Just to let everyone know. There seems to have been some site outages this morning. I’m not sure what the issue is at the moment, but I’m working on it. Keep trying if you can’t get on the site. Thanks, BK

UPDATE: Seems that we’re suffering from some bandwidth issues. The additional weight of the site just made the whole mess worse. I’ve removed the offending ads perminately, so as not to have a problem again. The sites speed still may be a little slow due to the bandwidth issues, but should be back to normal soon. Thanks, BK

Just wanted to let everyone know that this weeks tutorial is going to be a little late. Well to be perfectly honest I was working on finishing the Mountain Sunset tutorial, and started another tutorial. So, even though their late, your going to get two for the price of one. I’m just not sure which I’m going to finish first. Thanks, BK

As you’ve probably noticed there has been some major changes across the site today. Here’s a list of the updates:

1. Minor color changes: this mainly applies to the typically light background we’ve been using before, the sites logo, and the content area. I’ve found that the darker background is easier on the eyes, and renders better across diffrent monitors. I’ve also removed some of the light tan backgrounds for the same reasons. The logos been darkened just to make it stand out a little better. The post headings have been changed to match.

2. header consolidation: This is mainly to get rid of extra white space, and to make the page lighter. In the process I removed four divisions, and a fairly complex table. It also makes the page a little more dense. Navigation elements remain for the most part unchanged.

3. Dropping of RSS images: This was mainly do to page load. The two RSS icons were two of the three remaining images from the last two cuts. The new logo is also 1kb smaller. It looks a little ruff, but not to bad for a 2.5kb image.

4. Ad changes: There are several ad changes about the site. I had mentioned before that I was trying out some new services. I was a little disappointed in the page performance with the layout we had before, so I’m still tweaking placement, size, and services.

5. Single Post pages: I’ve returned to the three column layout on the post pages, but I’ve made the second column smaller. I’m very happy with the way it turned out, so this will stay for now.

6. Border Changes: Many of the border elements have been removed. This lightened the CSS file considerably, and made the page a little cleaner. However, I’m not sure yet as to how content separation’s going to play into this. If I go with borders next revision, you’ll know my answer.

Overall the changes trimmed another 5kb off the page load for the template. Removal of some of the borders, backgrounds, and images should help page load a little. With the addition of some new ads, you probably will not be able to tell the difference. If there are any issues, let me know.

As you’ve probably noticed there are some more website updates tonight. I made some changes to the quick bar, made the post and tutorial headers brighter, and some minor overall tweaks to section size for ads. Yes, I’m trying out some new ads as well. Let’s face it, I make barely enough off ads to pay for the domain and hosting. I won’t mention the hundreds of hours I have involved in keeping the site up to date several times daily, and any tutorials I write. Opps, well it’s a sore subject, especially with my wife

Speaking of tutorials, I’ll have another beginner tutorial up very shortly. I’ll hold off until then to tell you what it is, but I will say that it’s nothing like you have even read here before. Until then …

Thanks, BK

Update, I also changed some of the font sizes. I had left them larger for accessibility, but they were distracting for everyone else. Almost all browsers can increase font size on the fly now, so I’m moving the size back a little. These should be seen pretty much everywhere on the site. I want to make some changes to the individual post pages too, but I’m working on this on the fly with the web based html editor. I might pull down the latest copy and make the changes locally where I can use code highlighting and tab pages quickly. Code completion would make life a little easier too. Man, must be getting spoiled in my old age I’ll keep you updated.

We had some site outages this morning due to some server issues. Everything seems well now, but it did hold up my news posts for the morning. Just FYI

Thanks, BK