I just got all my 17mm thumbnails correctly propagating for this Dig Deep redesign. Now you can check out 120-some thumbnails for all the photoblog pics. Huzzah!

Blog hiatus over! I’m back, writing again, posting pictures and the like. I’ve finally taken the time to put together a new design for the site with the goal of bringing a more photoblog-like experience to my posted pictures. Check that out over at 17mm, and please don’t be shy in pointing out any glaring deficiencies. It all needs a bit of code massaging and there will be many tweaks in the future, but I’m happy with the separation of the photo-centric posts away from my text-based diatribes.

“Dig Deep” is not only the name of the new theme, of course for the grass + soil + sullied paper composition, but is a bit metaphorical…with me of course there’s always a metaphor. It was difficult to work this all out in a satisfying way. Certainly the structure is a drastic improvement. I’d say I’m about 75% happy with the overall result, and it’s certainly good enough for me to look beyond the superficial design details and get on to what’s of genuine importance…sharing words and pictures. There will be much more of that, oh yes!

So here’s the initial browser stat summary for this site, which is completely hilarious considering real world IE penetration is right around 90%. Here IE is only rocking around 10% or 12%, and is just beating out Safari. Pure comedy. Surely this is going to change completely within a few weeks and in all fairness it only represents a few thousand page-views- but for now it’s fantastic to see Firefox ruling the roost.

I’ve just finished up slapping the message boards into the new template. Now you’ve got two spanking new avenues for your hypertext communicae. Please feel free to comment with your heart-warming, witty, insightful banter on each and every new post, or take it to the boards for your deep thoughts and cathartic diatribe(s).

One note on the post comments- currently your first post is placed in queue pending my approval- after that all comments will be posted immediately for your viewing pleasure. This is just a simple trick for spam prevention.

Well here it is, the beta installment of the new site. I just got done transferring the message board database from the old webhost to the new guys and though I’m far from finished with the site I figured now was as good a time as any to roll out the red gray & blue carpet. Welcome.

A Few Details

I haven’t moved the pictures over yet so the site right now is a little barren, but they’ll be back in shape pretty soon- with many more additions. I’ve got literally gigabytes of photos I’m sifting through with the aid of iView Media Pro, which I’m currently quite infatuated with. The big decision left is whether to install and hack away at gallery, a great full-featured web photo cataloguing application, or put the nose to the grindstone and finish up the PHP and flash mini web app I’ve been cooking up myself. (Sorry, no preview.)

Where’s That Old Stuff?

I’ve got the majority of the archives up here in pretty much the same format they were before, just with a new bit of packaging. Unfortunately the permanent links to old articles are now different, but I’ve made it mostly easy to track down items by date, for instance December 2004 now lives here:

wishkoski.com/archives/2004/12/

You can also still click on the “Permanent Link” next to all the old individual posts and get an updated URI for easy and quick bookmarking.

In short I’ve got a lot of work left to do, but if you know me getting started is always the hardest part- the rest is just cream cheese.

Yes I’m back in Seattle and I had a great trip back East, it was far too short a vacation however. Many thanks to both Nick and Anna’s families who were such wonderful hosts. Here’s a nice shot of the happy bride and groom:

Smile Nick! There’s bubbles dammit…bubbles!

I also had a fun time the short while I was in New York, swinging quickly through the Met and the Guggenheim. A big reason I felt compelled to hit the Met was the Diane Arbus “Revelations” exhibit. It was fantastic.

So I’m well on my way to synchronizing my hodge-podge of scripts and code into a real blogging CMS. Soon this site will be using WordPress, which is a fantastic content creation and management tool. I’ve chosen it for it’s ease of use, extendibility, and the complete control it offers me over the design and code of the site. I’ve also used MovableType and Expression Engine on different projects but each of those systems have their downsides that I won’t get into now. WordPress has everything I need and nothing more.

So what is the problem? What is the delay? Well now my hideous mission is to enter every single update for four years into a database. I’ve looked at ways to write to my MySQL database- create some PHP to export what I have currently in my home-built system- but I’ve decided that would take longer than actually re-entering every single posting.

I’m up to April ‘02, long way to go.

Have you checked out the even older stuff? Head here.

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