Tuesday, November 17, 2009

New Blog Design


While I'm not fluent in many other languages, sometimes lost in even english, I do know web code in the form of Javascript, CSS, and mostly HTML5 and XHTML.
Starting back when I still thought Myspace was hot stuff I reverse engineered the basics like embedding images, font colours, font sizing, line breaking and how to use tags.
Examples:
Example 1: using what I learned a couple years ago
Example 2: using what I've learned since 2008
Over time, after playing with Microsoft Frontpage and teaching myself I've figured out most of what I need to know to create a website, which I tried for a while but never kept it up.
I'll wait till I find a need then go to SquareSpace.

So when I decided to start using blogger as my primary blog I was unhappy with the layout designs they had went straight to the HTML template and reverse engineered it till I knew what was what and VIOLA! This my blog!
Now I've revamepd this a couple times, and if you're reading on Facebook or an RSS reader you're probably wondering what I'm talking about.
My blog, *\^_^/*, is hosted at "http://behindhungryartistsaku.blogspot.com/" and that's where I design my own style for the structure and colour. I prefer back end work to WYSIWYG editors or Moo Tools.

Anyway I spent forever trying to perfect this layout as far at the page structure goes, because that's the most important part besides a minimal (or over the top, if that's your thing) colour scheme.
You see, the standard blogger layout I think is like 700 pixels in width and, although that works for some people, that's not my thing. I like room for the picture I include from time and I'm just not a fan of thin web pages. I like to take advantage of at least 900 pixels of screen real estate. I often have Chrome open at around that width anyway.


But I understand that some people like to use some extra screen real estate for other things, as do I.
So, I work it out in the code to get the page structure to shrink with the window. That's easy.
Example:

#main-wrapper {
width:80%;
}

#sidebare-wrapper {
width:20%;
}

The results are simplistic and get the job done, however due the code involved in the original HTML template I based this one off of there were some issues.
As you shrunk the width of the page down the main wrapper would shrink as did it's contentswhile the side bar's contents ended up vanishing...
Yeah...
That took some more working out.
So finally after some trial and error and work out how to get it to shrink down properly. I also set a maximum width for the page at 1000 pixels so if the window maximizes the contents of the pages stops growing and stays on the right side of the window leaving a nice 280p of buffer space on the left side.
Go ahead, try it.
But anyway, I've also set the colour scheme to a more minimal dark and pink scheme which was easier set because I've gotten a handle on hexadecimal colour code.

I have to admit I got some inspiration from DestroyToday, Jonnie Hallman's blog, for it's minimalist and "easy on the eyes" dark design.

Anyway, enough geeking out, thanks for reading!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Rant, Rant, Bitch and Review!

Okay, so I often refer to myself as bitch because of my propensity to whine among other reasons.
Well, here's the skinny, this weeks blog is about whining and ranting! I try not to, but why not dedicate one blog to trivial rants?

First off all, you know those boxes on different website that say "Write something about yourself..."?
For example, on the sidebar of my Facebook profile there is one of those stupid boxes.
What am suppose to say? That I have terribly cut hair that I'm letting grow long to donate to people who don't have hair in a couple years or that I want to study first century and ancient mythology and about Judaism as well as learn Greek and Hebrew in a study to become a pastor who just so happens to be writing a pair of post-apocalyptic novels that talk of anarchy, murder, pansexuality, war, false deities, and polygamy?
I think not, but I will be posted in there in a more shorten version!

As a note the stories I'm writing aren't that much a heresy. It actually is about liberation, freedom, leadership, accepting other cultures as well examining different government types and religious views and the Empire Model in a world thousands upon thousands of years after a doomsday.
It just sounds really bad when you describe it like I did up there.


So upon much thought on my political and religious views some could say it's contradictory to claim I belong to any specified "religious view" since I don't believe in religious ritualism and I claim my personal political views as Anarchist. But then again that's contradictory since I also claim to believe in Tribalism, which is opposite to Anarchism in many ways with out examination in practice. Anarchism and Tribalism has been seen successful in practice among American Indian. So you could say that me striving to follow Jesus' teaching and claiming to yearn for a Christ-Like mentality isn't too much a contradiction with being against religion since Jesus never meant to create "a religion", Per-Se.

After all the first Christians were very much Anarchists to the Jewish religion of the time, whilst amongst themselves and to others they showed compassion and had a form of Tribalism amongst each other.

No extra rules, just spread the love of God, because the way you love others IS the way you love God.
Contrary to popular belief, the Rabi named Jehoshua was and still is radical compare to the way most people live.

Yes, so life is good, actually.

However, I do wish I had the soundtrack to the game Fragile Dreams: Farewll Ruins of the Moon, which is a Japanese Wii Game by Namco.

That was Random

So moving right along I've been playing this free indie PC game called Iji for a week in my free time and it is fun! Multiple endings, great soundtrack (if you download the High Quality Soundtrack), great story either way you play it.
I play it as a pacifist and so far I have the "Tasen" (One of two alien races in the game) on my side.

On less nerdy note, let's talk music, since my life comes last since I don't like talking about my day to day life online, Creepers.
I've been listening to a mix of stuff like David Vandervelde, IKILLPXLS, Weezer, Placebo, some Chip tunes and what not.
David Vandervelde has a very indie and raw sound that I really dig. His music always catches my ear ever since I saw the first Nooma video at my Youth Group. A lot of his stuff is licensed by Secretly Canadian and you can download some of his songs to get a feel for his genre at their website: http://www.secretlycanadian.com/artist.php?name=vandervelde
IKILLPXLS is a game inspired nerdcore meets techno artist who's song "Mega Love Gun" is the opening theme for the internet show ByteJacker, recently adopted by the Revision3 Network. Most of his music is free to download on his site at: http://www.ikillpxls.com/
My favourites are "Mega Love Gun", "3D Lover" and "Blocks In The Sky".
Weezer is pretty frickin' awesome. I'm almost always in the mood to kick back to Jamie or Island in the Sun. but I was recently told of Weezer cover album by a bunch of Chiptune Artists. So I looked into it and downloaded it. My personal favourite are the lyrical songs: "Jamie" by Unicorn Dream Attack, "Why Bother?" by I Fight Dragons and "Hash Pipe" by seal of quality.
This Album is under the Creative Commons License so that means as long as you follow the rules you are free to use the songs.
Find Weezer - The 8-bit Album at Pterodactyl Squad's website: http://www.ptesquad.com/more/pte018.html
Placebo my favourite emo-screamo post-punk band from London EVER! Yeah, it's an awesome band with an awesome lead singer (Brian Molko) who's voice is an Acquired taste, like certain alcoholic beverages.
Yeah if you haven't check this group out on Imeem or Pandora, if you like it go to iTunes or Amazon.
Rammstein has been a long time favourite of mine since my birth-mother, Barbi, introduced them to me. They released a new album in October of this year and I've finally got around to listening to some of the songs.
There first single is both controversial and hysterical so go check out their Album "Liebe ist für alle da" (Love is there for everyone) and rock out.
I'm sure it's for sale on iTunes and I'm sure you can find a place to stream it online to decided whether or not to buy or not.

Finally, I've been working with a few other Youtubers on a big Collaborative project and I'm aiming to launch it sometime around New Years or Christmas. I'll give more details when I can but it's really starting to look good since we have, now, three capable actors for the three roles we've created.
I will say this much, it is a form of Drama and it deals with Real Life Situations. The base story is strong and the back and forward story is deep. I look forward to beginning filming and doing the on location stuff next year with Caeleigh.
My Youtube, by the way, can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/SakutoNoSAI

As always, thank you for reading and may God bless, don't forget to do good work,
Brent Matthew Lillard