I am very pleased to launch the Christmas theme.

My themes to date have utilized the same layout, but hey I’m a busy man.

Hope you all like the new look. Have a very Merry Christmas!

Well obviously I launched a new Theme today.

(for those of you who are reading this at some point further in the future… trust me today there was a change in the site design)

If you want a big long explanation of how and why I did this, and the cool techno-geek work behind it please read this news story.

But in the meantime I wanted to get all of your opinions on the new design.

I can change themes on the fly so if this one royally sucks we can roll back to the previous one.

Personally I think it’s a nice change.

I was ready for a little something different.

As I get more and more themes created I’ll probably switch them out pretty often. (gotta keep things fresh here)

Fear not though just because we changed themes doesn’t mean we won’t see the other again.

It’s in the theme library and can be called upon at any time.

Let me know what you think seriously.

Is it easy enough to read the font colors?

What do you think about the logo, images, and color distribution?

Better or worse than the last one?

Today I launched the first “New” theme since the site was rebuilt using my Wiba application.

I hope you all enjoy it.

The real news here though is that the Wiba platform makes it ridiculously easy to change the site’s theme (look and feel) so you can expect more theme changes in the future.

Best of all launching a new theme doesn’t get rid of the old one at all.

I can activate any of the themes I have created at any time.

So hopefully I’ll soon have a number of “standard” themes I can cycle through, as well as themes specific to certain Holidays or events.

The theme functionality also allows me to change the layout of the site along with the Style, logos, and backgrounds. So at the push of a button the site can be completely different.

Cool huh?!

Well that’s all I have for you at the moment.

Hope you enjoy the new theme.

This week I will be taking the reins at HFO.

Kevin and his lovely family are enjoying a well deserved break from the rat race and I will overseeing the day to day operations until his return.

Be sure to stop by HFO this week and post your thoughts about the blogs, moods, and JAWs that are posted. Hopefully HFO will be proven to have been left in good hands.

I will make every effort not to let things slip around here while I am working on HFO. But in all honesty the site here has been limping along ever since the hacking bastards forced our move/rebuild… so I don’t think we’ll have any problem keeping up with the current pace.

Some of you may have noticed the quiet return of the Quoteboard.

Don’t expect it to be quite any longer!!

The Quoteboard front end, and administration tools have been completed and we’re back in business.

Also the old Quoteboard data has been restored as best it could be, and in the end we didn’t lose as much as we could have.

(maybe a month or two at most)

But that’s not all that got finished.

The capsguide is back up. The features page is ready to go, and the admin tool has been upgraded to allow for system alerts.

Trust me it’s a good thing.

This is an exciting time here at DougMeade.com because that leaves only one MAIN piece of the site left to rebuild.

The photo album.

The photo album may not be the next thing to be scratched off the to-do list though as getting other features done first may help facilitate the new and improved photo section.

Stay tuned for more news.

In the meantime start submitting those quotes again!

A bug that was keeping the name of visitors who signed the guestbook from displaying properly on the what’s new list has been fixed.

Should you see any further issues please let me know.

In the mean time stay tuned for the end game of the DougMeade.com rebuild.

Well things are moving along.

I’ve got the logging/What’s new system built, and now the news section is very nearly complete.

Hopefully I’ll get the old quote data and Guestbook data loaded into the database this weekend. But no promises… we have a wedding to go to on Saturday.

Also on the list of “Easy things to get done quickly” is the CAPS guide. I basically just need to get this uploaded and point a page to it.

The completion of the news section and the logging/what’s new sections marks a very important turning point here.

Once the quoteboard is finished only the Photo Album will remain on the list of critical areas to REbuild after those hacking bastards messed everything up.

Keep an eye on the development page as things get further along.