found_drama

• Burlington Nights

  (tags: Burlington Vermont music)

• Tutorial: AJAX Made Easy

  via Harry Maugans (via LifeHacker): a tutorial that covers a few AJAX fundamental concepts and walks you through building a basic AJAX app.

  (tags: ajax tutorial essay todo)

• The Caffeine Database

  via LifeHacker

  (tags: brain food health caffeine science humor)

• The Twelve Commandments of Flame: The Guide to Flaming

  via MeFi: “Lie, cheat, steal, and leave the toilet seat up…”

  (tags: internet humor)

• Javascript: Prototype

  Prototype Javascript Library easing the development of dynamic web applications

  (tags: javascript framework webdev ajax reference prototype)

Earlier today we embarked on a little upgrade here at F_D. We ditched our old [tag]Kubrick[/tag] bastardization (ne “Mario”) and upgraded the front-end to use the next-gen, deliciously [tag]AJAX[/tag]-y [tag]K2[/tag] framework. From there, we installed a slew of supporting plug-ins and tweaked the look-and-feel until we had achieved an approximation of our wireframe from yesterday. We have dubbed this skin “[tag]Pemulis[/tag]“. (Bonus points if you know where that comes from.)

So what’s the pay-off?

• Improved sidebar. From the admin side, it’s more easily maintainable/customizable through the SBM plug-in. On the user/front-end of things: better search, better highlighting of recent content, and more.
• More compatible styles. The del.icio.us link dumps should look right on the first hit now (for example). A wider content region gives us a little more wiggle room, too.
• Better tagging. We discovered Ultimate Tag Warrior (nice) which happens to be compatible with my old/existing tagging from SimpleTags (very very nice).
• Improved archives. We now have a dedicated Archives page that takes advantage of the Extended Live Archive plug-in for Chronology (time-based archives), Taxonomy (category-based archives), and Folksonomy (tags baby! - - but these still seem to work a little strangely). And the “rolling archives” feature built right onto the homepage gives instant, “no refresh required” access to all prior posts.
• Refreshed look. Our Pemulis skin on top of the K2 framework gives us a cleaner, more fluid look-and-feel with enhanced features.

So why now? Because I was sick this weekend. And it was raining anyway. And IE7 came out so (in theory) all of my old [tag]PNG[/tag] woes should be a thing of the past anyway. And I tipped over 1,000 photos in Flickr. And our 1 year anniversary of switching to [tag]WordPress[/tag] was coming up anyway. And/but we’ll be busy with NaNoWriMo next month. And what do you care “why now” anyway?

Enjoy. (And chime in if you see anything broken or if you like and/or hate the new look!)

currently playing: Portishead “Only You”