So, as you may have noticed my site has had a redesign. Let me talk you through it.

Firstly why? Well as you know this site was a personal C.V (see way back when) and then morphed into a blog, and on the way took up this blogger template. Whilst I hacked it up a bit, it has never really got away from that. So this my attempt to stamp my design ideas and styles onto the site.

Secondly it is coming up to the year anniversary to me launching the blog, so now is a good a time as any for a redesign.

Finally I wanted to make the site a bit more accessible, making the posts easier to read, and removing some dead wood, like the style sheet switcher and links.

So what are the new features of the site? Well...

  • The navigation has moved and is now in the header. Whilst this will take a bit of retraining for you guys, I'm sure you will soon pick it up, and it means the main links are easily found on every page.
  • The header has a selection of 8 background images that it selects at random, and all the images are taken from photos I've taken and you can access in the photos section of the site. Also the header text has a funky CSS only drop shadow.
  • There are now some links to translate the site into Spanish and French. Since I work for a translation company it was about time I added these in!
  • The side navigation has been updated to include "code projects", and also, on Jakob's recommendation, the "most popular posts" on my site, based on site traffic.
  • The site feed is now represented by a new icon that some people are trying to make the standard for rss and atom feeds.
  • The family tree pages have had a full makeover (with some help from Tony) to be styled like the new site, and remove the need for frames.
  • The site now renders better in FireFox, in particular there is no longer any annoying horizontal scroll.
  • The photos section now includes links to view the photos / sets in Flickr to let you add them to your favourites and make comments a bit easier.

Planned changes are to update the archive to make it more intuitive, link it in better with the tags, and also show a mini tag cloud for each month when you click on it.

So there you have it, my new site design, the reasons and features of it. Let me know what you think, and if your comments are valid, you never know I might take them on board!