So I realized it was quite tedious to make a change to my footer for my “static” content (/study, /writing, etc.) and then reproduce that change across all of my pages.

Turns out, this is what PHP includes are for. So, as of now, all of my “static” pages are actually PHP pages so that includes can be called for the footer and Google Analytics portions of each page.

As you’d expect, those are the parts of the site that don’t change, but even if they were to it’d be very simple to just edit the footer.php or googleanalytics.php pages — at which point the change would be implemented in every page with the include.

Cool stuff.

So I finally did it — I’ve moved the main page (the one you’re on) over to the new layout. It should look pretty much the same, but this version is tableless XHTML 1.0 Strict, and the header/navigation portion isn’t all borked up anymore.

It’s not all done, of course (it never is), but I’m at least to the point where I can relax for a bit. Oh, and yes, I do know my logo looks gimpy in IE. It’s all greyed out and such. I figure I shouldn’t be in any rush to fix it, though. That’s the punishment for using IE.

Link: Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer

I’ve been using TextWrangler for a while now — a free uber-text editor that’s used heavily by web developers. It’s actually the free, mini-version of BBEdit — which is supposedly everything TextWrangler is and more.

I’ve been thinking that I might want to “step up” to BBedit and buy it to get the features I’m lacking with TextEdit, but then I looked at the stuff and it doesn’t seem all that compelling. It then came to me that if even one or two of the features are useful — ever — then it might be worth it. Why?

Because I love TextWrangler so much. That doesn’t seem to make sense, but I almost feel like it’s good karma to buy BBEdit because I like their free offering so much — especially since it does offer some extra features that could come in handy. I’m going to download the demo and play with it for a bit — just to make sure I’m not being too nutty.

What do you guys think; is it just abject stupidity to “reward” a company in this way?

Edit: Thanks for the input; I bought it. For anyone thinking of doing the same, there’s a $100 discount for anyone using TextWrangler. The details are a bit weird, but it’s a real discount. I got the product for $99 instead of $199. W00t.

So I’ve been working on a couple things on the site recently — most importantly an attempt to move all my /study and /writing content to a static format, i.e. not within my blog.

There are many reasons for this, but the overall picture is that I want full, direct control over the content so that I can use the displaying of the information as a learning tool.

The largest manifestation of this is my attempt to learn (and truly understand) XHTML and CSS. I got into this briefly a while back but never did a big project with it in order to pound the information in. This will be that project.

I’m doing two things really: 1) I’m moving my “static” content over to a static directory structure, i.e. it’s not going to be in my Wordpress database anymore getting rendered via PHP. 2) I’m creating my own custom CSS stylesheet, from the ground up, that’s going to incorporate what I’ve learned about the XHTML and CSS (mostly CSS).

This has been extremely pleasurable thus far, and I think I’m starting to finally “get it”. Of course once I’m finished I’m going to write a /study article on CSS. Like most of these pieces it’s going to be a reference for myself more than anything. But as usual I’ll be writing it in hopes that it helps others as well.

The next project involving XHTML and CSS is going to be rather major: I’m going to re-code my blog theme. Using the stylesheet that I’ll have completed for my static content, I’m going to remove all the tables from it and just generally tweak it to my liking. The goal here is to touch and truly understand every facet of the theme (and CSS as a result). I’m enthused about it.

So for my XHTML and CSS editor I’m using TextWrangler, by BareBones Software. It’s the free version of BBEdit — their flagship product. I’m quite pleased with it. Anyone doing this kind of stuff should give it a go.

Anyway, if you guys have any comments on what I’m doing as things progress, do let me know. I’m still very much in the learning phase of things; any input would be appreciated.

Ok, so here’s a redo of my previous logo/icon. Is this better than the other one?

Hmm, evidently it is. I’ve already heard more good things about this one in a few minutes than the other one over a day. So I guess that settles it. :)

I redid my favicon too. Sweet. Now that I’ve got that taken care of I can go back to my CSS adventure. Thanks for the help, folks, and let me know what you think of this (final?) version.

Well, after an overwhelmingly negative response (honest feedback that I appreciated, by the way), I decided to have another go at redesigning a logo from scratch. So I busted out Flash and started hackin’ away.

I struggled for over two hours before being struck by the idea you see at the top of the page. I am very pleased with this one — save one small issue. I think the font used for the main “DMIESSLER.COM” text is a bit too tall and thin. I looked for a more stout, digital-looking option but couldn’t locate one. No biggie, though; I’m happy with what I have.

So again I ask — what do you guys think of this one? And be brutal — it’s the most helpful advice in most cases.

Edit: Duh! I figured it out. The M’s don’t match! One is digital (the one in the logo), and the other is normal (the one in the text). That’s bad form. Bad form indeed …

Edit: Crap. It’s not just the “M”; it’s the “D” and the “R” as well. The blockiness has to carry over to those too. Hmm. This sucks.

Alright, so two quite a few people commented on my logo (Edit: now the old logo) and neither none of them liked it. That’s not good.

:)

I’m working on a replacement now.

Edit: The replacement is now up.

So I’ve finally updated my logo and I’m trying to decide how much I like it. If you have any comments I’d appreciate hearing them.

I’ve been out of webdesign for years now, but occasionally I come across a site that just sets me back. This one here is amazing:

http://www.folietto.at/