It has been long since I wrote here at all, especially about the upcoming fourth version of this website.

Two months ago, a prototype design of the Hypro theme for Powervortex.4 was completed. A preview can be found here. Unfortunately, I had to completely ditch this design for now and return to the proverbial drawing board.

Why? For a couple reasons.

1. My current site layout is too bloated and unnecessarily confusing. I mean, the various parts of the “main site” and having the blog on the side somewhat makes sense…but what the heck is up with the “gallery?” The site layout is too un-streamline.
2. Too much text. Everything on this site is pretty much text-based. This is the past. Looking at various other websites, namely Apple.com, websites today are much more visual. And I call myself a web/graphics designer. =D
3. The HTML/CSS/images currently are too heavyweight. On slower connections, the myriad images, especially in the blog, take forever to fully load. And the header strips on the content boxes are hard to read without the background images loading.
4. Hypro, the working title of the prototype PV.4 theme shown above does not at all fix any of the aforementioned problems with this site. More importantly, and more unfortunately, I one day opened the HTML in Internet Explorer and was shocked at how poorly the layout was rendered in IE (I’ll upload a screenshot someday). It displays fine under both Firefox and Webkit-based browsers like Safari and Konqueror, but it is butchered by IE.

As a result, I give you:

Mayfield is the name for the (second) new theme for the fourth version of Powervortex. It will be more minimal, simpler, and will focus on being more user friendly. It will present less reading, more seeing, with more visuals and less text. In addition, I will scrap the three-tier main site/blog/gallery site layout with one that makes more sense, is more streamlined, and is less confusing. However, I will not be joining the table-less sect of CSS design. I will continue to use tables until I eventually get a hang of making layouts completely with DIV tags and CSS. Mayfield will forcus on greater usability, a more streamlined experience, and compatibility with all of the popular browsers, including IE.

As I was creating my previous post, I went to upload the preview for my screenshot. Normally, this would go without a hitch except for the awkward changing of the hyperlink after the upload to the location of my screenshot in PV:Gallery. However, the new Wordpress 2.5 apparently has a new system. The control for uploading media is in the form of a pretty sweet Thickbox modal window and is much more AJAX driven than the old one. However, when uploading the preview image, I hit a brick wall. I was given an error as WP processed the upload that “An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.”

Trying again later, I was given the same error.

Fortunately, I found a great fix for this small bug. All that it requires is editing the .htaccess file in the Wordpress root folder by adding the following code snippet to the beginning of the file:

After reuploading the .htaccess file, the upload worked like a breeze. Even better, this new interface makes it much easier to change where the image is linked to.

Source: Honkiat

I have just upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.5. This new version has a vastly improved WP-Admin. I really like the new interface. It is very pleasing to the eye and more user friendly than that of previous versions. Upgrade went without a hitch and I was able to get pretty much all the plugins re-activated smoothly (except ZenPhotoPress which is not appearing on the editor).

In any event, I really like the new features in the writing post page, especially the box that is created for tags. I have been trying to clean up the tags on this blog and this new tool makes it much easier.

Anyway, now I need to update ZenPhoto and I’ll get around to that eventually. =D

Dessicated world built on
past wrongs and ordeals
await the healing.

Well, I’m back after another long hiatus from blogging due to a myriad of priorities. Now for a few updates.

Powervortex.4 is still in development. A screenshot will be posted very soon. I am still working on the basic HTML components. Again, the new design is virtually devoid of tables and is a purely CSS-based design. The CSS-based design not only increases flexibility but also makes addition of AJAX components, such as K2 for the blog, much easier.

This blog and the gallery are in need of update. The yellow bar at the top of the WP-Admin panel is yelling “please update now” and the WP feed tells me that there are two subsequent releases of WP 2.3 since I last updated. Other than that, ZenPhoto 1.1.4 has been released.

In any event, the last of the Haiku.seasonals for the main site has been released. This is Haiku.renewal, the spring theme.

That’s all for now.

~DC

Apparently there will be a new administrator control panel design with the next version of the blog software, Wordpress version 2.4. While this looks nice and is a good change from the current style (which I have tried to replace with modifications such as SpotMilk), this new style is still under heavy construction by the WP team. While it does not resemble the concepts of the Shuttle Project that announced to replace the WP-admin style, I still look forward to seeing the completed new style and the new features of Wordpress 2.4. Once again, great job Wordpress team.

~DC

Coming 2008.

Well, I haven’t really been here for a while. With the amount of commitments I have been in for the past few weeks (and right now) blogging has been put in the back burner.

As an update report, I have revamped some minor organization aspects of the site, including standardizing the top menu (Home, Blog, Gallery) and more polished the themes for the main site, the blog, and gallery. As you can see, I reorganized the sidebar here too adding a tag cloud and a box that tells you how much spam my Askimet has filtered. However, the ZenShow pseudo-widget is still acting arthritic and screwing up the mySQL connections of the rest of the widgets so I’m waiting for the people over at ZenPhoto forums to hammer out this flaw.

Other than that, a much belated Happy Thanksgiving.

~DC

Lets not go off the enlightenment pun too much now.

Well,  so far, the ZenPhoto/Wordpress bridge seems to be working. I just installed ZenWordpress (formerly known as ZenPress before the branding issue) and it seems to be finally working. Initially, I had some issues with the image not showing up and me getting a 500 internal service error but I seem to have fixed that with some tweaking with the .htaccess file. Hopefully, after some more tweaking, I can finally completely do away with Gallery2 and use ZenPhoto to its potential.

Speaking of .htaccess, I am planning to also do away with ugly URL’s with those ?this=that&whatnots with the .htaccess/mod_rewrite stuffs with this blog. That will come soon. I will need to make some adjustments to Haiku.legacy first. Anyway, stay tuned for more.

~DC

I guess it worked. Apparently I did not have to upgrade my database at all, probably because I was going from 2.3 to 2.3.1. Anyway, please report any bugs. I’ll look myself. Other than that, we’re back in business.

Aaand Zune.net is currently “undergoing maintenance.” I guess the launch of 2.0’s en proceso at the moment. Guess I will have to wait until “tomorrow” to see all the new stuff.

~DC

Alright, I’m finally updating Wordpress to 2.3.1. Hopefully all goes well.

Other than that, Zune 2.0 comes out tomorrow…uh…today (its 12:03 PST). I can’t wait for the upgrade.

See you (hopefully) after the break.