from under the trees.

This is the first real post on my new blog.

After pushing many buttons and seeing many, many PHP errors, I’ve managed to cobble together my first WordPress-powered website. I hereby announce dkoo.net, v5.2! This is a tentative squeak of a launch, because I’m *absolutely certain* that I’ll be running into many more bugs in the future as I build out the content and add features. Anyway, some background on the new design. I wanted a new look after a year of the last design, and I ended up deciding that the outdated HTML/blogger combo just wasn’t doing it for me. I also decided that I should update my HTML/CSS skills, so I did a bunch of reading on XHTML and CSS and decided, on a whim, to make my next site 100% w3-compliant. I definitely didn’t have a clue how much work and learning that entailed, but I’m really glad I went through it, because since I started reading up on it and messing with this site, my website development skills have improved a whole lot. I’ve already started designing another WordPress-powered, XHTML/CSS site for a paying client, and though my progress has been slower than I would have liked, I’m confident that the end product will be much better now that I’ve been through the development of this one.

Another reason I wanted to break away from the whole blogger thing was because my incessant whining of days past was starting to get embarrassing. I promised myself that on my next blog, I’d be a lot more straightforward, a lot less hoity-toity and a lot less whiny than in my previous blogging efforts. So, here’s hoping I can keep up with that promise, as well as write some stuff that people might actually read. If not, then I at least hope that I keep updating it for my own sake.

There’s no way I could have built this site without the tons of tutorials and plug-ins that are available for WordPress newbs. For posterity’s sake, I’d like to list a few of the resources I used that I found essential in helping me finish my site. If you’re not interested in geeky tech stuff, feel free to skip!

• So You Want to Create WordPress Themes, huh? - This is a great tutorial on creating custom WordPress themes. It leaves no stone unturned, and follows the entire process from creating your first index.php template page to implementing a comments system and using rudimentary PHP to controlling variables in the theme. I couldn’t have done it without this resource.
• Category Tagging Plugin - From the start, I knew I wanted to use tags instead of the default WordPress filing system of categories. This plugin offered the easiest and cleanest way to do it. Tags are simpler to use, easier to cross-reference between multiple related posts and just plain cooler when you leverage them for a tagcloud, as I did for one of my archive pages. Right now there are only a couple tags, of course, but as this site grows I hope to see the tagcloud grow exponentially with it.
• Secure Contact Form Plugin - I receive a metric f*ckton of spam every day. It’s my fault for not taking the necessary precautions in the past. But I figured, why exacerbate the problem further? I knew I wanted a secure contact form on my site instead of just printing my e-mail address for all to see (and steal), but I had no clue how to code the PHP to do it. This plugin let me plop one into my template with complete styling in less than 20 minutes.
• Lightbox JS 2.03 - Notice the fancy animated boxes on this site that pop over the page every time you click a link to an image? Those are lightboxes. It’s one of the most attractive and useful scripts ever. It’s so much more elegant to pop over than up, and it makes using galleries much more accessible for viewers and developers alike. It also makes it much, much easier to add images in a snap, as there’s no extraneous markup or pages needed to add images to a gallery, just another hyperlink. And, the best part is, it’s just so damn cool-looking.
• Last.fm Recent Tracks Plugin - This one is kind of superfluous, but because I listen to so much music and enjoy sharing my discoveries with others, I figured it would be nice to have some kind of feed from my iTunes directly to my website. This plugin accomplishes that task perfectly, easily and with style.
• SRG Clean Archives Plugin - Makes the dated archives page that much more elegant and organized. If you use it, make sure you get the latest version…the link is to the original 2005 post, which has all the introductory info.
• The WordPress Codex - It’s unruly, disorganized and full of overwhelmingly detailed technical content, yes, but it’s still the most complete reference available for building your WordPress-based site. I used it a whole lot, and I’d bet even seasoned WordPressers still use it for personal reference.
• CSSMania - When I was brainstorming for my new design, website showcases like this one saved my ass. CSSMania is the best and most frequently updated, and archives thousands of beautifully designed, beautifully coded websites for your inspiration and appreciation. I tried very hard not to rip anything directly off of any site, but I will be the first to admit that my design and coding was heavily influenced many of the sites I saw here first. I predict I’ll continue to visit frequently in the future, if only to see and be amazed by what better designers are capable of creating.
• The W3 XHTML and CSS Validators: These are the best validators available for XHTML and CSS, straight from the organization that sets web standards. I had no concept of the value of web standards before starting this design, but the short of it is that standards-compliant coding ensures that your site will look as good as possible across as many different browsers and platforms as possible. Almost every time I added or changed a line of code in my pages or stylesheet, I’d check it against these validators, and I’m happy to say my site is 99.9% standards-compliant.
• Google Analytics - Leave it to Google to invalidate scores of paid-service web stats services by releasing a superior product for free. Analytics is better than most of those old trackers, and, uh, it’s free.
• enzee.net - A good friend of mine. Our geeky talks about website design first got me thinking about redesigning my site, so I guess this whole site sort of snowballed from talking with her. She’s been doing the whole website design thing for longer than I have. Her site is, incidentally, beautiful.

And that about wraps up my first post. Here’s hoping I actually keep up to date with it! Please feel free to leave comments — all you have to do is register for my site. Don’t worry, I *promise* not to spam you.

Cheers,

-D

Listening: Gonga - Pocket Scientist