To start the process I grab my HTML5 markup and save it locally on my machine with fresh CSS files that hide every element to begin with so I have my blank canvas.

For this revision of the site I decided I wanted to go down the 960 grid route so grabbed an image of the grid and set it as the background for the site. This worked very well as I was able to position all of my content over it and line it all up with pixel precision just like I would if I were to design it in Photoshop.

Once the grid was in place I started to go through the elements of the page one by one styling them. Starting with the header, which I decided would be once again fixed but not a vertical header like the last design.

After some pixel precision positioning I was happy with the overall layout. Passing the link around to people I work with and people I admire due to the work they do. A few tweaks were made based on the feedback I received, which was mostly positive.

After tweaking, I set about giving it a lick of paint, using the usual pink for a few elements and using Photoshop to create a very basic background for the site as well as a gradient for the buttons.

The main change I have been wanting to do for a while was to make my homepage a homepage and not just the list of latest blog posts like it has been for a while. It now displays the latest bits and bobs from the various sections of the site and includes my Flickr stream as well.

Now I started this on a Friday evening over a coffee after having the urge to design something. I completed the layout on the Saturday with very little tweaks thereafter. WordPress integration was completed on the Sunday however I tool it upon myself to get my site working in IE6 once again. I launched the site on Tuesday, which in my eyes is a pretty good turn around for a redesign.

I hope you still like the design.

You will notice once again the site is using HTML5, this time I have sprinkled some CSS3 over the site. Not being one that has used it before no doubt I will be tweaking it over the coming days/weeks to perfect it and remove the use of images in favor of CSS3 Gradient’s. This is the 3rd redesign using pretty much the same markup with just a few tweaks to the order of elements.

I hope you like the new look, any feedback or issues you spot please do let me know using the comment form below.

Andy

For as long as I can remember I have been listening to Meat Loaf. This came from my parents and I vaguely remember buying a single or two many many years ago, taking them home and listening to them constantly for hours on end.

This hasn’t changed much to be honest. Every now and again I go through one of these periods of listening to Meat Loaf for hours and hours on end. Much more so when a new album comes out. For those not in the know Meat Loaf released a new album recently titled Hang Cool Teddy Bear. In my opinion it is a different Meat Loaf sound to that of Bat Out of Hell but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

With some welcome guests appearing on the album such as Brian May, Hugh Laurie and Jack Black, each track seems to have a different feel to create an album about a fictional soldier whose story is embedded within the album.

I have seen Meat Loaf (counts fingers) 3 times. The last time I was supposed to see him, he sadly cancelled the gig due to illness. Despite returning to the UK, Birmingham was missed from the tour dates. Now the new album is out and Meat Loaf is touring once again it is only a matter of time before he heads back over here and I can make it to gig number 4.

I did say this was different… Plus a bit random!

I am not a sound-buff and often put up with Apple earphones when at home or walking around town. Myself and some of the 383 guys think that the headphones sound great. Especially as they are wireless. Slowly I am enticing my colleagues to get a pair for their desks.

I keep meaning to take them home to try out with my Xbox 360. The only down side to these headphones for me is every so often when you pick them up or take them off you change the volume or balance between each ear piece as these controls are located on the casing around the ear cup.

I’d definitely recommend these to anyone looking and I’m sure I would reach the same conclusion with newer/more expensive Sennheiser Wireless headphones.

Within one evening I got Apache, PHP and MySQL installed as well as my blog moved over. Now a few days later I have a few development sites online on subdomains. Next job is to move the other sites I want on Linode over, hopefully this will be a fairly easy task.

If your looking for somewhere new to host your site I would recommend Linode. I haven’t experienced any problems whatsoever and have only heard good things. So check them out.

As with my iPad post I’m sure I will have further blog posts in the future about my experience with Linode.

So the iPad’s first impressions on me are that the device itself is awesome. Not from just a fanboys perspective, although that helps. Quickly I made my way to Urban Coffee Co and got on their WiFi and started downloading the various apps I wanted to try out.

So far I have resisted buying apps, only forking out for Angry Birds HD. I have to say Angry Birds is perfect for the iPad. Even the apps that don’t currently have universal apps out like Facebook, work well on the iPad when zoomed using the “X2″ functionality.

Typing on the screen when flat on a table is a breeze too. I’m doing it right this second within the WordPress app. iPhone apps that require keyboard input use the iPhone keyboard. This also works well but even better when zoomed in. Posting a status to Facebook has never felt to easy.

I’m gong to spend the evening looking at cases for the iPad as unfortunately the Apple store only had 2 available. I’m sure other accessories will follow suite in my search this evening.

A nod to the Bullring Apple store too for allowing me to see a genius without an appointment this morning to look at my bulging MacBook Pro battery. Once in stock I can simply go and collect a replacement.

I will no doubt be getting stuck into the iPhone SDK this weekend, for the first time in a while.

Check back in a few days/hours for another post. Maybe now I may blog some more now I have a awesome device to blog from. =]

Back when I was simply doing freelance work I was a member of TalkFreelance, a forum for freelancers (focusing on design/web design/development). Back then a few names stuck out within the community, one of those being Josh Buckley. I have followed him on Twitter for a while now and he has just brought out a new iPhone app called iSlice.

I only knew that the app was a game, so I downloaded it and straight away dived into it without reading the instructions. The concept is simple. You have a shape on the screen, which you then slice to reduce the area the shape covers. You have to slice chunks off the shape to get the shape down to a set area to win the level.

Sounds simple right? Well, while you’re doing that white balls within the shape are bouncing around, you have to avoid these balls when slicing chunks off of the shape off. When you slice you can’t have one of those balls within the slice you are cutting off. Sounds a bit more involved now doesn’t it?

I have to say it is very addictive, as addictive as BirdStrike and Monkey Flight. The concept is simple and is delivered perfectly. Despite each level getting harder it isn’t one of those apps you try a level 2/3 times and give up like many other apps I have tried. I look forward to updates to the app that are going to bring bugfixes and level updates.

You can get iSlice at the reasonable price of £0.59 or $0.99. Click here to get iSlice from the App Store.

It’s been a few month’s in the pipe line but finally I have launched the new feature on my site. It has been on the site for a few months, but hidden from view while I ironed out various bugs and performance issues. You can now see geotagged entries from my Lifestream on my Lifestream Map.

Using various Google Map’s examples mashed together I have managed to get to a point where I am happy with the performance. With an ever increasing number of markers, the map was always causing the spinning beach ball of death to make an appearance. Fortunately after switching between using PHP/Javascript a few times, I was able to find a solution to my performance woes. I hope to write a more detailed explanation about how it works at a later date.

Thanks to my original Lifestream saving all entries into a database I am able to display tweets from month’s ago on the map, showing clusters of markers to see where I have been and when you drill down what I was up to at that time. This along with my lifestream will stay up to date by itself.

I have also added my Dribbble, Foursquare and Nike+ accounts to my lifestream recently.

Check out the map by clicking here.

I haven’t had a play with any of the new features within WordPress 3.0, but I do like the tweaks to the admin UI.

WordPress 3.0 contains a few new features, some rather drastic and some you will barely notice…

• Custom Post Types
• Customizable Navigation Functionality
• Upgrade panel that sits under Dashboard in the admin, it contains all the upgrades that are available to your site.
• Merge of WordPress.org and WordPress MU
• A new default theme
• Ability to set a custom background through the admin panel
• You can choose a username when installing, increases security.
• Author specific templates

I will be working on using some of these features in the next round of updates to this site. The main thing will be the custom post types and custom fields within those types. So you won’t notice it at all, but it will be there for me to make my life easier. Hopefully making my life easier will mean I will post more.

After a while away from Magento Development it is great to see that the system is increasingly being used by developers for ecommerce websites, as well as seeing the system evolve and improve. I have previously posted a review of Magento itself from a developers point of view, back then Magento was at version 1.0. As of writing this book review Magento is at version 1.4, so the book is 0.1 version release out as of writing.

The book written by Jamie Huskisson and was released in January of this year and covers many useful topics.

The book contains the following chapters…
Chapter 1: Magento: Developer’s Guide
Chapter 2: Installing/Upgrading Magento and Preparing for Development
Chapter 3: Magento’s Architecture
Chapter 4: Building a Shipping Module for Magento
Chapter 5: Building a Payment Method for Magento
Chapter 6: Basic Modules to Extend Magento’s Functionality
Chapter 7: Fully Featured Module with Administration Panel
Chapter 8: Integration of a Third-Party CMS
Chapter 9: Magento’s Core API
Chapter 10: Importing and Exporting Data
Chapter 11: Appendix A – Resources for Further Learning

The book is written for PHP Developers who want to get to grips with the architecture of Magento and want to learn how they can extend the Magento system. The book expects you to be a confident PHP 5 developer and isn’t for people who have no PHP experience. The book covers topics in such a way that you don’t need to have any Magento development experience but have a familiarity with the operation of Magento itself.

The book also includes a chapter about integrating a 3rd party CMS within Magento itself. This focuses mainly on integrating WordPress inside Magento so the store you are developing can contain a blog. It also talks about more advanced features within Magento such as the Core API and Magento’s Import/Export functionality.

The book looks to be fantastic for people who need to get their head around how to code custom Payment/Shipping modules, with basic examples included in the book. As well as a section on Basic and Fully Featured Magento Modules. At 233 pages (excluding the index) it seems to cover alot of ground in what I would call a short amount of pages considering the vast functionality and code base behind Magento.

I’d recommend this book for anyone who is going to be developing sites in Magento, it gives you a great overview of the architecture of Magento and goes through step by step the processes of creating custom modules. I will be using it shortly for exactly that. You can grab your copy in both eBook or Book format here.