Thursday, March 11, 2010

Spring Cleaning

I did something I haven't done in a few years: changed my blog layout. Take a quick look if you've been reading by RSS feed.

It's not like I fell out of bed and suddenly had mad web design skills. Nope. Actually, Blogger/BlogSpot finally unleashed their new template designer. It's easy to use, and thankfully, it doesn't overwhelm with a million features. What it does add, though, is very useful.

You can finally pick how many columns you want independent of other layout choices. You can also easily change the widths of columns. This is what my old layout desperately needed. I was constantly resizing videos so they wouldn't break my columns. I guess I can finally say goodbye to my old friend Aspect Ratio Calculator.

I picked a very simple layout. I like simple. I stuck with the same color scheme. My profile icon matches nicely.

You can now pick a background image from iStockphoto. I tried a cool orange bubbly image, and it looked lovely in preview, but when I saved the changes and tested my blog, the scroll lag was awful! The text scrolled while my gadgets and videos lagged behind on the screen. Ick. Well I got rid of that real quick. I went back to the default solid background. I doubt the problem is Blogger's fault. It's more of a web browser limitation. Background images probably work fine on a blog that doesn't have as many embedded videos as The Dorkmonger.

Anyway, I assume most of my readers follow by RSS, but I hope the new design gives a better first impression.

7 comments:

HolyJuan said...

Looks good! I might have to take holyjuan for a spin.

By the way, your Blackwater dating service comment was hilarious.

Trung said...

i really like the new layout. it's simple and clean. does google let you add other pages such as "about" or "contact?"

Kristen said...

Thanks HolyJuan!

Trung, the "View my complete profile" link is my about page, and it's the standard page for all Blogger accounts. If I wanted other information pages like a disclaimer page for example, I could write them as individual blog posts and link to them in the right column.

HolyJuan said...

Easy disclosure policy creation: http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

patrick said...

I Really Use this blogger. if you need come and see this template web application

Kristen said...

HolyJuan, thanks for that link. I had seen that once before, and I should probably use it to generate a policy for this blog. By the way, I like the new spiffy layout and color of your blog!

Patrick, that looks a little bit spammy,but I guess the color scheme is nice.

fabutastic said...

The new layout looks great! But I suspect patrick up there is a spambot.