With just a little breath-holding and nail-biting, I present NevilleHobson.com in some of its new clothes.
A bit dramatic-sounding perhaps, but the upgrade to WordPress version 2.2.2 together with implementing the new theme you see here has gone with only a couple of fixable hitches.
(If you’re a subscriber to the RSS feed, do please hop over to the site so you can take a look.)
Why change? as a few people have asked me this weekend.
A few reasons. A big one was that I couldn’t do anything further with the version of the K2 theme I’d been using since starting this blog in Feb 2006.
I couldn’t upgrade WordPress to the latest version and still use the K2 version I was using (r167b2) without some major problems. And frankly, I became disillusioned with my continual frustration in never being able to fully figure out how to change or fix things with K2.
More than anything, though, I wanted to create a fresh appearance where I could dive in to CSS and a bit of PHP without making show-stopping mistakes. If you’d seen my earlier efforts with recent K2 versions on my sandbox blog, you’d know what I mean.
I also wanted to use some of the cool widgets out there that only work on later versions of WordPress.
So I have this new theme – what I call ‘NHcom 2.0′ – which is an adaptation I’ve made from a theme created by Michael Pollock. When I came across it last week, I knew this was the one I’d been looking for as my source for a refresh.
During the past few days, I’ve had a crash course in CSS editing as well as some uncomplicated PHP coding. And I feel good about it!
A number of people have been very helpful, most of them unwittingly via content they have published on the web. Such content has been invaluable when I’ve been stumped for one reason or another. That’s the WordPress community.
So the refreshed site is up, but there’s still quite a bit of work to do. Populating sidebars. Rearranging pages and content. Fixing one or two things as I encounter them.
Hence the tongue-in-cheek ‘undr construction’ sign, discovered via Paul Battley. Very Web 2.0 with no ‘e.’
I hope you like the reloaded look, all designed to focus on the content rather than add-ins or fancy graphics.
If you’d care to let me know your thoughts, I’d appreciate hearing them.
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When accomplished PR/communication folk start coding in php and editing CSS, surely this is a sign of the apocalypse.. we are all doomed.
Looks good!, although no way to enter the comments dialog from the main page, that shouldn’t be too terribly difficult to fix.
Scratch that, it is at the top, not the bottom, you’re just breaking all the rules aren’t you..
Thanks Andrew. As you discovered, there is a link
Neville – Three column does a good job of separating content without getting cluttered. Like the slimmer header too. Looks good to me (albeit I am usually reading your RSS feed).
Good job Neville. They have some nice themes over at SoloStream. I’m definitely going to consider them when I start upgrading some of my blogs.
Thanks Kevin. RSS subscribers won’t see any of it, one reason why I think spending a lot of time (and money too) on a whizz-bang web design isn’t a good investment.
Yes, Solostream is impressive, Rob. I like their approach to WP themes: good designs which are easy to customize. I’ll be happy to mention them as the opportunity arises.
Looks great Neville, and has further skewed the visual line between “blog” and regular website.
Well done, Neville!
I’ve been anxious to dump my K2 design as well, but never can seem to find a design that “fits” what I want the revamped Bryper.com to look like. You’ve done nicely here — given me some inspiration.
I had better check out SoloStream.
Thanks Bryan.
I was the same as you re K2. It’s taken me about six months to make this move. But it had to be with the ‘right’ theme if I was to do this myself. And that only happened with my lightbulb moment last week when I saw the offerings at SoloStream.
One thing I do miss with not having K2 anymore is the Sidebar Modules. Far better than the WordPress widgets.
But very glad I made the change! And hope you have your lightbulb moment
Almost missed your comment, Alex! Thanks, appreciate the compliment.
[...] some months, I’ve been thinking about re-designing my main blog as I’ve had the current design for about a year (my own adaptation of a WordPress theme created by Michael [...]