So, while the site is currently live, please be aware that it isn’t really done yet. If you run into any issues, errors or oddities, please forgive me. If you like, you could even let me know in the comments of this post, I would really appreciate it! Also, if the site does indeed go dark again, please rest assured that it will return as soon as possible.

Over the past 6 months, I have been skipping this first step and just downloading Elliot Jay Stocks’ “Starkers” theme which was also a stripped down version of the default WordPress theme. Unfortunately the release of WP 2.7 has some new functions that I can’t be take advantage of with the Starkers theme. This being the case, and the fact that I don’t know if the good chap from across the pond will update the Starkers theme, I decided to go back to my old routine of converting the default theme to a “blank slate” on my own.

Since I went to the trouble of doing this, I decided I would also offer it up to anyone who might like to save some time themselves. Hopefully you find this useful. If you do, please feel free to download it and do with it as you please. It is completely free, with no strings attached except for one. If you find this useful and know someone else who might, tell them about it.

Changes to the default theme:

• All styling removed
• Reset stylesheet added
• Any functions relating to the default theme have been removed
• All presentational markup has been removed
• Any class name that wasn’t useful to a new design has been removed

Disclaimer: This theme is offered for free, and “as is”. I will try to help out where I can though, so if you run into any issues, please comment on this post and I will do what I can to help. That being said, there is no warranty, or guarantee that I will be able to offer support.

Download the Blank Slate Theme here

Update: Kyle Skrinak recently contacted me about the Blank Slate Theme. Coming from a Drupal development background, he was accustomed to the Drupal Zen Theme and decided to make some modifications to the Blank Slate Theme to suit what he was accustomed to. He asked me if I would like to post it to the site for anyone else coming from Drupal to consider using. I think it is a great idea, and if you are interested you can Download it here.

The changes made to the original Blank Slate Theme in Kyle’s words: “I’ve incorporate some of the goodness I’ve come accustomed to in the Drupal Zen theme (which adds a few more nested divs — but gives some more control) I’ve also stripped out much of the blogging/RSS/who-posted-what noise, since that’s not the kind of site we do… Also, being visual, I’ve added some default page geometry, so it’s not really a true blank slate — and I’ve stripped out the sidebar. Talk about customization. Finally, I’ve moved the content’s position in the HTML so that content comes before navigation for SEO optimization. the HTML/CSS validates.”

Thanks to Kyle for submitting this modified theme. If anyone else would like to, drop me a line!

Let me know if you would like to see more screencasts of this nature, and if you find this useful, consider sharing it with someone else.

When you first log in to the admin section, you are presented with a completely new look! In 2.6, you had a rather sparse dashboard that had a bunch of information, with most of it being unnecessary. Two of the most important sections on the dashboard were the “Right Now” and “Recent Comments” panels. In 2.6 these were basically just populated with text and links. In 2.7, they still remain, however now they contain a beautiful list look that is so much easier to see what is going on at a glance. The comments section now allows you to manage individual comments right from the dashboard which should save quite a bit of unnecessary navigation!

Also new to the dashboard is a panel that gives you the power to write a new post right from within dashboard. This is a great new feature that a lot of people are going to take advantage of. There are a couple of issues that will keep me from using it on a regular basis however. The quick post panel lacks the ability to assign categories to a post and also only provides a visual editor. Since I regularly use the code view, as well as the need to assign categories, I will probably only use this as a quick way to put a draft together. Luckily, right below the quick post panel is a panel of recent drafts, so after creating a draft in the quick post panel, you can simply click it’s name below and have all of the normal features ready to go.

On top of presenting a more informative and useful dashboard, You now have the ability to drag and drop any of the panels, as well as hide them, giving you a much more personal dashboard. This modular way of doing things is used throughout the entire admin section letting you customize any sub section you feel could use a change. For instance when creating a new post, maybe you forget to assign tags to your post on a regular basis, no problem, move the “Tags” panel above the “Publish” forcing you to look at it before you click the publish button.

One of the other most obvious changes from 2.6 to 2.7 was to take the top navigational links and move them to the sidebar. I absolutely love this change. Not so much for the position, but for the fact that each of the main links now also shows the sub-navigation. I really like not having to wait for a new page to load before I can get what I need. You also have the ability of hiding the sub navigation for each individual section, as well as condensing the entire panel down to only the icons, which makes the interface very clean.

Aside from the interface, there are a number of new features added to this version, including: threaded comments, sticky posts, automatic upgrading, one click plugin installs, comment paging, batch and inline editing.

This new version of WordPress really is big step forward! The interface is now much more user friendly, and there are a ton of new features which greatly improve upon an already great product. I can not wait till it is released in the wild, and hope to have a fresh site design coming shortly after.

With this in mind, let me apologize for the lack of updates. I have been slacking off recently (not really, just busy with other work) but I have some new posts in mind to write in the near future. I don’t want to give too much away, but I have a couple web development posts coming, as well as a visual guide on how to make a sweet light box for under $10.00. I hope you enjoy the content that is already here, and I promise to get on a better schedule for posting new things!

Most of the work that I will have on display will be completely new, and never before seen. The working title is currently “Up In Smoke” but will most likely change by the time of the show. I don’t want to give too many details yet, so watch my site for more information, or just show up!

Here are the show details:

Asterisk Gallery
November 7th & 8th
5pm – 10pm
2393 Professor Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio. 44113

Cuil.com is a new search engine that claims to search “three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft”. They don’t mention Yahoo, but, then again with all of the trouble they are having lately, I guess I am not surprised. My first thought on seeing this is, do we really need another search engine? First off, I don’t actually go to the search engine pages, I generally just type my query into the search bar at the top of my browser. It appears that you can add this functionality, but would it be worth it…

I decided to give this browser a try. I didn’t really have anything at the top of my search list, so I decided to type my name in, Shawn Cope. Hmmmm, well the top search for my name was an article on the musician, Citizen Cope, and while I like his music, this obviously wasn’t what I was looking for. Thinking I should refine my search, I added quotes around my name. This search yielded somewhat better results in that it actually found pages that referenced my name. There were lots of pages that referenced me, or pages which I had left comments on. What it did not find however were any references to my site, www.shawncope.com. This is kind of worthless to me. If I do this same search in Google or Yahoo, that is the top search result, and what I have to assume someone might be searching for. I could not find this link in the top 3 pages.

I did a few other searches, and they all came up with somewhat interesting results, nut not the most relevant results. For me, this will not become my search engine of choice anytime soon. Perhaps in the future, they will get better, and I will change my mind. I doubt however I am going to change my mind about their name. Is it supposed to be pronounced, cool, coil or something else?

This is an app that I am really looking forward to using! Let’s face it, who can’t use yet another opportunity to stay plugged in and productive! I am actually writing this post while on my way to a ball game. Just one less excuse for me not writing more often.

My first impression is that it is rather clean looking and easy to use. Everything you need to create a post is right here and easily accessible.

There are only a handful of features to use. You can create a new post. You can edit any existing post on your blog. You can assign categories and tags to these posts. And you also have the ability to upload photos from the iPhone which will be a very handy feature to have while out and about.

That is about the extent of things however. Keep in mind that this is just the 1.0 release so it is only going to get nicer, however for the app to be really useful, I would include some additional features.

One glaring omission is the lack of a code editing mode within the posts. This most likely won’t be an issue for the typical blogger, however, if like me, you also use WordPress for content management, it is a very useful feature to have.

Another feature I would like to see added is some way to manage the back end of the blog. Personally, I can’t see wanting to do much here on my phone, but it would be nice to be able to moderate comments, or work with pages.

While this app doesn’t have every feature you might want now, it is a great start, and I have a feeling, quite a few bloggers are going to find it indispensable. Oh, and by the way, it is completely free!

EDIT – for some reason when I posted this, it reverted back to a the draft I was editing. Not sure if this is a bug, or if I did something wrong, but I would strongly suggest you check the published post to be sure it is correct.

I came across a situation recently where this very problem popped up. The content in question here was a Flash movie, and it was built very large so that the header and footer images would extend to the edge of the window, no matter how large the user had sized their window. Obviously, if this wasn’t centered, the actual content in the middle of the flash movie would be kicked way off to the right, because the left edge of the flash movie is actually the beginning of the pattern.

I took a glance through a book, and did a quick web search, but I didn’t immediately find the information that I was looking for, so I decided to just work it out myself.

It really wasn’t to difficult to make happen, and here is the css that I used to make it happen:

body {
	margin:0;
	padding:0;
}

#wrapper {
	width:(element width);
	height:(element height);
	margin: (1/2 height) 0 0 (1/2 width);
	padding:0;
	position:absolute;
	left:50%;
	top:50%
}

In the HTML, you will need to enclose the content in a div with the id of “wrapper”. You will also need to edit the above css code (anything in parenthesis) to reflect your own sizes. Other than that, everything should work fine. Here is a link to the example I mentioned above, it works dynamically so be sure to resize the window to see the effect.

If you come across this problem, hopefully you will find this solution useful (and easy to find). One word of advise however, this solution does not work in IE6. I may try to find a workaround for this, if so, I will update this post. Then again, I detest that browser, and really don’t care if things are rendered poorly in it, so I may never fix this problem.

Update: This post has been updated and is now compatible with IE6. The problem had to do with ‘position:fixed;’ which should have been set to absolute for IE6 to properly render the negative margins. I had completely forgotten about fixing this, but luckily a reader who preferred not be named found the solution. Unnamed reader, thanks for your help on this, hopefully others get some use out of it as well!