Digital Cowboy

Digital Cowboy
Poker is life. Life is poker.

Only a little over 3 months late

April 26th, 2005

When I threw this blog up on a whim one night, I promised that I would soon put some style on it. Of course I never got around to it. Graphic design is NOT my thing. I’m a code geek; totally left brained. I looked at a few templates a couple of times but never could get enthused. I kept telling myself that “it’s about the content anyway!” so that I could justify letting the site design languish.

I just got off the phone a few minutes ago with Difster. He looked at the new site and proudly told me that the old one was an eyesore.

I knew that. But it’s about the content! Actually, it’s not. I was just being lazy and, in my typical perfectionist way, avoiding tackling something I knew I couldn’t do well.

Now that I’ve explained all that, I have to confess that this design is not remotely mine. It’s the default theme for WordPress 1.5. My hosting service had a problem today (the first problem I’ve had with them in over 5 years) so I decided that since the blog had already been down for a while today, it was as good as scheduled downtime for the 10 minutes or so I’ve been needing to do this upgrade.

I like the new look and I love the new features. WordPress really rocks.

Maybe someday I’ll even get motivated to do some tweaking and add an email address or a background image for that huge frickin’ blue banner or something. The next project is going to be pop-up comments. I’m hoping to complete that tonight… But “The Dukes of Hazzaard” is on as I type this so… no promises.

UPDATE: Pop-up comments are now working. I want no crap from anyone about how the text is all centered and too small and the banner at the top is too big. I’m aware, but I have Dukes to watch. I’ll pretty it up later tonight or tomorrow or sometime later this year. Just be thankful that the main page isn’t an “eyesore” anymore you ungrateful jackals!

Posted in Blog & Geek junk at 9:23 PM • 28 Comments »

28 Responses to “Only a little over 3 months late”

  1. Thus saith Difster on April 26th, 2005 at about 9:57 pm:

    …like Visine after a sand storm.

    Much better.

  2. Thus saith Arielle on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:15 am:

    I really like the new look. The text for the comments seems pretty tiny though – you discriminating against those with poor vision? =P

  3. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:33 am:

    You steppin’ to me, Arielle? ‘Cause I’ll smack you down if I have to.

    Just kiddin’. I wouldn’t smack anybody other than verbally and sometimes I feel bad about that.

    I’ll get this tiny text in the comments fixed very soon. It bugs me too.

  4. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:35 am:

    And I just noticed that the pop-up comments don’t seem to be working quite right. I posted my comment and got the main post page loaded into the comments pop-up window.

    That ain’t right. Seems every project spawns another…. *sigh*

    Guess I have my work for tomorrow.

  5. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:40 am:

    Time stamps aren’t working right, either. For some reason my comments are getting time stamped with mountain time. Add an hour to all the time stamps here to get Central time or 2 for Leftist, Washington D.C. time until I can get it fixed.

  6. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:42 am:

    At least it’s purty now.

    I might even add a comment preview function one o’ these here days.

  7. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 1:53 am:

    Man, them Dukes kicked some butt tonight, though. They managed to catch the crooks, save Boss Hogg and foil and humiliate him at the same time!

    I don’t know how they do it over and over and over. Must be the prayer they say before every meal.

  8. Thus saith Jamie R on April 27th, 2005 at about 6:24 am:

    “Man, them Dukes kicked some butt tonight, though.”

    I haven’t seen the Dukes in awhile. That show, Knight Rider, The A-Team, and Different Strokes were the shows I just HAD to watch as a kid. I had my own General Lee model car too. The Dukes kicked arse. I’m definitely going to see The Dukes of Hazzard feature film when it comes out.

  9. Thus saith Elena on April 27th, 2005 at about 7:32 am:

    Wow…DC’s gettin’ domestic at the blog. Nice digs, dearie. I like the blue banner.

  10. Thus saith Serena on April 27th, 2005 at about 9:16 am:

    Yep, blue’s my favorite color. Looks nice. Glad you got it done, brother. Bet it feels good, that is from one procrastinator to another – also struggle with the perfectionism thing but doing much better at almost 50 than I used to do.
    Shalom,
    Serena

  11. Thus saith cZja on April 27th, 2005 at about 10:00 pm:

    Looking good, buddy!

  12. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 27th, 2005 at about 11:47 pm:

    Jamie,

    I loved The A-Team and Knight Rider, too, but neither of them ever compared to the Dukes. When the General Lee model kit came out, I called all over town trying to find one and everyone was sold out. I finally made friends with the owner of the local hobby shop and he held one for me when they came in. He got them in late on Friday and my dad took me to get it when they opened on Saturday morning.

    I built the model and then broke the wheels off of it about 200 times doing jumps with it.

    When CMT brought the Dukes back recently, I mentioned that story to my sister and because she’s so thoughtful and kind, I now have a brand new General Lee model kit sitting on the desk next to me as I type this.

    If only I could get some time away from the kids to work on it…

  13. Thus saith Matildah on April 28th, 2005 at about 2:42 am:

    “…like Visine after a sand storm.”

    Well put. I didn’t know that the old look was bad (my site’s PINK, so what can I really say anyway?:) But as soon as I saw it, my contacts relaxed. It looks incredibly better.

  14. Thus saith Matildah on April 28th, 2005 at about 2:46 am:

    Leaving comments is quite exciting, too. I don’t know what’s gonna happen after I “Say It!” hahaha

  15. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 3:02 am:

    Glad you like it, Mattie. (I hope you don’t mind if I call you Mattie. I like it so much better than Matildah. Besides, your real name is the same as my wife’s, I think.) I like it too and, as I said in the post, I can’t take credit. I suck at design and whoever did this template, clearly doesn’t.

    Right now I’m in the process of: 1) modifying the PHP to stop reloading the main page when a comment is posted instead of the comments page, 2) getting the comment preview functionality to work with pop-up comments and 3) deciphering this design genius’s style sheet so that I can make the comments look decent in pop-up mode.

    In the meantime, you all should note that if you don’t like the current state of my pop-up comments, you can simply add “#comments” to the end of the URL and get the old style comments. (Example with this post: “http://markjshaw.net/wp/?p=101#comments”)

  16. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 3:07 am:

    If you do that, you’ll also get “live preview” of your comment text. Meaning, that you will see a preview of your comment being typed out character for character as you type it, below the comment box.

    I’m still playing with it and still trying to get it working with pop-up comments, but it looks pretty cool, so far.

  17. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 4:37 am:

    OK, Difster keeps insisting that I have ADD. Maybe he’s right because I’ve now been up all night working on the three problems I mentioned above… all at the same time.

    I’ve solved none of them, though I did manage to get the button changed from “Say it!” to “Squawk!”

    It’s now after 5:30. I’m tired and my daughters will be up in about two and a half hours so I must give up for tonight. But I will not give up. I’m back on this tomorrow. I’ve never yet met code that could stare me down.

  18. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 5:46 am:

    I did get the time stamp problem fixed. Just now.

    And I just noticed that if you do the “?p=post number#comments” thing that I recommended earlier, you not only get a half working live preview but, thanks to a major screw-up I made while futzing with the style sheet, you’ll also get really, really big text in the comments.

    One extreme to the other. That’s me, baby.

  19. Thus saith Difster on April 28th, 2005 at about 1:46 pm:

    Hyper foucs
    Lack of focus
    Hyper focus
    Lack of focus

    Classic symptom of ADD and the way Digital Cowboy lives his life.

  20. Thus saith Arielle on April 28th, 2005 at about 2:19 pm:

    steppin’ to you? I’ve never heard that phrase, what does it mean?

  21. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 3:24 pm:

    Arielle, dear, it’s a ghetto phrase that means you’re trying to start a fight.

    You must be very sheltered, not that that’s a bad thing.

  22. Thus saith Difster on April 28th, 2005 at about 8:04 pm:

    This centered tex is driving me crazy.

  23. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 8:12 pm:

    Me too, Difster. Hopefully I’ll get that fixed tonight along with a number of other nagging problems. My CSS skills are a little rusty and I can’t seem to decipher the style sheet properly.

    In the meantime, instead of clicking on the comments link, click on the post title and you’ll get the comments the old way.

  24. Thus saith digitalcowboy on April 28th, 2005 at about 8:13 pm:

    Or…

    By “centered tex” were you referring to me and how balanced I am?

  25. Thus saith Arielle on April 29th, 2005 at about 12:23 am:

    Ahh! I’m very white (and yes, rather sheltered) and have not been exposed to all those ghettofabulous phrases.

    I was just poking a little fun at your comment setup – if that provokes you into fighting, you need to cut back on the caffeine. ;)

  26. Thus saith Dumpster Juice on April 29th, 2005 at about 5:38 am:

    Perfect DC!

  27. Thus saith Elena on April 29th, 2005 at about 8:58 am:

    *sings* “Ghetto supah-star, that is what you are…”

    I like the term “front step trippin’” (the person is crazy) and “all up in this piece” (all around this place) and “up in my grill” (in my face or riding my car’s bumper). I use them frequently.

  28. Thus saith Difster on April 29th, 2005 at about 6:17 pm:

    ‘Tex’ ‘Text’ What’s the difference?

    Just get it fixed.