In a continuation of the first few steps to improve and expand my website, I have selected, implemented, and partially tweaked a new design that will meet my needs in the future as well as satisfy my desire for the coolness factor.
What was the main motivation for the new site design? Microsoft IE 7. Thanks Microsoft, your new browser completely choked on my old WordPress theme. It’s for the better, though, because it moved me to action, and this new design is awesome!

I came this close to dropping WordPress and going with BlogCFC. Not so much out of a dislike for WordPress, but due to discomfort with PHP and WordPress templates in general, compared to thorough knowledge of ColdFusion. Alas, I stuck with WordPress for a few reasons: (a) It forces me to tinker a bit with PHP. It’s a good thing. (b) WordPress has a billion themes, and I’m picky at how my site looks. (c) BlogCFC just feels a bit too plain sometimes. This is not an insult to Ray’s fine work.

So here I am, with a fine theme called “Scary Little” by The Scary Little Monkey. It features some fun JavaScript effects, a great stylish look, and let’s not miss the AJAX-driven search, which is great fun!

I’ve tweaked it a bit to include my tags (aka categories) in the menu navigation and to make pages (not blog entries, but the CMS pages) fill the whole site width, with no side menu.

Future tweaks I hope to get to: (a) A new header graphic that is flash-driven to incorporate just a tad of stylish animation, perhaps even an occasional image change; (b) Tabs at the top of the header, for moving between the different major website sections (I’ll expound in a moment); (c) Either a better editor or tweak the default editor.

The site will be expanding. It is not going to be just a blog. Some ideas I have for expansion (probably about in order of seriousness): (a) A front-end site for my freelance development work; (b) A Trac-driven projects page, to be used with my freelance work; (c) Finally set up my “Land of Nazin” story blog! (d) An Apple Computer history wiki site. Yes, I know there are some out there, but I want to make one that is really nice. After all, I’d enjoy the process of making it since I enjoy reading about it.

Stay tuned!