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.

I’ve already informed you in previous blogposts (here and here), that we finally launched the SNWeblogs. And I also told you about the people who started blogging on these new blogs. Well, it’s time for a third post. Because four more people have started blogging!

The first was Rakki. Rakki has been a team member since 2004. And he started blogging about SNWeblogs and his new car! This blog is in Dutch. Click here to visit Rakki’s blog!

Paul was the second blogger. Paul already started a new (Sims) blog called River’s Hill. It’s a Dutch blog about the Sims in his neighborhood. But Paul was one of those people who really wanted a SNWeblog. And now he has one! Visit Paul here. His SNWeblog is in English, so our foreign visitors should be able to understand it

The third blogger of part 3 is Seth. Yup, my son. He started blogging too! :p Of course, we maintain his blog. He can’t even talk, let alone type. He will some day. He’s blogged in Dutch about his plush toy rattle called ‘Mr. Flower’. Clicky clicky for ‘Mr. Flower’, errr, Seth

The fourth and last blogger in part 3 is Tamara. Tamara isn’t exactly a team member, but she is an active member. And she’s been on SNW since 2004, which is quite some time! Tamara has blogged an introduction about her work as a volunteer at a veterinarian. She also blogged about her going to the hospital. This blog is also in Dutch. Do pay her a visit though!

Junior is also one I’d like to mention in this blog post. Junior started blogging in the summer of 2006, so he’s not new at all. But he has added a large (new) blogging section about ‘The Sims 2 FreeTime’ on this blog, all because of an event in Amsterdam in January! It is in Dutch, but I still think it may be worth the look. You can always take a look at the photos (especially his wall of fame!) Junior will try to (mo)blog more often about certain events in the future.

So basically everyone (except a few) have started blogging! That’s some good news! Let’s hope everyone can keep this up

Did you have fun at EA World? Definitely. Crowded, very crowded. At first I thought, who are all those people of the press? But then I remembered how they gave away tickets for EA World.

I got there too late in my opinion. On my way to Utrecht we hit traffic jams three times, of course due to 3 accidents. Great, but alright, I was ‘only’ half an hour late. Some press people got in even later. Also because of the traffic jams.

Titles that were very present: Sims 2 (console), James Bond, Fifa ‘06 and of course NFS Most Wanted. There was a lot more, but I’ll write about that later. Above things title just got my attention.

I met ChEeTaH (TheSimsZone) and JVtje (Simparool) and chatted with them for a while. That was fun too. And before that I chatted quite a while with Nita and Deborah. I also saw Bas. I took a nice picture of him haha

Today I met a few friends. It was a long time ago and sometimes you just have to do that. We decided to hold meetings more often, because 1 or 2 times a year is just not enough, don’t you think? It went from seeing each other every day to just a few times a year. Too bad.. But that’s how it goes.

And tomorrow it’s the day of The Sims Awards 2005. In Oostende (Belgium). What bothers me most is that people participate in the contest at SNW and then mail at the last moment: ‘I can’t come after all, but thank you anyway’. Thank you. I can make a new selection again. And again, and again! Luckily there are some people who participate because they know they can and want to come. We will see them tomorrow. And from our team? I of course, and my mother known under the name of Rollebietedotje/Guinevere will be there as well. Don’t forget Lord_Marino and Eva! I’m looking forward to it. As long as they don’t expect too much of me :p haha, I’m only just Rosana

I will definitely make pictures and report about the Awards. I will meet many people. There will be 1400 people! At least I won’t stand out

I’ve uploaded a photo of my new hairdo (interesting huh). Jeffrey wanted to know exactly how orange my hair really was. Well, see for yourself:
(foto)

Last Friday I went to a café with some of my old colleagues. It was a lot of fun. It was so much fun that I was too wasted to walk home properly. Won’t give you any details on that

On Saturday I decided to exercise a little alongside the television. I did it for 2-3 hours.

On Sunday I went to see the Red Bull Air Race. I’ve only viewed it for an hour or so, but it was kinda fun. But now I have blisters on both my heels. Not used to anything I guess.

On Monday I was too exhausted and lazy to do anything. Very fascinating :p

On Tuesday I made a few University dorms/homes for SNW. Yesterday I created some new items (clothing, hairdos) in University/college style of course. For images I suggest you visit SNW.