For the past two days, I have been developing and designing a new Wordpress theme for my co-worker and friend Alex. Alex is a frequent blogger. I figured he would be the first to get a new design for his site, since he blogs on a regular basis. Now, creating Wordpress themes isn’t something new for me. I’ve been making them for years now. But I haven’t used Widgets myself on my own blogs. Simply because the themes I created and used, are for me only. I used ‘old skool’ php snippets to put in the sidebar template files in my theme folder. That worked fine for me. Yes, for me. Now, my friend Alex would prefer a theme with widgets. I promised widgets in this new theme, for two reasons. I need to start creating themes that are widget compatible. And Alex is also already using widgets. The problem with widgets is really the heading. There isn’t any on default. I can style every widget, the text, its color, links and more. But since there isn’t any heading, I can’t style the heading I find this very odd. How can I use images in stead of text for the heading, if there isn’t heading in the first place? After stumbling upon this failure, I decided to go afk for a few hours. I went off and played MySims. I could use the relaxation. After I was done playing (4 hours of MySims), I went back to work on the theme again. In the end, I could only solve the problem by editing the widgets.php file in the wp-includes folder. But every time I upgrade Wordpress, I have to change that file again. What’s the harm in putting heading around titles on default? It would help a lot of designers, including myself.

Now, after I had solved this problem, I stumbled upon another issue. I am currently also redesigning my own portfolio. And I tried embedding the flash badge from Last.fm. Turns out you can’t make it any wider or smaller. For my own site, I tried making it wider. But the flash content just wouldn’t stretch. The badge itself was wide, but the songs stayed 184px. It seems the songs in the flash badge have an absolute width that can’t be changed.

The problem doesn’t end here. I tried embedding the same flash badge into Alex’s new theme. And I am really wondering why Last.fm won’t just offer html/javascript badges. You see, Alex’s sidebars are a tad too small. And no, that can’t be changed. It’s perfect for all other widgets. But not for Last.fm. The Last.fm flash badge can be made smaller. But it will just cut off some pixels. Items on the right of the badge disappear.

I really prefer non-flash widgets. But the only other badge Last.fm offers is an image that is generated every x minutes. I’d prefer a Javascript badge. Too bad they don’t have one.

Today we celebrate the fact that Seth is 6 months old! He has changed a lot in six months. I see him every day. And that makes it hard to notice him changing. But today I was looking at some ‘old’ pictures of Seth, and he has changed quite a bit.

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

Just a quick post to let you guys know I haven’t vanished into the void or anything. For the past week, I’ve been re-developing and re-designing my current blog (the one you are looking at, yes). The main reason for this is because the current site is not nearly XHTML strict at all. I didn’t quite pay attention to that when building the current version in early 2006. Another big reason is the way the site looks. I have so many things to offer on this site. But it ends up being a mess. It’s very unorganized with all the cluttered sidebars. That’s gotta change! I want my viewers, readers, visitors to be able to find what they’re looking for. When the new version is done, I bet you will see things you didn’t even know I had on this site before. Just be patient. The new version will launch this week!

Another thing I’d like to share, is the fact that I have some new projects coming up. I’ve teamed up with Wouter (ChEeTaH), Wouter (Myshuno) and Alex to form a MacDesperate group. We’re starting a website. I still have to design it. But the idea behind it is quite simple. We want Macs. And we’re desperate for them. We’re going to beg, blog, whine and share any other blurbs on MacDesperate!

Oh and before I forget, I have made ChEeTaH a new website/layout for Simply-Life as well. He uses the new Drupal. This is my first Drupal theme. Oh and it is entirely XHTML strict ^^

That’s it for now. I’ve got more plans than just the above projects. But I will try to finish some of these first before I go and share all other things on my mind.

I made a few pics of a snow globe with shiny hearts and a aluminium foil heart. They turned out to be quite nice conceptual pics