2005.
Spring must really and truly be on the way. The snails have come back to...
**can't think of clever equivalent to Capistrano, leaves quasi-witticism unfinished**
Welcome back!
Added by BT on 14 March 2005.
Thanks, Bill. Glad that the emergence from hibernation hasn’t gone completely unnoticed!
Added by Rory on 14 March 2005.
But. Um. The emergence from hibernation wasn't accompanied by national news media hovering about with cameras, waiting to find out if you saw your shadow.
Or, for that matter, pings to blogrolling.com.
So some of us are a bit behind. Not that we're pressing for further tinkering, mind you. I'm just happy to know to check around here more often. And very happy you're back!
Added by KF on 23 March 2005.
Whoops! Thanks for the reminder, Kathleen—I turned it off during the testing phase and completely forgot to turn it back on. Now fixed.
Added by Rory on 23 March 2005.