New look: like it or hate it?

So what do you think of the modified look? I’m trying to nail down the kind of look I want for the site, so that when I upgrade my software here shortly I won’t be trying to design and update at the same time.

Changed things:

1. Instead of background colors, created background transparencies. This took a while; every color I use had to be recreated, except the background color for the site as a whole.
2. Added my picture, obviously. This one was actually taken earlier tonight. I’m not entirely satisfied with the look, though; a part of me thinks I should be sticking my tongue out and grinning.
3. Changed top banner color; I still need to whip out a logo, I think.
4. Limited number of nodes to 5 on front page. The front page was just getting terrifically long.
5. Nuked the sidebar stuff I never used: “who’s new”, “top nodes” “recent recipes”, and “who’s online”. Some things, like recipes, change so rarely, they really shouldn’t have been there anyway. Thanks to Paul for the suggestion; this really is a blog, not a portal to every gee-whiz geeky HTML gadget on the planet 😉
6. Modified a few colors to go better with the slightly more subdued color scheme.

The things I’ve noticed wrong are:

• Internet Explorer has problems with lots of transparent gifs on a page. That’s how I did the transparencies — I created 16×16 gifs where every other pixel was transparent. It works well, but when I initially did 2×2 gifs, IE was so slow it was pathetic. Maybe I should convert them all to 32×32. It’s still kind of slow rendering the page, even on my 933. Conversely, Mozilla smokes through the page like it’s nothing.
• I don’t have a nifty logo yet. I must make one.
• Lost the neat bar that held the menu in up top. Must figure out a replacement. I don’t have <div> attributes for the header as a total unit in my theme, and so without hacking the theme file, I couldn’t readily put back my blue & off-white bar.
• Trying to color-match for that picture in the corner was a bear. It looks OK now, but I had to master the “smudge” tool in the Gimp to get it nearly matched 🙂
• Rounded corners. I want rounded corners. That’s going to be pretty exciting to do in transparencies.

I’m done, I’m tired, got to get up for work in a few hours. I’m glad to have gotten this update out of the way, though, it’s a look & feel change I’ve wanted to make for a while but just haven’t taken the time. I want my site to be beautiful, not just functional.

I used to be convinced that I had only a sysadmin’s soul — that I was no artist. And yet, when I do things like this, there is a symmetry I’m aspiring for, and an aesthetically pleasing goal I’m attempting to reach. It’s almost like when I write music… I go back again and again, because there’s a note out of place that needs adjusting, or a sound that’s just not quite right for the most harmonious appeal. My web site’s becoming a bit like that for me lately, that when I’m done with work for the day and have a chance to be creative, my creativity comes out here instead of in my recording program.

Kind of interesting, that.