Raph's Website » Year-end roundup

Year-end roundup

December 31st, 2007 (Visited 4126 times) Tags:

It’s the end of the year as we know it, and I feel fine.

Well, no, not really. I still have the remnants of a chest cold. I am cancelling plans to head up to LA for a New Year’s Party that is always one of the highlights of the season. Ah well.

With the last blog entry or two, the blog quietly crested 500,000 words in the blog alone. The vast majority of it was about virtual worlds and massively multiplayer games, with a substrain about game grammar and game design. I slacked off hugely on book reviews (my desk is covered in books I was planning to post about — like, 40 of them). I almost might as not bother with the Watching category.

The blog is due for a redesign… it happens every couple of years. Ideas?

I do hate to say it, but I think I need to make ads a tad more prominent, so they cover the cost of the blog better.

Here’s a CD worth of music, I think. I posted a lot more of this in 2007 than previously. What’s more, more of it was new, as opposed to “from the archives.” Let me know your favorite piece of music, I am curious. And if you like this stuff, don’t forget there’s a CD I sell. Only one of the tunes below is on it.

Longitude:
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This Don’t Groove:
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The March of the Elephants:
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Pick ‘Em All Up:
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Share Some Secrets:
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Son de Don Con:
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The Knyghte’s Daliaunce:
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Variations on Longitude:
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She Walked:
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Carry The Message:
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Up Near Witch Creek:
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October:
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November:
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Market (orchestrated):
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Market (piano):
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I was obstinate about posting Sunday Poems, when I didn’t post music. Despite the echoing silence when I did so. I tried to dig into my archives a lot less this year, and write new stuff. For the most part, I liked it. Plus “Ode to Code” got published.

And your favorite poem? If I had to pick the worst one, it’s “BASIC.” I kind of liked writing narrative ones, and ones based on challenges from commenters.

I’d ask what your favorite post was, too, but I have too many to link to.

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Delzo said on January 1st, 2008 at 7:32 am:

Why not do like Slashdot did when they wanted to update the look of their site?

Come up with some guidelines as to what you are looking for and then turn it over to your readership to submit their theme designs. After all is said and done, you can pick the one you like and either just praise the winner publicly or provide a tangible prize.

Eldric said on January 1st, 2008 at 11:50 pm:

Joomla provides a pretty awsome back end. Depends on what is compatible with your current database though.

I’d be up for a go a graphical design if it was a public comp.

Raph said on January 2nd, 2008 at 8:22 am:

I use WordPress right now, and am not interested in moving over to Joomla — seems like overkill for a site like this.

I took a whack at a graphical redesign yesterday… part of it is that I am lazy. I don’t want to change everything too drastically…

Relmstein said on January 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm:

Make it so that its easier to read in a partly minimized window. You know like if someone was browsing at work.

Tychus said on January 2nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm:

When I browse from work with IE6, I often see display problems here. Right now, the blogroll category titles in the right column are wider than the column. Often, the gray background in the left column overlaps the left inch or so of text in the center column, which makes reading entries difficult. I don’t know if this is a problem with frame scaling or scripts or what – and I don’t have the freedom to update or replace his browser – but if you could fix those issues I’d appreciate it.

Eldric said on January 2nd, 2008 at 3:06 pm:

Fair enough… Do you use a wordpress theme for the whole of your site or just the blog aspect?

Raph said on January 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm:

Half the site isn’t in WP, because it predates WP, and migrating all the URLs would break thousands of links on the Net. And there’s literally hundreds of pages we would need redirects for.

Basically, there’s the blog (500k words) and there’s “the rest of the site” which is currently accessed from the menu bar at the top. But we use the same layout for it all.

eldric said on January 2nd, 2008 at 10:58 pm:

Ok, so you need a template that fits word press, also migrated to your static pages… and some fancy css to cover all your HTML tags.

Got any colours and themes in mind? Perhaps even sites you like the look of?

Raph said on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm:

Umm, this is a fair amount of work. You sure you want to?

I can throw up a pic of the current layout and how it works to have a resizable middle. Most 3 col setups for WP don’t do that.

eldric said on January 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm:

Well if you don’t mind a part time approach to it. The layout seems fairly simple… In the most it will mean a couple of new buttons and a header. The CSS is simple enough and I have already had a look at that.

Not that I want to stand on anyones toes mind you… so if you still wanna through it open… I don’t mind adding my input.

But your site so your vibes… any concepts, colours or ideas that appeal to you?

Eldric said on January 3rd, 2008 at 4:13 am:

Been working on a few ideas… will bounce them your way by Monday.

Year-end roundup

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