Lean Back
by matt at 6:36 am on January 5th, 2005 in GeneralSeems people are a bit more touchy about site design than I would have guessed. It was fun getting all kinds of emails and IMs with subjects like “What the Fuck?” Even Dr. Kate took time out of her busy doctoring schedule to get in on the action with not one but TWO emails suggesting that we were taking out our aggression on our readers through our choice of color schemes. (I may have that diagnosis wrong, but I’m not a doctor.)
Anyway, an explanation is in order for our loyal readers, so here it is.
Shortly after we started this site, our hosting company decided that Movable Type (MT) was a danger to their very way of life, a threat to their bottom line and quite possibly anti-American (or at least vaguely French.) But they grandfathered us with a warning that if MT caused any problems on their precious servers we would be visited by someone named “Vinnie” and 1115.org would be reduced to the recycle bin.
Well, that time arrived around closing time on New Year’s Eve in the form of a seven-day-notice that we would be deleted. Honorable, upstanding comment-spammers who just want to help you achieve and maintain sexual performance, credit cards, larger breasts, and a winning stock portfolio became just a bit overzealous in their advertising tactics and according to our hosting company, caused sparks to shoot out of our server rack.
Our hosting company then displayed a certain amount of confusion between “taking our money in return for a service” with “doing us a big favor by letting our site reside on their servers.” It was a lot of fun, trust.
So the scramble began to move from MT to another software package. We decided on WordPress at the urging of Russ who saved our asses (no homo) on very short notice.
We moved everything over on Monday and had to delete MT on Tuesday which resulted in the offensive color scheme going live. Suffer. Hopefully the new theme isn’t quite as aggressive or offensive. We’re still making some changes, but if you see anything weird (not including the picture of Killa Cam in the logo) please let us know.
We’d like to thank all of our browser testers, Colin, Mitch, Tom and Anne. Also Jamie and Sam for hooking us up with Russ, and Russ for getting the installation done.
Actual content tomorrow. Promise.
(Ed. note: we have since changed hosts to Bluehost, and are much better off.)
screwtape wrote:
i actually like the new format. it looks pretty. change is nice.
Posted 05 Jan 2005 at 7:37 am ¶
afrosam wrote:
Shake-up is always good. By the way, you may not know this but you have an avid 1115 contingent in of all places, gay Paree (no homo.) No really, my friend Glen, who says he writes to you guys often, has cultivated a readership in that haven of curdled milk and bubbly wine. Voila!
PS - new comment box needs a ‘preview’ button.
Posted 05 Jan 2005 at 7:53 am ¶
Alex wrote:
Nice “face lift” for the ‘05!
If you haven’t already seen this, check it - is it real? http://rawstory.rawprint.com/1204/westboro_tsunami_statement_104.php
Posted 05 Jan 2005 at 8:35 am ¶
Jackson West wrote:
Now I get it. From our MT blacklist logs, we do get gadzillions of hits from spammers trying to leave comments - the bastards. I think Moveable Type has become like windows, since it’s so widely used and has such an open comment system. Hmmm. Good luck with wordpress, and I don’t mind the new site at all. Kind of like it, actually.
Posted 05 Jan 2005 at 1:17 pm ¶
Rob wrote:
The new skin reminds me of that waiting lounge scene in 2001: A Space Odyessy where Dr. Floyd talks briefly with some polite “Soviets.” Something reminiscent in all the heavy rectilinear areas and the color scheme. Very chi-chi, very retro. We give it a 7.
Posted 05 Jan 2005 at 11:31 pm ¶