Robotjohnny.com>

The New Face of RobotJohnny.com

If you’re a regular visitor, you probably notice things look a little different around here.  After many late nights, this blog is finally redesigned using CSS for positioning and no tables.  And, for the first time ever, I not only coded a site entirely by hand with no wysiwyg software, I’ve also created a site that validates!

It’s not perfect, and there are still a few bugs, but it looks the same on the few browsers I tested it on.  It looks good in Safari and Firefox, and it took some struggling, but it should also look fine on Internet Explorer 5+ in Windows.  (Funnily enough, after getting the site to look right in Explorer on the PC, it fails to look right in Explorer on the Mac, but I figure if you’re on a Mac and you’re using Explorer instead of Safari or Firefox then you’ve got bigger problems).

Obviously, I just finished redesigning the site right when all the brouhaha began surrounding MovableType.  I like using MT, and as a single user the pricing scheme doesn’t immediately affect me, so I’m continuing to use it, and this site is now powered by version 3.0.

So what’s new in this version of RobotJohnny.com?

* There are numerous banner graphics that load at random.  Design and usability snobs might say this is impractical, but for me this site’s about having fun and being creative.
* The main page now features a trendy “link-of-the-moment” section which gives me a place to post links that are worth sharing but don’t necessarily merit an entire post.
* Using KungTunes, the main page also now displays whatever song I’m currently listening to in iTunes.
* I’ve ditched AllConsuming, whose servers are as slow as hell, in favour of the MTAmazon plugin.
* The blogroll has been moved to its own links page where it shares company with various other non-blog links.
* Finally, I’ve enabled TrackBack for those of you other bloggers who want to take advantage of it.  TrackBack entries show up on the sidebar of an entry’s page, and that entry’s TrackBack URL can always be found at the bottom of the page below the comments.

I checked how the site looks on other browsers using a friend’s Windows laptop (Thanks, Mira!) and I also payed for an hour of BrowserCam (which didn’t last long).  But that being said, do let me know if you see any glaring problems ( The biggest cross-browser problem is that the sidebar didn’t always line up with the background graphic) and what platform/browser you’re using.  I’d obviously like to have the site look as nice as possible in every browser.

So welcome to RobotJohnny.com, version 6.0!  Kick your feet up, relax, and enjoy your stay.

Oh, and another thing: when I imported my entries from the previous site, some of the authored-on and comment dates had their time switched from AM to PM (and vice-versa).  Anyone able to shed some light on that?