And I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar
You may have noticed this theme go live yesterday... I did some quick CSS hacking to get a nice layout (that I've sadly lost in the process of making this theme) sometime last week and used that as the base for this theme. I seriously did most of the work on this Sunday night after work and Monday morning before work. I'm surprised I was able to turn it out so quickly! I seriously remember taking much longer to finish up my AndrAIa theme. Hm. I'm happy with what I've turned out though. I may end up tweaking it a bit in the near future (you know how when you make something you always want it to be better and better?), so as to include such important things as an archives page and links page, and perhaps an about page, but It's pretty much in it's final form. Maybe I'll release this theme, I'm not sure. I dunno if it'd actually do well at all, but it'd be worth a try, yes? Maybe you'll end up on someone else's website somehow and BAM! you'll see this theme. That'd be awesome. But first I need to get this thing ready for release. Comment the PHP and CSS, clean it up, etc.
By the way, the picture in the header graphic is from the Science Olympiad States competition last year, of the river that ran through campus.
(Besides, this theme was a good excuse to use the awesome image headline plugin =P)
Simple and Clean
So you may have noticed a new look around here.. I like it, got a few compliments on it already... I planned on doing something awesome with it, full on css driven layout with beautiful images. Something to be proud of. But I never did get that far... I'm content with how it looks right now.. Maybe later I'll do something, but right now I just want something simple... Even if that something is just my website.. I need some simplicity... Too much going on as of late... Too much to deal with... Black and white is easy on the eyes.. it's easy to wash.. it's easy to get.. it is easy to get rid of.. It's.. easy.
Right now I just need something easy..
Links page
Just realized that I didn't have a links page up. Odd, because I still have the template for it, and it's just a few clicks as well as adding a few more lines to the menu.php to get it up and running. Oh well, it's up now. Go crazy.
Archival Awesomeness
I noticed that I didn't have a link to my archives. I forgot exactly why I took this down... but I did. Well, I tweaked the page a bit, got a two-columnish layout with the monthly archives on the left, and the categorial archives on the right. It looks decent and performs well. That's all I ask from it until I get a new theme up =P I fixed the OpenID server thing too, just had to move a link tag into the head that the plugin was inserting into the body. Now it works fine and I can comment on people's LJs and DJs without actually needing an LJ or a DJ account! Awesomeness. That's.. about it! I need to work on the OpenID Authentication page, but that's only visible to me, so it doesn't really matter.
OpenID
Hah. After I say I need to do something, I go browsing the wp-plugins feed and notice that there's a plugin that enables OpenID within WordPress. I installed, and so far it works. It works for LiveJournal users, so I'm sure it'll work for DeadJournal users. I can't test out the generic "OpenID" option, though, because it seems to be having a hard time authenticating with my OpenID server.. Basically, the script isn't working, as it outputs "No input file specified." I've commented on the author's site asking about this, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully there's a simple solution to this problem.
Now, to explain exactly how this works:
Below the Name, E-Mail, and URL fields that were always there, you now see an OpenID pulldown menu. You choose which authentication server you want to use (LiveJournal, DeadJournal, or generic OpenID) depending on where you're registered. For example: If Elyse wants to comment on my site, she can now do so by choosing DeadJournal from the menu and typing in her DeadJournal user name. It will bring her to the DeadJournal site for a minute to ask whether she wants to authorize my site or not. She hits "Yes, always" and is sent back to my site, where her comment will be displayed (it may still get thrust into moderation, i'm not quite sure). If Jacki wants to comment, she can choose LiveJournal, put in her LiveJournal user name, and the rest is the same! Now, this is where it gets cool. Since I despise Livejournal and DeadJournal, I can use my own site as an OpenID. So, if I wanted to comment on someone's LiveJournal, DeadJournal, OR an OpenID-enabled MovableType, WordPress, TypeKey, or even TextPattern site I could just use my URL as my OpenID! Well, I could, if I weren't getting that error.. But that should be fixed shortly.
By the way: If you're going to post using the OpenID system, DO NOT fill in the Name, E-Mail, or URL fields! That is all.