But it’s a start, and at least I’m pleased. Even if the type-on-paper motif is possibly a little anachronisitic and foolish on the web.

This is a work in progress. I just don’t have the energy to do this all in one fell swoop. So, for now, just the index is redesigned. The about page is not, the archives page isn’t done, and I haven’t even sorted the monthly and individual archives. Have no fear, I will do; it’s just an ongoing work in progress, a succession of tweaks. I’m also going to rejig the way comments display.

I think.

I had so many things to say this morning; they all disappeared into a flurry of spring cleaning (in July), of the bedroom, of the weblog. I have an article to finish and a book review to write. Subscribe to the RSS feed. It’ll keep you posted better than I possibly can.

The thing I really loved in the Kottke redesign was his photo navigation.

Standard photo album, sure. Except the navigation is fantastic: to go to the next image, you click anywhere in the right half of the photo. To go to the previous image, if there is one, you click on the left half.

It’s brilliant because it’s a simple, pure HTML based interface trick, and yet it neatly mimics the real-world action of turning over a page, flicking through photos. Neat-o.

(That’ll probably not be featuring on Photovore, then).

The oldest news on the net: Kottke redesigns. But still, it’s very nice; focus on content, very clear layout, and I’m warming to the idea of a seperate archives page. In fact, I’m warming to the idea of seperate pages. About the only thing I’m not keen on is lower-case Interstate, but that’s because I see a lot of Interstate every day.

And suddenly, it clicks into place. Take one or two things from the new design (which, though full of tidy code, works like a bit of a bodge) and incorporate into old. Rinse, lather, repeat, and what do you get? A very fresh looking infovore.

Redesign is not on indefinite hold, then; it’s just been rebranded. It’s now a spring-clean.

So much for redesigning. I’ve sat down, hammered out css and markup, getting my divs to float, getting my fonts to look good, and my lists to spread horizontally.

And it’s shit.

Well, it’s not shit, but I look at the new ‘improved’ version, and I look at what you see in front of you now, and I can’t help but think I prefer this. There are a few things that need fixing around here: broken graphics links on archive pages, for a start. I’d also really like to tidy up the sidebar – less grey, I feel, and less text in the brief links – and am really going to alter the structure of the external links.

I might also return to titling posts. Not sure yet. Anyhow: no great shakes coming about for a while. I spoke too soon. I’ve learned a few nifty CSS tricks, so it’s not wasted, but I’d rather just tweak this – which I do love – than start from scratch again.

The Gill Sans, though, is definitely staying.

I’m redesigning. A bit more radically than the change of typefaces you’ve just seen might suggest. I haven’t redesigned for a year, when I produced the first version of infovore. Well, it’s time for a change; there’s lots I want to do, lots I’ve seen I can do, so let’s go.

Words are all we have. I’ve been falling in love with type again recently, and want my site to reflect that. Also, there is some bodged CSS that needs to go. I’m going to have a good long think and a very careful clean-out. For now, I’ve redone the gifs. The layout, code, template, and MT tags will slowly come later. But this is the way I’m going.

Clean. Clear. Still monochrome. I may be some time.

My inbox now has 83 items in it. These are 83 messages that I haven’t given my full attention, perhaps even read at all; some of them have been demanding replies for about a week now. It’s been hectic and whilst I’ve had energy enough to process some information, I just haven’t got around to replying. So: it’s a Saturday afternoon, and getting a bit grey. Perfect time to catch up.

Until more arrive, of course.

Beautiful promo art for the new season of Six Feet Under. Am still flicking back to this in browser tabs just to gaze. Also, the trailer, cut to Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, is so worth your time it’s untrue.

No doubt I will see this in the UK in about a year’s time. Bah.

Notcon was, in retrospect, very good. Just-organised-enough, very friendly (even though I appeared to be lacking courage to talk to people – really, it was because I felt stupid) and I found a good deal to ruminate on. Danny O’Brien’s Lifehacks talk was very interesting, even if I’d read the notes from ETCON already – a great speaker and some good topics. James Larsson’s Prawn Sandwich Clock was inspired, and the whole Hardware panel was a wonderful cross-section of geekdom: tinkerers, bodgers, and compscis-turned good. The cameraphone tricknology was really great – nicely implemented and all.

TheyWorkForYou has been praised and applauded all over the web, so it’ll only get a brief mention here, but it deserves more. I’m definitely going to be keeping tabs on it – who knows, might get me being more proactive about politics after all. A mightly impressive project, congrats to all involved.

Other stuff I enjoyed? A better-than-I-expected discussion about blogging, with all expected DaveGreenisms, and a talk about mashups that turned into an excellent copyright discussion. The social software talk was a real disappointment – it appeared to have been jumped by people wanting to talk and bending the rules to fit their project. A shame; hopefully there’ll be a subsequent event to catch up on that.

I guess the thing I really enjoyed was the backchannel. I had a fairly good SubEthaEdit document for the final politics chat (will upload soon), and enjoyed the IRC channel all day – often irrelevant, but some useful insight, most often into what was going on in the other room. I was, if you’re interested, twra2 – my old university alias.

In the end, the whole thing made me aware of the gaps in my knowledge and skills. The former, I can probably append; but I know there’ll be some things I’ll never do. I’m a content person, a design person, an information person. I am hopefully going to learn some PHP/database stuff, and maybe also some scripting, but don’t hold your breath. I’m still learning how to design – both what buttons to push, and what colour to make said buttons. A lot of the time, what I really want is to be artistically creative: the novel is progressing now, so is some music. Sometimes, I feel that I could also get the same satisfaction digitally. Anyhow; this is the path I have chosen, and I like it. I will learn a scripting language when the novel is done.

Promise.

Sunday approaches. So, therefore, does NotCon. I will be there, and I’m really looking forward to it. If you’re a familiar face, it’d be lovely to see you.

I always seem to be trying to catch myself up. Perhaps it’s trying to do too many things – too many creative things – outside the office. I get scared by the bulk of them and retreat. Still, I had a pretty good bank holiday weekend. Saturday saw an afternoon in Putney drinking beer and passing time with the delightful Brooke, Sunday was a trip to see the Remix at the Metropolitan (Go Home Productions still rock my world), and then on Monday, a slow day indoors pottering.

I also trimmed my hedge for the first time, and it felt very satisfying.

I’m getting close to done with a piece of music for the first time in a long while. I’m also on the cusp of writing a big chunk of novel; unfortunately, post-work exhaustion usually leaves me unable to quite engage at that pace, but by the end of the week, I should be a good chapter down.

I still haven’t done my ironing, though. I keep on planning stuff, and then it all begins to run out of control. Need to slow down again, catch myself up. Tomorrow is ironing, novel. Thursday is something new. Friday, it’ll be the weekend again, and I shall again do my best not to procrastinate.

Oh, and I’m still taking some quite good pictures. I think, anyhow.