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Friday, July 23, 2010

Do Not Be Alarmed

All is well.

I decided it was time for some renovations around here.

I'll be fooling with the design and layout of Stonekettle Station for the next few days.  You may see some formatting weirdness.

You're welcome to express your opinion of the changes in the comments section, and like always I'll probably just ignore your pitiful little complaints...

... unless, of course, there's money involved

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Update 1: There are now quick link badges for Email, Blogger, Twitter, and Facebook on the bottom of each post - just in case you'd like to share my incredibly insightful and life-changing posts with your vast army of electronic friends and family via social networking media.

You can also rate each post.

And there may be more to come - I'm trying to add things gradually.  You know how it is, make too many changes and the next thing you know Mel Gibson is on the line calling you a filthy whore.

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Update 2: Yes, I know some of the pictures from older posts slop over into the link bar on the right.  Suck it up, Buttercup, I'm not going back through three years of posts and reformat - not even if Mel Gibson calls up and threatens to have me violated by a gang of unicorns or something.

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Update 3: Gak.  In low-resolution on a smaller monitor, the new color scheme is a lot like spending an evening in the bar trying to get Mel Gibson's car keys away from him while he hits on your wife and vomits on your shoes.   Since you cheap bastards can't be forced to upgrade your display systems to something approximating the shiny hi-tech Twenty Tens, I suppose I'll have to make some changes later this evening.

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Update 4: The Recent Comments gadget over there on the widget bar apparently doesn't display properly (or at all) in IE. A technical solution to this display problem can be found here.
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Update 5: I don’t like it. I keep fooling with this template, but I just don’t like it.  You may expect further design changes later this weekend.

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Update 6: Mel called. He didn't like it either - though he blamed the poor design on a certain religious minority and then called me a filthy lying whore.

I like the current snowy background design, black letters on white.
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Final Update for Now:
I think you're looking at Stonekettle Station's new template for at least the next couple of weeks.  I'll be out of town for a while, and I'm fairly satisfied with how things look and work at the moment. There may be some additional minor fiddling, depending how much access to bandwidth I have during the trip. We'll see.

46 comments:

  1. Liking the color scheme. The whole thing's promising. And you're right--the layout was very 2008. :)

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  2. I liked 2008. I've still got a closet full of bell-bottoms and tie-dye vests from 2008. Things seemed brighter back then, simpler somehow, in 2008, back before men walked on the moon and people lived in pods.

    Ahhh, to be back in 2008 again.

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  3. OMG! Recent comments in the sidebar!

    FINALLY!

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  4. I liked 2008, I still had a full time well paying job.

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  5. It's about time you changed your theme so that it no longer reflects the soul-sucking, gag-inducing year that was 2008.

    And I bet you'd fix the picture slop-over if there was money involved. Or blackmail.

    Or the right kind of chocolate.

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  6. I like it Jim, though I do miss the distinctly Alaskan charm from the header picture of old.

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  7. Well, it is shocking, but it does seem to load faster.

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  8. I like my pod. I've lined the inside with black-and-white photocopies of vintage Playboy pinups and the interior smells less like vinyl and extruded plastic ever since I jammed that pine-scented car air freshener into the crevice between the vinyl-covered cushion and seamless extruded-plastic side of the pod. I even like the number of my pod, #DDL1347, because it's easy to remember (it has the initials of one of my favorite pre-2008 writers and the number has a basic pattern to it). Also, there's a really cute bald girl in the pod above mine and I think our serial numbers might give me a chance of scoring with her if my recreational intercourse permit gets approved. (And she's a bureaucratic technician and I'm a technical bureaucrat, so we'll even have something to talk about if we need to kill part of the hour! Yeah, I know, I'm a sap for romance.)

    And I get all of this for only twenty of my labor units, which leaves me plenty of leftover units for propaganda films, bonus rations, extra doses of passivity chemical, and headwax!

    So don't knock the pods, dude.

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  9. You might want to go easy on the headwax, just sayin

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  10. 2008 was the BOMB compared to 2010. Can't we just move your theme straight into 2011?

    Stonekettle Station: purveyor of fine wood art and time travel.

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  11. The background color's a bit putrid. It's like it tried to get to OD Green, but stopped at Babyshit Brown. Guaranteed to drive the endorphins right out of your head.

    Um, I know it could just be my antiquated IE6 here at work, but having a Header that says "Recent Comments" might be better if it was followed by, you know, some comments that were made recently.

    At least you're Station-ary. Yeah, I know, that big Stone Kettle is kinda hard to relocate.

    If you need some renovation help, I know this guy. He's pretty good with floors, and plumbing and stuff. Well, maybe not. I think he charges travel, so that's probably out.

    OK, good luck with your new look.

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  12. Hmmmm, yes. The background color does have a serious putridity to it - when viewed on lower resolution monitors.

    Lower resolution in IE shows none of the texturing features and turns the color into a flat smooth baby puke color. Looking at here at work does not please me.

    Changes will be forthcoming.

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  13. Kind of industrial taupe with no texture on my work screen.

    And it took for-EVAH for the little survey thingy at the end of the post to load.

    WHAT??? It's a WORK machine. Not that the home machine is any better (tho a screen upgrade is coming soon to the home unit...), but we do have limits here. No, not all attorney's are rich and have all the new toys for their assistant's to play with.

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  14. Also, dude, your Facebook profile really looks like you're trying to compensate.

    It makes me giggle.

    Just thought you should know.

    pictum = a picture of... umm...nevermind

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  15. I assume that when I do manage to do something that meets with your approval you'll let me know. Right?

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  16. I will tell you that your updates had me doing the COL (Chuckle Out Loud). :)

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  17. Who gives a fuck what it looks like in IE? People use that shit aren't your friends anyway. They're people who are impressed by Bill Gates.

    Dr. Phil

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  18. Doc, did you click on the "technical solution" link?

    Friends don't let friends use IE

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  19. You can blame my work use of IE6 on GE. They can't be bothered to update their application to Modern standards. Sheesh.

    Even on the Netbook, very small screen, Ubuntu, Firefox, things look a lot better, and the Recent Comments widget works, too.

    Full speed ahead, there, Chief Warrant!

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  20. Who said that picture didn't mean with my approval?

    I LIKE giggling.

    peanon = abrev. I'm off to urinate

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  21. Yeah, I gathered that from the douchebag post.

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  22. We only mock you because we love you.

    Or is that because we love mocking you? I can never keep those straight.

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  23. Jim, I can still rag on IE devotees if I want to. (grin) I mean, come on -- Microsoft has never met a programming standard they couldn't screw up, including their OWN standards.

    9:45pm EDT: At home, the background is now blue. Still tinkering? (grin)

    Dr. Phil

    rhing: "rhing tones for your nose"?

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  24. Have at it, Doc.

    Yes, it's blue. Not sure if I'll keep it or not, but it'll be like this for a day or two because frankly I've had about as much internet as I care to for today.

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  25. Aieee! The blue assaults my eyes! Make it don't (at your leisure of course).

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  26. Blue? Well, I guess we know you're a boy. Also that you have little ascetic sense, at least online.

    How about something in a tie-dye background? I liked the 60's.

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  27. Robin's egg blue? I thought the bald eagles ate all the robins up in Alaska.

    Coincidentally, it's also the blue of the epaulettes of the KGB when they were in uniform. And you can see Russia from your backyard, Sarah told me. Hmmmmmm....

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  28. How about "Sarah-Palin-gagging-on-a-moose-nugget" blue? Homie D's is having a special this week.

    I feel for ya, Jim - I get to do stuff like this for never-happy other people at least two days a week.

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  29. I like the blue, though I personally would have gone a shade paler behind the text for greater contrast.

    Also, I like your new facebook profile pick, but I still think it's rather... you know... suggestive.

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  30. Suggestive of what, woodturning?

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  31. Jim...can we talk? Right now, you've got up that blue background with those sweet birdies flying around near the banner. This is doing things to my mental image of you...and not good things.

    Frankly, I'm used to thinking of you more like the therapist in this commercial, not the guy on the couch.

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  32. I don't mind the blueness but there are bizarre header/tagline issues, as you well know.

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  33. The pen in the header is bothering me. Did you throw it at the birds, or is it trying to escape?

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  34. The pen in header was an experiment. I don't like it either.

    It's entirely possible that I will simply reload the original SKS template when I get the chance - at the moment I'm pressed for time as I'll be out of town for the next two weeks.

    I'll fool with it tonight if I get a couple of minutes.

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  35. I think the template itself is fine. And I didn't have a problem with the previous color on any of the machines I used. The blue used now isn't quite to my taste, but I'm not going to knock it, either.


    The banner on the old SKS template tended to do funny things sizewize (on work machines it was always wider than the screen) and while it was functional it was also sort of... ordinary.

    I think you could fix things here just with tweaking the color scheme. Alternatively, maybe check out Blogger Buster or one of those template sites for some ideas, maybe? But I think you have a good foundation here already. FWIW.

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  36. This definitely works better on both high and low res monitors. Though oddly the white background is a dull gray here on my gov machine. Sigh

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  37. Testing the I hate you so much Button. Works?

    You're welcome.

    Dr. Phil

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  38. I'm not seeing it. maybe you should press it some more.

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  39. Here I'm helping...

    Home machine set to IE8 just 4 u -

    Recent comments section on main page come up faster, but totally screws up all the punctuation:
    That's, much like a bad .pdf conversion.

    You're a GOD button did not work even after multiple attempts to abuse it.

    You're (you are) welcome!!

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  40. Jeez, try to demonstrate a problem with the apostrophe and the damn Comments section translates it into what it should be.

    That's =
    T-h-a-t-&-#-3-9-;-s =
    That-ampersand-#sign-3-90semicolon-s

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  41. The display code, vice displaying the actual punctuation mark is a problem with the widget involved. Sooner or later I'll see about fixing it.

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  42. Well, it'll just look like we're cussin' each other in cartoon-ish style until you get a chance to fix the lil' wigit!

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  43. The 'recent comments' is showing comments from 2009. However, they're linked to the post about the important questions scientists should be asking, which is funny. Looks like a win to me!

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  44. Yes, that widget has worked right for some time now. I just removed it.

    When I get somewhere with actual bandwidth I'll look at adding a different recent comments widget back in.

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