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Last post Author Topic: Announcing my new website (superboyac).  (Read 63085 times)

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #25 on: July 21, 2008, 12:53 PM »
So, I feel like I'll be sticking with Wordpress.  I can't imagine something being any easier or more convenient without having to learn a lot of coding or other complexities.  There are so many plugins.  So far, I haven't had the need to do any tweaking as far as code, but I think I will have to do it at least a little bit (unless I keep finding cool plugins).

Armando

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #26 on: July 21, 2008, 01:42 PM »
I'm going to build my own website soon too. All this is very informative.  :up:

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #27 on: July 21, 2008, 01:54 PM »
I'm going to build my own website soon too. All this is very informative.  :up:
Cool!  Glad it helps.  I swear, there's a plugin for everything.  Once I'm close to a finished product for the webpage, I'll write in detail how I did it.  And I think it will be useful because it will be from the perspective of someone who is trying to do the least amount of work as possible!  Ha!

zridling

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #28 on: July 21, 2008, 11:25 PM »
Wow, looks great. Can't wait for the content!

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #29 on: July 22, 2008, 10:07 AM »
Wow, looks great. Can't wait for the content!
Thanks Z!  Much of the content of my software section will be modeled after your site.  I love how you just name a piece of software and give a quick little blurb about it, it's very useful.  Also, ever since you took down your short paragraph reviews, I've been meaning to bring them back.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #30 on: July 22, 2008, 04:59 PM »
Is there a good software out there where I can automate image preparation for a website?  Something that will take an image, and create 3 versions of that image with the proper filenames and resized appropriately (for thumbnails, feature images, and medium size images).  Something like a macro or similar.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #31 on: July 22, 2008, 06:49 PM »
Oh!!  I totally forgot about a great program I bought several years ago and never used.  To answer my question above, there's a program called Thumbnailer that is amazing for this sort of thing.  And the last time I used it, they were on version 6 or something.  Now it's version 9.  It's awesome.  It can resize images just the way I was describing above with a couple of clicks.  Awesome awesome awesome!!

I highly recommend this program.  I remember researching similar programs back then, and this was hands down the most powerful, customizeable thumbnail creation program.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2008, 10:16 AM by superboyac »

Armando

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #32 on: July 22, 2008, 11:17 PM »
Thanks for answering your own question so well!! ;D Still very informative!  :up:

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #33 on: July 23, 2008, 10:20 AM »
Thanks for answering your own question so well!! ;D Still very informative!  :up:
Yeah, it happens!  Thumbnailer is such a great program (zridling, add this to your list).  The screenshots show how I resize my website photos properly with one click:
Screenshot_20080723-081023.pngAnnouncing my new website (superboyac).   Screenshot_20080723-081041.pngAnnouncing my new website (superboyac).   Screenshot_20080723-081140.pngAnnouncing my new website (superboyac).

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #34 on: July 23, 2008, 05:08 PM »
Well, the site is coming along nicely.  Just adding a single picture to each article really drastically improves the presentation.  And that Options theme from Justin T. is great with the way it lays out the articles and thumbnails.

I've added the site to my profile and signature.

justice

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #35 on: July 24, 2008, 03:15 AM »
Here's the plugins that I use you might find some useful:
@ Reply     1.0.1 
This plugin allows you to add Twitter-like @reply links to comments. By Yus.

AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget    1.0    
Help your visitor promote your website or blog. Put the AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget on your site or blog, so any visitor can easily bookmark it. The widget works with all popular bookmarking services. By AddThis.com.

Akismet    2.1.6    
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin. By Matt Mullenweg.

Get Recent Comments    2.0.2    
Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar. Visit Options/Recent Comments after activation of the plugin. By Krischan Jodies.

Highlight Author Comments    1.0.0    
Automatically applies a distinctive style to comments by the post’s author. By Rob Marsh, SJ.

Nice Search    0.2    
Redirects ?s=query searches to /search/query, and converts %20 to + By Mark Jaquith.

SimpleFlickr    3.0.3    
This plugin allows you to embed a Simpleviewer Flash Object integrated with a Flickr account. By Josh Gerdes.

Subscribe To Comments    2.1.2    
Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess By Mark Jaquith.

Twitter Tools    1.1b1    
A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Configure your settings here. By Alex King.

WP Super Cache    0.6.5    
Very fast caching module for WordPress. Once enabled, you must enable the cache. Based on WP-Cache by Ricardo Galli Granada. By Donncha O Caoimh.
You really want to use WP Super Cache for performance reasons.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #36 on: July 24, 2008, 04:09 PM »
Thanks Justice, good advice.  I will start looking at these things.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #37 on: July 25, 2008, 02:14 PM »
I posted this somewhere else, but you guys may be more helpful.  I'm learning css for the first time, and this is a problem I can seem to solve.  For those that know css, feel free to offer advice!


Here is my site:
http://aram.dcmembers.com/

I'm modifying the existing css theme to copy as much as possible the following webpage:
http://libremagazine.com/

Now, see those navigation links in white at the top? I'm having trouble doing two things:
1) I'm trying to get exactly one pixel border around each navigation box. But by adding a border around each one, the border in between will be 2 pixels because it adds the border from the two adjacent sides. So I tried using border-left, border-right, border, but I can't figure out how to get just one pixel in between.  Also, the reason I used border-right and border-left instead of border is so the white empty space next to the links will line up exactly.  I was (am still) having a hard time having the one pixel border lining up.  By adding a pixel to the overall navigation bar and then another pixel to those link blocks, would throw off the lines by one pixel.  Here is the code:
Code: CSS [Select]
  1. /* Main and sub-navigation */
  2. #navigation, #sub-navigation { float: left; text-transform: none; letter-spacing: .03em; text-align: left; }
  3. #navigation { width: 942px; font-size: 1em; background: #FFFFFF; border: 0px solid #DEDBD1; /*url(images/nav-right-dark.gif) no-repeat right top;*/ }
  4. #sub-navigation { width: 940px; font-size: .8em; background: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #DEDBD1; border-bottom: none; }
  5.  
  6. #navigation.nav-search { width: 740px; }
  7. #nav { float: left; padding:  0 0 0 0px; background: #FFFFFF /*url(images/nav-left-dark.gif) no-repeat left top;*/ }
  8.  
  9. /* List items */
  10. #nav li, #sub-nav li { float: left; border-left: 1px  solid #DEDBD1; border-right: 1px  solid #DEDBD1; }
  11. #nav li li, #sub-nav li li { float: left; width: 150px; background: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #DEDBD1; }

2) The other thing I can't figure out is how to make that top part (the main navigation and header image area) to span the entire window instead of the width of the rest of the page. I really like that look. I want to do the same to the bottom of the webpage also.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2008, 04:25 PM by superboyac »

Shades

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #38 on: July 26, 2008, 01:16 AM »
Define a size of -1 for one of the sides that touch each other. That is the simplest thing I can think of right now (it is possible to define a different border for each side (left, right, top, bottom)).

Some CSS cheat sheets that will help you on your way:

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #39 on: July 28, 2008, 10:47 AM »
By the way, what do you people think of my logo?  Don't be afraid to criticize.  I'm just going for a clean, professional look.
header-dark.gif

Initially, my slogan was "Only the Good Stuff", but someone said it reminded them of a Kenny Chesney song, which is true.  As I can't stand Kenny CHesney, I had to change it.  "Top of the Line" was a slogan my cousin and I used to say a lot when we were kids and were always trying to find the best things to get.

tomos

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #40 on: July 28, 2008, 04:35 PM »
By the way, what do you people think of my logo?  Don't be afraid to criticize.  I'm just going for a clean, professional look. (see attachment in previous post)
Initially, my slogan was "Only the Good Stuff", but someone said it reminded them of a Kenny Chesney song, which is true.  As I can't stand Kenny CHesney, I had to change it.  "Top of the Line" was a slogan my cousin and I used to say a lot when we were kids and were always trying to find the best things to get.

I like it but somehow it looks funny in situ -
maybe if the red line continued across the page? - I'm no designer - I can spot when something could be better but unfortunately usually dont have a clue how make it better ...

I'm a bit unsure of the flash (is it flash?) thingy, but maybe if the logo was made more dominant in the page it might sort that
Tom

Armando

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #41 on: July 28, 2008, 07:26 PM »
Nice work!  :up:
I agree with Tom about the logo. I'd try continuing the line farther across the page.
I'm not a big fan of animated  stuff either -- unless it allows me to experience (or have  access to) something different, that other parts of the page/links, etc. don't/can't allow. I'm all in favor of pictures/graphics though, when they make the content of the different articles more explicit (like the ones you put to illustrate your different articles).

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #42 on: July 29, 2008, 10:34 AM »
OK, I've decided to change my slogan again.  Now it will be:
"Uncovering Truth, Beauty, and Goodness"

I don't know what the logo will be yet.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #43 on: August 06, 2008, 01:20 PM »
OK, I just put up my first "fun" post.  It's about my coffee mug.  Now, I finally have something in the miscellaneous column.

Yesterday, I made a list of the software that I'm planning to put in the software section.  it includes about 80 little discussions of all the tools I recommend.  I guess that's the section people here would be most interested in.

I still have a lot of work to do on the site to make it look and function the way I want it to.

Since the whole software part was partly inspired by Zaine's great software list, I'm going to have a special feature...for software that we agree on, there will be a nice little avatar indicating.  For software in similar categories that we disagree on, I'll have a fun little dueling icon.

mouser

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #44 on: August 06, 2008, 01:45 PM »
It’s like Pay it Forward, only with envy instead of altruism.



great read.  :up:

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #45 on: August 06, 2008, 03:36 PM »
Glad you liked it!  Did you find the layout of the article comfortable while reading, with the pictures, size of the pictures and such?

mouser

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #46 on: August 06, 2008, 03:38 PM »
perfect i thought.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #47 on: August 06, 2008, 04:01 PM »
Great, thanks!  This is pretty fun.  I wish I were wearing my tie today, so the coffee picture would have been more formal!  I'm studying for the GRE right now, but when I have more time, I'm really going to tweak some of the minor things on the site.  Mouser, really, thanks for making me stick to wordpress.  Now that I'm learning this stuff a little, I think I would have had a nightmare with anything else.

mouser

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #48 on: August 06, 2008, 04:12 PM »
GRE study, good luck!!
gre study is like a game -- you really do get better just by practicing.. definitely do full length practice tests.. i found that was most confidence building in terms of learning how long you could spend.

superboyac

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Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).
« Reply #49 on: August 06, 2008, 05:55 PM »
Yeah, the GRE is definitely like a game.  Unfortunately, there are only a few computer adaptive practice exams available and I'm saving those for the optimum time.  For what I'm trying to do, the quantitative sections are the important ones, as in, I need to get 800 on it, which shouldn't be all that hard for me.  I've been practicing for a little bit now, and usually I'll miss only 1 problem per 30 questions when I'm careless.  But like I said, the practices that I have are mostly paper.  You're right, the timing is the most crucial part.