Yesterday was an epic day for packages. We got Christmas presents from two different family members as well as a box from Amazon for Mark (that is apparently for me for Christmas). Jaryth was beside himself opening the boxes and putting packages under the tree. But the best box, from my perspective, was the heavy box from Pearson. My book has come out! It has been a long time in the making of this book.

[caption id=“attachment_771” align=“alignleft” width=“150”] This site displayed in a minimalist theme - very different from my last theme - and probably from my next theme. Click to view larger.[/caption] I’ve been trying out a bunch of new themes and frameworks lately, in an effort to determine what would be easiest for both me and my clients to use. In fact, this site is demonstrating that right now. Although I suspect as soon as I get some free time, I’m going to be changing it, probably drastically.

I’ve had this theme for around two years now. And I’ve been working on a new WP theme for a client and it’s gotten me all interested in building themes again. And then I mentioned this to Mark and he said he wants me to build a custom theme for his new site Tech for Anyone. If I were smart I would go about this redesign like I tell all my readers on About.

I grew up knowing I had my heart on my sleeve. Every emotion I feel seems to start on my face, move to my mouth and then register in my brain. So when I find myself thinking “they should just calm down” about someone (other than myself, of course) the irony isn’t lost on me. For the fourth year in a row, I am participating in the About.com Readers’ Choice Awards.

I’m starting to wonder if other web design sites DELETE the anachronistic and ultra-conservative design comments. It seems like whenever I write a post talking about a more modern style design, I ONLY get comments talking about how horrible it is because it’s new and different. Of course, they don’t say that’s the reason, but that’s what it really comes down to. Makes me depressed, as I really like looking at the new stuff, but when the only feedback I get is “eww, that sucks, the scroll bar makes the car move, it doesn’t scroll down the page” it’s hard to stay motivated.

This is a “podcast” or audio recording where I’m trying out doing an audio recording of my thoughts. What I notice is that when I was staring at the computer it was very hard to talk, as I kept getting distracted by the machine. Some things I talk about: idea for an article on Webmaster tools and Google analytics working on editor reviews and my plan to create a video of my favorite web editors thoughts about a new(-ish) category of web editor—the WYSIWYG editor so people don’t need to know HTML at all should I create a separate evaluation of these editors?

So, Thursday or Friday I got a note from my mail carrier saying that I had a box waiting for me from Amazon.com. Since I have received all of my Amazon orders I was not really sure what it could be. Since it was addressed (on the note) to J. Kyrnin, I was thinking it might actually be a present for Jaryth because his birthday is coming up. So I head to the post office this morning, and after waiting in the long line (of course!

I got an email today asking if there were an easier way to take my online class because when she clicked on a link that she thought was the next step, she was taken somewhere else. I really don’t know what to tell these people. It isn’t that hard, people! Of course, it IS that hard if you need someone holding your hand the entire way. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that, step 3 go here, step 4 go there, poof, you’re a web designer!

So, my design is scheduled to be presented tomorrow, and I’ve already got a new design in mind. Holy, cow, Jenn! Why not stick with a design for, oh, say a week to try it out? Or at least until you’ve finished your presentation. But the “shiny!” Step away from the shiny, Jenn. You’re feverish, just walk away from Dreamweaver for right now.

So, you said that it was very square, so I rounded some of the corners, just for you. Of course, if you were viewing this in IE, you’d still see the square corners because I didn’t do it with images but with CSS (faster to download). Luckily, I know you’re not viewing it in IE. And this method works for Firefox 1+, Safari 3+, Opera 10.5+, Chrome 1+, and browsers that use Gecko or Webkit.

I’ve got my new template up and running. I’m sure I’ll continue to find things I need to tweak and fix on it, but for now I’m pleased with it. This is my first foray into my own images for a design. Or I should say, it’s the first time I’ve ever used a painting or drawing I did. I really like how it turned out. If you’re curious to know more about why I built this template, check out the About this Site link in the navigation above.