★ A Fresh New Look: Coming Soon

A few months ago, I posted to Tumblr that it’s time for a new look to this site. The content on my main page was stale, my blog theme was standard and the time I spend sharing to Tumblr & my personal blog are beginning to even out. My off the cuff content goes to Tumblr and takes less than 5 minutes to compose and post while this blog take a bit more effort.

A few designers responded to my request and I chose one.

Before I go into the new design, I wanted to explain some changes that are going on over here with my blog and the direction of my blog for the foreseeable future. I put out a post nearly one year ago that discussed some changes that would be taking place on my blog. The key focus was the use of more photos (if I’m taken them, why not use them for posts), writing shorter posts (something that is dedicated to Tumblr now) and doing a better job at categories and tags (something I never did and feel guilty about). I never saw the need to have anyone else blog here. After some thought, blogging is a very selfish act for me. Well, it’s part archival and part self expression. I’m doing more with sharing photos and I’m doing more to move away from tech even though it comes in quite often. For tech, you can follow me on GigaOm (author page) where I talk about Apple and trends in computing. This blog has evolved quite a bit since launching in January of 2009 and I’ve ammased 253 posts since then with an average word count of 800 which is enough for 4 novels at 50K words each.

Going forward, I’ll continue the trend of writing about life, love and happiness. My travels will be highlighted and my photo posts will be more consistent than once every few months. Tumblr will remain as home for my sub-400 word posts and Flickr & Twitter will serve a purpose as well.

—————-

Backend changes to my online home were exhausting but very important. I’ve enlisted one of my closest Macworld buddies to help out. We started in March / April by migrating dozens of domains away from 1and1 to a dedicated (and cheaper) registrar. 1and1 has been a great host since 2005 but it was time to evolve a bit and I was paying entirely too much for what I was getting.

The domain names have been transferred and marked as private registration or just left pointing at my old apartment in San Francisco because any stalkers that try to break in that place will be disappointed.

I’m dedicating a single section in this post to Eric Schmidt of http://frogsplashllc.com/ who rocked in so many ways. He transferred domain names, consulted on wordpress changes and worked tirelessly to help me with DNS changes, database connectivity and file permissions of migrating quite a few blogs to a brand new host. Seriously. use his services and he may even bill you far less than you’re expecting. The guy is awesome. he’s in this photo somewhere but his friend Mike is hogging the forefront (as usual).

The backend changes are done. The site you’re exploring now is on a faster host with beefed up security and I don’t get errors every time I try to upload a photo, delete a comment, make a post, add a user, login, log out, etc. Basically, I no longer get errors every time I click my mouse in wordpress. I have Eric to thank for that. He’s not cheap but I wouldn’t expect anyone who will IM with you at 2 in the morning to be. You get what you pay for and he’s awesome.

—————-

Design changes are coming in a week or two. I chose Tristan Mace for this work. He is a freelancer who I’ve known for years. Actually, I believe we met in 2004/2005 via an online Mac user forum and eventually connected on Facebook in 2009. Tristan is younger than me (just celebrated his 21st birthday a few days ago) so my initial choice for picking him was that he’s someone I trust and that he’s young so affordable but talented. Usually, when you hire young freelancers, you may get quality work but there’s the headaches that go along with that such as timeliness, missed deadlines and constant iterations after mis communications happen.

Tristan Mace blew me away in nearly every way.

In fact, I feel pretty guilty that he’s getting paid so little considering the amount of work he’s done for me. He’s building custom CSS3 for my main site, about and FAQ pages. He’s building a custom wordpress theme w/ customization on some of my plugins and he’s building CSS for my Tumblr account so when you click through to it, it’s going to look nearly identical to my blog with a different header.

Here’s a quick glance at what my site will look like in the coming weeks.

If you’re looking for a design guy (kid) that acts like he’s been in the business for 10 years, you’ll be excited to see the work he does. My new site matches my personality, my flow and how I prefer to use the web. Simple, social, flat and organized. It reminds me of my desktop background or the clutter-free desk I have and the words just pop. Thank you Tristan. Your speed, execution and professionalism have been a pleasure.

—————-

That’s what’s coming. I hope you’ll enjoy the new look and I feel bad that the blog looks so ugly now. Looking at the mockups for my new site and then posting to the old theme feels very dirty. I look forward to delivering photos to you in the new view that will expand to fit wider photos and will be an easier experience for everyone. Thank you for reading.