Rodent Regatta

Every once in a while it’s great to see experienced web folks who speak up about things you’ve been pondering. Some bizarre sense of ”they’ve already figured that out,” prevents me from saying anything about what I see that’s wrong with so many weblogs, tools and techniques.

This morning, Sam Ruby talks about meeting people at conferences and finding that he didn’t know who they were until he heard the name of their weblog/web site. I’ve thought about that as I read names in my blogroll and my news aggregator. If I read a post somewhere that says, ”Sam said…,” I seldom remember which weblog to associate with Sam. The reverse is also true.

Phil Ringnalda elaborates and offers a solution or two. I simply want blogrolling.com and FeedDemon to allow me to group names using identical or separate groupings. Then, I want one file for tracking both and I want the tools to prompt me for both the person’s name and the weblog title.

Better still, let me subscribe to ”well-formed RSS feeds” that have all the details and drop those details into proper places based upon checkboxes I pick in preferences or during the subscription process. Do you want to subscribe to this person’s feed? What channel group? Do you want to blogroll this person? Which blogroll? Who is this? What’s the name of their site?

I’m closer to starting a complete site redesign here. If you’re willing to help, let me know. I’m going to need someone who really knows Movable Type and standards-based design. If you’ve also got an eye for graphic design and how to do a makeover, we should talk.

Among things I want to deal with:

• Update the logo
• Add some color, subtract some color, mute some color
• Change to MySQL as the underlying database
• Close comments after X days
• Spellcheck every entry before posting
• Get to valid CSS and XHTML where practical
• Change the look of blockquotes
• Number the comments with oldest listed first
• Implement CSS or style switcher (Is this called ”skinning?”)
• Expand the use of PHP where useful and appropriate
• Change the look and behavior of links (is this hover or rollovoer?)
• Improve the site navigation
• Move some sidebar items to separate pages
• Improve the use of disk space, particularly with images
• Take advantage of plugins where applicable
• Alter the sidebar script that handles ”On This Day”
• Rethink sidebars, blogrolls and additional pages of resources
• Should titles be permalinks? (Is this even the right question?)
• Improve and expand the use of RSS feeds – including excerpts, extended entries, RSS feeds for each category, etc.
• List the top 10 most frequent commenters

This is a quote from the Asterisk* site:

First I have to disclaim that I feel Asterisk* is a personal Web site, built with weblog technology and with a blog component.

There is much more to this site than the weblog.

I like that. It fits the way I’m thinking about my own site as I move forward.

Goals include:

1. Don’t lose or damage entries dating back to January of 2002
2. Give the site an improved platform for expansion
3. Lose some weight in lines, type and images
4. Learn more about how to use Movable Type
5. Make the site more appealing to visitors

Watch for this entry to be broken out to its own page of design goals and attributes as I move forward with the effort. What I’m hoping to accomplish won’t likely happen in a weekend absent some serious help from a skilled web designer and developer.

I have identified 40 recent entries from a list of expert designers and sites.

1. Geeks Gone Wild
2. Jay has a summary of the discussion on the ”next generation” of blogging tools
3. Closing comments on those old posts
4. Lockergnome Critique
5. MyStack
6. LockerGnome
7. lovelinks: css layout on forums
8. Code is Food
9. It’s Worse Than You Can Imagine
10. Essential Software
11. Code is food
12. Code is food
13. CSS Problem-Solving
14. Defensive Design
15. Why Not Web Standards?
16. Design Philosophy
17. Side note: I hate BerkeleyDB
18. lovelinks: html editors
19. DesignAlternativesForBlog
20. SytleMaster CSS page layout Tutorial
21. Great CSS Design
22. Six Tips For Better RSS Feeds
23. SkinningYourBlog
24. Skinning Newbie? This Site Is Designed With You In Mind
25. Installing Movable Type locally on Windows XP
26. Easy to follow layout tutorial
27. Self paced course reminder: week 5
28. Links: 2003-12-30
29. A Movable Type Intranet
30. Collapsible Menus
31. asst. mt tips
32. Rounded Corners – inspired by Sliding Doors
33. Top 10 Reasons to Learn CSS
34. XHTML Transitional, Strict – What’s the Difference?
35. Why Should You Learn CSS?
36. Mozilla site redesigned with TopStyle
37. House of CSS
38. Turning Up the Heat on Standards
39. Floatutorial
40. SimpleQuiz> Part I: Headings

The Trellix folks have been fired by Interland and the ofifice is closing. Dan Bricklin tells the story. Wouldn’t it be great if this team could somehow fuel the growth of Software Garden while providing an east coast development arm for Sixapart?

Yesterday I read something that puzzled me, but then again, much that I read does. I haven’t been able to find it again, but it sent something like this: ”Get the XHTML code correct before you worry about the style.” I’m under the impression that this means work on the code for the site before you work on the CSS for the site. I guess this is good advice, but I haven’t got a clue how to do that when we’re talking about a Movable Type weblog.

This morning I’m reading Keith Robinson’s Case Study covering how he redesigned his web site. He lays out the process. This big picture view of the overall effort is well written and useful.

One of my favorite weblogs for design, content and advice is Asterisk*. It’s written by Keith Robinson.

His entry called Why Not Web Standards? has drawn 32 comments as of right now. If you’re following the web standards movement, you’ll learn a lot from Keith.