Categories
ruby on rails

A year later…

I sort of giving up my own design, for now. I find myself tinkering with the layout and design more than actually writing something here, and that really tell if you look at the last post on the blog, almost a year ago.

I lost count of the time I start and stop my learning of Ruby on Rails, and so this time, I just force myself to start a small project in the company. No more creating fictional project, but this is real application that gonna be used by real people. What motivate you more than working on a real Rails project, huh?

Nothing too complicated though, just a tool for user to punch in some data and get an auto generated partnumber according to certain criterias. But I guess is a good starting point.

There might be another more interesting project that involved graph and some graphic manipulation which could branch out my Rails learning, but let’s complete one thing at a time.

Categories
css design

Playing with grid

I have been reading

All in the effort of improving the legibility and readability (ooh…using these terms alone make me thrilled, ha) of the site. Well, after some twists and tweaks following Wilson’s tutorial, I would like to think that the minor changes did improve the site drastically, at least for me.

Categories
wordpress

WordPress 2.60 is here

I know upgrade from WordPress 2.5 to 2.6 is mean to be easy. It is just a matter of 3 steps,

1. Download version 2.60
2. Backup your current site, just in case
3. Replace everything in your root with version 2.60.

And most likely there will be a need to upgrade database, which basically just another click away.And you are done. wow. It didn’t take me more than 5 minutes to upgrade my local setup to version 2.60.

So, I am quite confidently proceed to upgrade this site to version 2.60 as well. And it is just a matter of clicking on the “upgrade to 2.60” button in dreamhost, the next thing you know, this site is already playing to the tune of Tyner. Double wow for that.

Categories
design

LiveDesign Update I

ok, find some time to do a bit of minor changes on the site design.

Basically what I have in mind, is trying to use minimal graphics in the design and play mainly with CSS, different set of fonts(I don’t think I am qualified enough to say typography, so, no, I just playing with fonts), and minimal numbers of colors.

jontangerine
subtraction
subtraction
jontangerine

jontangerine and khoi vinh’s Subtraction are two of the blogs that I frequent, and totally adore the design of their blog. As what people said, good designer copied, great designer steal. I try to copy the concept of their blog’s layout, which I found so simple, yet so aestatically pleasing. I also try to make the site as much like a magazine layout as I can, you know, break out of the web2.0 look, if there is such a thing. I always think if my site is 20% as good as their, I will be more than happy.

While I try to keep the colors used to minimal, I have been browsing around a few color schemes sites, those usual suspects like kuler.adobe, colorlovers, colorcombos, and settled on using mainly gray, black, white and a dash of orange. Hmmm…come to think of it, it is really not so unlike the colors scheme being used in jontangerine or Subtraction. Well, will have to try to twist and tweak it later on, to make a different.

As for fonts, I read through jontangerine’s stylesheet, almost obsessively, looking for fonts type being used. There is something just so irresistible about those fonts type arrangement. But, at the same time, I have to refrain from just pressing ctrl + c and ctrl + v and copying over everything. Remember, I am just trying to learn from the best, not blindly copying. Ok, and so I experiments with a few different set of font types, and finally quite happy with Georgia for most of the content and the Blog title, Palatino Linotype for post title.

So far, I am quite happy with the outcome. Next on will be adding in those standard stuff like blogrolls, comments, etc. Ah, and also, WordPress 2.6 is out! Have just tested the upgrade on local, work right away. Will have to do that on this site as well.

Categories
design

Moving in

I have been blogging since 2003, but this is the very first time I have my own domain name. It almost felt like having your own house. But just as moving in to a new house, I don’t really have the luxury to sit down and spend all the time put up a design before start typing away. Just to have something other that the standard wordpress “Hello World” is tempting enough.

And so, the site design will be going on a live-designing process, which mean things might change day by day, or not change at all for a while (if I don’t really have the time or mood), ha. Anyhow, this is a place where I will be putting down my thought, mainly on webin general(like zillions of blogs out there…), some joomla (not unlike another zillions of blogs out there..), WordPress(while I working on this blog and venture into the world of WordPress), designs (now, I am not claiming design guru or anything, but just an enthusiast.)

And we will see as we go along.

So, here is my “Hello World”.