newspaper and toilet roll
I’ve temporarily privatised the pages (guides, gaming, about and portfolio), I’m altering my right-hand menu as it felt rather messy – as a side effect the pages need to be checked/rewritten or recreated. I’ll aim to get them up as soon as possible!
On another note, my Serif Drawplus X3 order is now awaiting postage – so I can expect that within the week! I’ll post a review up as soon as I’ve become familiar with it.
I’m working on a brand new style for the site, something a lot more colourful than before. I have uploaded the current work in progress which can be viewed [here], this one has a number of benefits over previous styles – mainly:
This one is my little gem, it hasn’t needed a single fix in Internet Explorer (just yet); while it is primarily being made for the frontpage, I am playing with the idea of developing it further into a WordPress theme for this blog. Only when it is completely finished and finalised I should imagine.
The only issue developed is that my host provider has PHP short-tags enabled, and while I normally wouldn’t have an issue with this – it has caused a little trauma thanks to the XML tag at the start of the page being wrongly identified as a PHP opening tag.
The frontpage has gone through another update, this time a much less minimalistic style. More information can be accessed from the frontpage, including a direct link to the about section on the blog (which has also gone through another update).
Changes include:
Once again it has required a huge fix for Internet Explorer, thankfully an easy one. I swear, the only modern internet browser that doesn’t parse/render CSS properly still.
I have updated the frontpage to the website, which can be found -> here; hope you like the new style, it is simple to navigate – doesn’t burden the visitor with too much information – and doesn’t deviate a great deal from the site.
It is essentially a frontpage with some simple navigation; and although the individual sites might operate differently with menus, it shouldn’t be so daunting now.
For those interested, the main options (forum, blog and more) are 3 div tags with set width and height. Using CSS to help position each one, and the Stylesheet (CSS) changes the background from one to another when the mouse is hovered over it. All images are transparent Portable Network Graphics (PNG), seeing as they seem to provide the highest quality image.
I have also added a new category to the blog called “Site News” which is linked to from the footer of the main page. The forum will (or was) updated with some links to include this; including removing the old forum for site news – the blog is overall more convenient for this.
I’ve done a little bit of sprucing up, I’ve changed the skin to something with a bit more detail and a grungy feel. I’ve also included a custom header image, which gives you a preview of the next website’s skin… even though that in itself could be a long way off.
I have also made some changes to the blog title/description; favouring a lowercase “nerdodrome” and changing the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” to something more along the lines of “mattsprojects.co.uk”. Not huge, but it feels more comfortable now.
The RSS Feeds can be bookmarked/found at the bottom of the page, if you where curious.
Spamzorz
It got to the point where I was being spammed 3 times a day with complete gibberish; I’ve installed a plug-in to help illeviate this. If anyone wants a user account you can PM me on the forum and I will sort one out for you so you can post comments.
I’ve not had time to write to this blog recently, my interest in X3: Terran Conflict has reappeared thanks to a few cheat scripts; not a proud statement, but it gets me back into that game for the time being. Basically when I have spare time I have been revisiting the more neglected games within my collection – such as Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars… only today have I finally bothered to find out my mouse sensitivity settings; to turn a whole 360 degrees I need only move my mouse a centimetre.
And it doesn’t really stop at just gaming, I had a number of deadlines to try and meet with my HND Computing course reports; which thankfully have either become more relaxed than originally estimated or better yet met on time and complete.
It has got to the extent where I actually missed two newsletter’s for UiE; one was started but never finished, the second completely forgotten – to compensate a large bumper newsletter was released explaining some events past, present and hopefully a few future ones too.
I’ve also updated the blog to the most recent version… while you readers will notice no difference; a plethora of changes have been made to the whole posting and administration system – I must say that I am impressed. The forum has also had some updates, from as far back as v3.0.1 to the newest v3.0.4; this should have been done much earlier really. No major changes apart from some bug fixes, although I have changed the skin to something a little more navigable – the previous one was baffling my brain with its seamless layout.
If I don’t post before Christmas/New Years, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!