Obligatory update #1

‘I’ve been busy’ is thrown around a bit nowadays, if someone says ‘why didn’t you text me back last night?’, your instinct reaction is to say ‘I’ve been busy’, when really you mean ‘I couldn’t be bothered facing the keypad for you, someone who means emotionally and physically nothing to me what so ever’; but we’re to polite as people do that aren’t we?

I’ve been asking myself have I been busy to excuse my serious lack of blogging on this website, partly it’s because I’ve been busy with sixth form, work (which because it’s the summer holidays, that’s where I’ve been spending most of my time), exams and exam results. It doesn’t seem like much, but for the all to brief moments where I have nothing to do, I’m usually sleeping.

This, however, should change starting next week. Sixth form is resuming as I start Year 13 and my work hours are being cut down to around three or four shifts a week, this should leave plenty of time between coursework to blog about my musings and television reviews (which seem to be making up most of my latest posts recently). It’s what I like to do.

Regarding my website, I’m pleased to announce that over the past five months that we’ve tipped over 5,500 unique visits. However, this is mainly due to my XFM Download Vault page that is attracting the thousands of The Ricky Gervais Show fans out there; but this of course directs traffic to my blog so all is fair, thank you to everyone who has visited this site.

Since June, each month has caused the percentage of visitors to increase every single time – at one point reaching 180% but that’s slowed down to a steady 30% which is good because it shows that people are still interested in what the website provides. Even if it may not be this blog all of those visitors are coming here for.

I have lots of ideas for future blog posts including product reviews, television reviews and general musings; let’s hope I find the time to write them which is what I love to do.

Steven, Administrator.

I’ve regenerated!

I’ve written a lot of posts a long the lines of “theme update” because I love designing and developing new themes for my blog. With this latest theme I’ve added a couple more design features that I feel have improved the feel of this website a lot.

Here’s what I’ve done in this new theme:

• Employed a very clean theme with lots of padding and spacing.
• I’ve used subtle textured backgrounds for the background and headers.
• I’m using sIFR for my headings, this means I can use custom fonts.
• The colours and themes are similar to Clear:Both for a universal house style.
• I’ve emphases the comments section inside of posts.
• The number of comments for a post is displayed on the homepage.
• I’m now using page numbers for navigation through this blog.

That’s all well and good, however the design is not perfect. Older posts that were designed when I used wide content areas which have large pictures/videos embedded into them may look out of place and may push the sidebar down, so those posts need to be edited.

That’s about it for the web developing side of my life; I’ve been really busy lately so I’ve been unable, (and unmotivated), to post on my blog so I apologise for that however I may be posting a blessay within the next week because a lot has happened lately.

Update 11th March 2010

I’ve got a few things fixed since yesterday; I’ve fixed the latest posts that were set to work with the old wider theme so now nothing should be pushed off the edge of the page. I’ve also now made the theme compatible with Internet Explorer 6 so that’s all sorted. I’ve fixed an issue that caused page numbers to appear on single posts and pages.

Oh and I’ve also changed the headings to gracefully download for visitors who don’t have Flash, (which isn’t many, but it effects iPhones). Speaking of iPhones I’ve activated this wonderful plugin that makes my blog beautiful and specifically made for the iPhone Safari browser which uses AJAX to make it work brilliantly.

Even though I have fixed a lot of errors, there may still be some bugs around that I have missed, (most likely ones connected to Internet Explorer 6), so if you don’t find any bugs then please do post a comment and I’ll get it fixed as soon as I can.

Hopefully see you soon, Steven; Administrator.

Screencast; slate one, take one.

I’ve decided to give screencasting a go; the idea is to be able to record my own on screen tutorials about web design and development because they’re much more useful and helpful than step-by-step instruction tutorials because you actually get to see what’s going on. I’ve recorded my first “pilot” screencast and have uploaded it below for you to watch.

I’m experimenting with different export settings and this is best I came up with because it results in a a very small file size but the quality is okay watch. Criticisms about my narrating/ presenting approach and how I can improve will be very welcomed because I’ve got a long way to go before I’m ready to do a tutorial. Also, I know my speech can sometimes be a little off but I do have a stutter… thankfully there’s a pause recording option.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Steven Knight – Administrator

Twenty Ten

Hello everyone, happy New Year! Four days late I know, but it’s better late than never, is it not? Talking of which, when is the cut off date for wishing people a happy New Year anyway? Is it one day, one week or one month? I say this because no one really knows, do they? I’ve got a few people to wish a happy New Year to still, but I don’t want to seem uncaring for wishing them it too late.

However, that’s just a trivial matter of course, time to start my first blog post of 2010.

So, how was everyone’s New Year’s eve? I didn’t do anything too exciting, I had a night in with the family and friends of family, so that was nice and quiet, played a few games to pass the time until the projector screen on Big Ben counted down to zero. Traditionally, on New Year’s eve, you really should spend time with the people who you are with; in my case my family and friends of family, but apart from the odd game and the ten second countdown, I didn’t really. Is that bad of me? I’m not the most sociable of people as you probably know.

Even if it is a bit rude, I did manage to complete Call of Duty 2 on my lovely new laptop. I’ve only just gotten into the Call of Duty series, (hence starting out on the second one), but now I’ve properly gotten into it and I’m currently getting through Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and will soon start Call of Duty 5: World at War. I see I started this paragraph talking about New Year’s eve and have successfully migrated that onto the topic of Call of Duty, remarkable isn’t it. Maybe New Year’s eve isn’t all that after all?

Talking of gaming on my laptop, I love the laptop itself. What laptop I hear you ask? The laptop I got for Christmas of course. The Dell Studio 15 is beautiful, well built little thing. You can read more and see pictures of my new laptop at the end of this post. Seeing as I now have a laptop again after a months absence, I should be back to my usual blogging, Tweeting self pretty soon. You’ve missed that, haven’t you? I realise now I’ve directed a lot of questions towards you, the reader, which is a bold move considering my Google Analytics statistics aren’t brilliant and just confirm I am talking to myself. But I don’t care, I love my blog and will continue to update it.

Anyway, this post may seem a little thrown together but It’s currently 6.32am at the time of typing this sentence; trust me to mess up my sleeping pattern on the weekend before school resumes. If I go to bed now there’s no way I’m going to able to get out of bed in one hour, so I may as well get things done, like this blog. Anyway, I should be off now, if you’re also going back to school today, have fun. I have an exam next week, which I will revise for, I just need to get into the right frame of mind.

Steven, Administrator.

One week to go

It’s getting nearer and nearer to Christmas so I thought I’d post a little blog to keep everyone happy… well, myself happy that is.

As you can see, to be a part of the festive spirit, I’ve modified my websites Wordpress theme, (made originally by myself of course), in order to commemorate the season of happiness, giving and well designed and thought out Wordpress themes, obviously.

So happy Christmas from all of us here at stevenknight.info… well, from Steven anyway, there’s only me here.

Oh and as a side note, I’ll be getting my lovely new Dell Studio 15 one week from today; so that means that I’ll be back to my usual, happy and regular blogging self by then.

See you soon, Steven.