[EDIT]

Right, due to the nature of the backup I used a lot of the database was scrambled, I have just finished running custom scripts to de-scramble it and things should be running smoothly once again.

I had begun to get bored with the last one a while ago, however I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to really work on this website. Those who visit here regularly may notice that I will do redesign and publish it when it is only half baked. That is why a lot of static content is missing from the projects, photography, portfolio and colophon, I simply ran out of time and published it with the mindset of finishing it when I got round to it.

Well as I never really got round to fixing the old theme I have decided to make a new one, you may have already noticed that it is similar to a few well known websites and you would be right in thinking so. To quell any fears, I haven’t plagerised them byte by byte instead I have chosen my favourite elements from each design and put them here.

The basic requirements for the redesign where the following:

• Back to basics: meaning very simple mark-up. If it can be done without using excessive elements then it will be done with out them
• Standardised: I tended to focus simply on the front page and work out every other page
• from there. With this design and consequently future designs, I have worked on each page as their own creative domain. Thus the about page looks different from the gallery and the gallery looks different from the front page. I believe this helps give the different areas of this website their own look and feel.
• Simple Theme: this is the same as back to basics, however not just with the code, I decided that this redesign is to use as few images within it as possible. Not only does this help with accessibility issues, but it also means quicker load times and less load on my poor aging server.

With that all said and done, I shall be re-coding my old pinecone theme and publishing it here very soon as I have had quite a few people email me with interest in using it on their own blog.

I spent a good few days working on the markup alone before I got anywhere near creating the custom wordpress theme, however I feel it was time well spent as it meant that the design was completely finished for launch and all I would have to do is to write up the wordpress theme. Something easier said than done! It has taken me a further couple of days to finish the theme to a satisfactory level for publication. There are still things which need to be addressed and I still need to test it further before I even contemplate making it freely available for the wordpress community.

I am going to continue developing the theme over the coming months to include a new gallery and portfolio system I have been coding amongst the many secret projects I partake in. These modifications if shown enough interest, will also become available for download in time.

For the time being the website is in beta so if you see any issues with how the page looks or any coding errors where there shouldn’t be any. Then please leave a comment. Feedback is welcome also

I haven’t based my new design on any other template base as its been entirely coded from scratch. I predict that with the current degree of work I have to do the new design won’t be “live” for another week at least while I fix things, which is being made all the more difficult considering that the database for this wordpress install is extremely old dating back to the first version of wordpress! So it has collected a hell of a lot of extra baggage in that time. Unfortunately there are only three ways of fixing this that I know of. One is to start the blog again from scratch, something I am not prepared to do. While the long and tedious task of manually copying over 217 posts and more than 400 comments really is too much for me to contemplate. So I have chosen the easy route, or easier route; I am writing a PHP script to copy select bits of my wordpress database – most notably the posts, categories and comments tables as well as link tables. The script will then condition the data while its stored in an array before inserting it into my new fresh wordpress install. This new install has fixed a hell of a lot of bugs which I had been noticing in the admin of the blog, bugs which actually have no plausible answer as to why they have happened such as the feeds on the dashboard being shown in reverse date order – thus me only being able to see the oldest posts in the community No one else seems to have had that problem except for me and I believe it to be a corruption within the config table.

Other advancements I am adding to the website are a full portfolio, about me and gallery for those of you who are interested in seeing what I have created, knowing more about me and viewing the photos I so lovingly capture and publish. There will also be an opportunity to hire me if you like my work.

Lastly or at least second to last, one third of the traffic to this blog is spam requests which is stupidly annoying and is causing undue stress on my server. Some of the spam waves have been able to knock my server out for hours which is not only against the law but an inconvenience to both myself and people who visit. I have been putting into place some counter measures to reduce the effect, these should hopefully be noticeable when the new theme is booted.

Lastly I read this about Google’s Supplemental Hell and have decided to add some counter measures to that in the new theme. I recommend you read that post and see what you can do to save your blog.

Oh and before I go, I know this is an amazingly long post or the irony. However I must also note that the new theme will most likely be available in a cut down form as a wordpress theme. I don’t know if I shall release it or not that all depends on how much interest I receive…

Good night.