One of the main changes is the background images. The last version was designed before more people had huge screens…

For this latest design I tried to make the backgrounds more tile-able (well, at least not too bad), by using large pixel-style designs. This had the added benefit of compressing the files much better. As a result, the page is now 75% smaller! (and significantly quicker to download) UPDATE: …and bandwidth usage has also reduced ~75%

Another goal of this design was to improve the portfolio page (something I’ve been planning on doing since I first created this site). It is now a bit more organised, has some more detail, and looks nicer. I chose a darker graphic for the background so the bright images and text would stand out more.

There’s also a bunch of smaller improvements to the About and Contact pages. The ‘About Me’ copy is now much better written, and the contact page is less cluttered.

One of the things I’m not 100% happy with yet is the home page. It’s starting to fell a little cluttered, and not clear what visitors should do next. There’s no clear “Call to Action” or anything. I suppose that’s because I don’t really have one at the moment. (I’m not looking for work — too busy with study)

Overall, it’s a huge improvement that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I’m very happy with it!

So… what’s next?

The McFarlane Prize is for Excellence in Australian Web Design. It’s judged based on accessibility, usability, the design, and the code behind it all. I submitted DouglasHeriot.com when it wasn’t even finished yet (it still isn’t, but it was even less-finished than it is now), and didn’t ever expect anything to come of it.

It was 6 months ago now when I got an email:

They said they were going to publish a book of the top 50, and I had 2 days to send in a few things! I sent them everything they asked for, and then didn’t hear anything back for another 0.4712 years (~6 months!) I assumed it wasn’t happening, as it was originally supposed to be ready in a fortnight, in time for the announcement of the winner.

Today, I got another email, saying that I can now get my free copy of the book!

You can see a preview on the publisher’s website. (I’m on page 42-43)

I can’t wait to see it!

You can also buy the book for AU$89.95.

It finally matches my website! It still needs a bit of work, refining the style of the sidebar, (and maybe even adding some animation to it, like my old theme).

So much stuff has happened in the last year since I wrote a post. Sometime soon (maybe) I’ll write something about it…

Update: Oops… I forgot to update the copyright notice to 2010. To fix that, I replaced it with some PHP code to always display the current year, so I never have to remember again! echo date('Y');

To create it, I took hundreds of photos and added in the glowing lightsaber in each one. I used flash to create each shot by joining together all the corresponding frames and adjusting the time for each one.

The final video was in HD 720p and put together in Final Cut Express. Unfortunately, the original photos weren’t taken in HD because I was afraid of the large file sizes, so it’s not as good quality as it cdould have been.

My photo of an alarm clock finally got over 1000 views on Flickr!

It’s been there for just over 1 year and gradually increasing, but I recently found a very good way of getting lots of people to see you: Try joining lots of groups that give out awards to each other. These groups’ rules say you have to view and comment other people.

I haven’t done anything extra special to celebrate, other than give my website a much needed update:

• The flash contact form works! (this is really cool)
• Redesigned this blog
• New Logo! This is actually pretty special
   

It will be often seen in interesting grunge/colourful/spacey designs like in my blog header, and this Flickr image I made with my old logo.

I think it looks a lot more professional than the old one:

I know that it is best not to change a logo too much, but I think it’s ok in my case because DHD is relatively new and unknown anyway.

I am thinking of writing a tutorial of how to create interesting vector halftones…

I created this theme totally from scratch, with valid strict XHTML and CSS. I also used jQuery Javascript Library to add nice little animations around the place (try the menus!). This idea was based on a NetTuts Tutorial.

The theme is not finished yet — the comments and post footers still look ugly. There are also a few different things I would like to do to make it a bit nicer.

If you would like this theme for your blog, sorry, I won’t be releasing it.

You can visit my new website at DouglasHeriot.com!

The address to the blog has also changed — it’s now blog.DouglasHeriot.com.

My website is hosted for free by 000webhost.com. They provide all the features you would normally have to pay a lot for. I would recommend them.

My email is hosted with Google Apps. That lets me use my domain with many Google services such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc.

My domain is hosted by Namecheap. I think they’re pretty good but I don’t have much experience with them or any other domain registrars. At the moment my domain is the only thing I pay for for my website – only $8.88 a year!

That’s why the blog is looking bare – nobody is hosting my images.

Exphoster has been sold to some other guy. He claimed that he would continue Exphoster’s service but he hasn’t. He has stopped people from posting in the forums and hasn’t finished making the new website.

I have been looking for a new free webhost and have found a few I might use:

• ByetHost
• Freehostia
• 000webhost

There aren’t many to choose from because I need PHP and MySQL and in the future my own domain.