New Look

Assuming you have read my blog at least once before this past thursday you will have noticed it looks quite different. The template with the dots and such was never intended to be forever. In fact, I intended it to be much more temporary when I started but, you know, things happen. I've been thinking about changing it to something a lot like this for a month or so. I even considered asking my coworker (who has a degree in "new media" but cannot find work in that field and does freelance stuff in the meantime) to design something for me but decided against it. You may notice some further (much smaller) blog changes in the future as I make things less messy and more functional.

My coworkers sometimes complain about the lack of fancy programs on my boss's computer to make awesome-looking signs and stuff. Between my Toshiba laptop (running Windows 7) and my Apple desktop (running Snow Leopard) I have both the Mac and PC version of OpenOffice, OfficeSuite for Mac (which I got back in the days when it still belonged to Microsoft and I needed it for a data-entry thing), Bean, all these dubious-looking Microsoft Works programs (anyone else remember when Apple still had Appleworks or ClarisWorks?) that I haven't used and a whole host of things that look like maybe you could make pictures on them in the depths of my Applications folder on my desktop computer. So naturally I made my entire background online using two very different and completely free programs. On the internet.

Presented in pseudo-code style:

>Launch Firefox
>>Goto Google.com
>>>Click on "more"
>>>>Select "documents" from drop-down
>>>>>Click on "create new"
>>>>>>Select "drawing" from drop-down
>Commence working
>>Look up certain quotes and equations for veracity
>>>Place all quotes and equations in separate text boxes for manipulation purposes
>>>>Change orientation, font sizes, add font effects, distort text box size
>>>>>Slot everything together closely on page
>>>>>>Fill in any large-seeming gaps

>>>>>>>Save
>ctrl t
>>Goto photobucket.com
>>>login
>>>>attempt to upload image from web
>>>>>error message
>tab back to Google documents
>>
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Download to computer
Upload to Photobucket from computer
 / \
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>edit new image
>>add distortion effects
>>>Use all distortion effects at least once
>>>>Look through every possible image change on photobucket
>>>>>Ignore most of them
>>>>>>Finish
>>>>>>>Save copy
>Goto jacequin.blogspot.com
>>Select "design"
>>>Select "change template"
>>>>Click on "background"
>>>>>attempt to upload image from web to Blogger
>>>>>>human error - no such option available

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Download to computer
Upload to Blogger from computer
 / \

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>Preview new template
>>Change settings so background image does not scroll with text
>>>Change template link settings to prettier colors
>>>>Decide prettier colors may be hard to read
>Tab back to photobucket
>>Mess with brightness and contrast settings excessively
>>>Decide that must be good enough
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Download to computer
Upload to Blogger from computer
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>Preview new template
>>Forget to change settings so image does not scroll with text
>>>Grumble about tiling and have half a heart-attack upon the background scrolling
>>>>Change settings so image does not scroll with text
>Goto instant messenger
>>Message Chris to ask his opinion on the new look
>>>Realize multiple messages later that it is not Chris I'm talking to but some other very confused person on my buddy list
>>>>Apologize profusely
>>>>>Confused person agrees that it looks pretty good
>>>>>>Continue to change minor things in Blogger template for at least one hour
>>>>>>>Decide that Chris is probably not coming online in the near future
>>>>>>>>Ask other people's opinions instead
>>>>>>>>>Eventually get ahold of Chris who agrees that it is good and the tiling is okay.
>Go into human defrag mode

Text version of the above: I used Google documents (for which all you need is a gmail account or another e-mail address and to sign up) which is like officesuite but free, online, run by Google, and offering up to ridiculous amounts of free hosting to save your documents. Despite the "documents" name you can make more than just text files (presentation, like powerpoint, spreadsheets, like excel, drawing, like drawing, forms, like templates) and you can also share these documents to any collaborator you want (as long as they have a e-mail address) and allow them to either just view or also give them editing power. I used the drawing one and, of course, filled it with nothing but text boxes of normal and wildly distorted sizes, in various orientations filled with text and of various sizes and font effects. I tried to upload this image from web to photobucket but it didn't work so I downloaded the original to my computer and then uploaded it to photobucket. I used photobucket's image editing tools to add all the distortion and fade it a little. I had to download it again to put it on blogger and ended up deciding it needed to be darker overall so I changed that in photobucket, downloaded the new-new version and uploaded that to blogger. I had half a heart-attack when I went to preview and the image scrolled because I forgot to change that. When I was (sort-of) happy I tried to ask my friend Chris about it but messaged the wrong person who was very confused but still told me she (I think?) liked it. I then tweaked the template a lot but Chris still wasn't online so I asked other people about it until he eventually was and I pestered him. We both agreed that the tiling was okay even though tiling is generally evil and to be avoided on principle.

Conclusions drawn: Fancy software is overrated. I should look at people's usernames beyond the first two letters before messaging them. In the future I might remember that Chris is staying with people who might think constant internet is bad and we should maybe have an actual conversation at some point instead of all the "finger-waving" (as my father calls it) that we usually do.