sjarvis.com » site update

lane change

Steven — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:16:10 +0000

So, after working as a web designer/developer in the newspaper industry for seven years, I’m changing gears. Friday is my last day at the paper, and I’m taking my design & consulting business, kudzu design full-time. Yup. I’ve got business cards and everything! I’ll even have an updated and expanded site up on the business site by next Monday (the “official” full-time relauch of kudzu design. I’ll get to spend more time working on varied design projects and less time doing the sort of administrative grunt work that I’ve come to dislike intensely. Plus, I’ll no longer be working for The Man.

My friends and family (with a few notable exceptions) have been really supportive, especially The Wife. I have some really interesting projects coming up that I’m dying to get to work on, too.

In addition to the new and exciting work to do, working for myself will also allow me to structure my workday to allow for more time with family and time for regular exercise (which I desperately need). It’s going to be a very good thing.

And I hope to blog more, too. Stay tuned…

site update: feeds and tags

Steven — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 03:38:50 +0000

I don’t make many posts discussing this site much anymore, but I thought it was worth pointing out a couple of new cool features here.

tags: I’ve done away with categories on the front end and the site is now organized by tags (cf. Folksonomy). The “tag archive” linked in the right sidebar will take you to a page with a weighted tag cloud of all the tags used on this site. The relative weight will show you what I tend to write about more (or less) here. I find it a good way to see how things go around here. Also, something cool: you can cross-reference tags here: enter something like “sjarvis.com/tag/rpg+podcast” and get all the posts I’ve written (well, just one, actually) that are tagged with BOTH “rpg” and “podcast” tags.
feeds: in addition to the new tag-based organizational system, there are rss feeds for each tag. Look for the newly-annointed “official” feed icon on the individual tag archive pages for rss2 feeds for individual tags. Each can be manually set to other feed formats (well, rss and atom, anyway) as well by altering the fairly obvious URL (changing “sjarvis.com/tag/rpg/feed/rss2/” to “sjarvis.com/tag/rpg/feed/atom” for instance).
other site updates: one of my resolutions is to redesign the site so that it’s not (a) mostly based on someone else’s design and (b) not fugly. I am, after all, an actual web designer/developer by trade. I should, you know, show that on my own site, right? Well, it’s in the works.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Steven — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 22:07:10 +0000

Changing hosting providers. Web and/or email to/from me will likely be a little wonky for a day or so as the new DNS settings propagate. Kudos to the new host, Dreamhost for making things pretty painless.

Technorati Tags: siteupdate, sjarvis

WordPress action

Steven — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 05:02:57 +0000

I started the migration to WordPress tonight. I got it installed supa-quick, and I got all my previous MT-powered posts imported with seemingly few hitches. I’ll be putting together a new design (“theme” in WP parlance) over the next few weeks. “Why not design the new look first then move to WP?” you ask. Well, because I was tired of MT, and I wanted to keep up my renewed interest in blogging. I’ll catch up soon.

del.icio.us links

Steven — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:38:40 +0000

Yeah, it’s been kinda quiet around here lately. But, there’s at least a daily update of my links posted to del.icio.us which is a totally kickass social boomarks/links app. It’s completely indispensible at this point.

I’ve been exploring more of the social sharing apps lately, and del.icio.us and Flickr are hands down the two best. I’ve got a random selection of my Flickr photos running over there to your right in the sidebar, too, and soon the SWJ Quicklinks will be del.icio.us powered instead of a separate blog in MT as they are now.

New design coming soonish, too. Really. I’m serious. Stop laughing.

MT Categories testing

Steven — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 23:46:56 +0000

My MT install seems to be hosed when it comes to assigning and managing categories. I may have to wipe them all out, rebuild, then start over. The idea doesn’t appeal to me.

TrackBack enabled

Steven — Fri, 19 Sep 2003 05:01:32 +0000

I adding TrackBack functionality to the blog tonight. It’s not like I really need it, but I like having it just in case. It makes things feel closer to complete.

mobile version

Steven — Sun, 31 Aug 2003 01:46:48 +0000

It’s rudimentary, but I have a mobile version of this main blog up and running. It’s basically just a stripped-down xhtml version, not WAP or WML. Since I’ve been exploring the wireless web since getting my new phone, I thought I’d eat a little of my own dogfood. More to come.

XHTML 1.1

Steven — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 05:22:06 +0000

As of today, this site is coded in valid XHTML 1.1. There may be a few individual entry pages that don’t due to poorly coded links, but the template validates and several randomly-sampled pages do, too. I realize this is of little or no interest to many of my readers, but I wanted to start practicing what I preach here.

My next step is to tweak each page (or template) so that the code is all semantic, with no presentational code. We’ll see how that goes. It’s not too far off the mark right now. Then I’m going to work on my 508 accessibility. I think most pages are there now (or close).

This is a trackback test

Steven — Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:51:00 +0000

dumpsterhead: nother test is a test post on my TypePad beta blog. There’s nothing really to see; I’m still playing around with the config stuff (hence the eyecatching color scheme).