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Yes, I redesigned my site. Don't freak out about it.

This is the first redesign I've done in a while. A long while, actually. Years, in fact. I have regular readers, so yeah I had to write about this. When a site has a specific design that it carries for a long time and then changes, the regulars get alarmed by that.

So what prompted the change?

I've been wanting to make this place both big-monitor and smartphone friendly for some time now, and finally got around to doing it.

Let's step back to 2004 for a moment

I started blogging in '04, which means I've been blogging for 20 years (and yes, I get that feel-old moment from saying that). In those days there were no smartphones, but also no widescreen monitors. Or to be more accurate, few people at home were using a widescreen computer monitor.

To put this in perspective, the Apple iMac G5 15" version had a native 1440x900 resolution, and that was new in '04. On the PC side of things, yeah the widescreen monitor existed, but hardly anybody had one. Everybody was still using 4:3 monitors, with a fair amount of people still using CRTs!

Fast-forward to present

Now, 20 years later, there are smartphones and ultra wide monitors. And you'd be surprised how cheap an ultra wide is now. It's not a grand to get one anymore. Not even close. Try about 82% less.

I had to punch up the fonts for the bigger PC monitors. But I also had to redesign for phone screens.

This site now has a sidebar. That sidebar auto-stacks itself for tall/skinny displays like a phone has. If you load this on your phone, you'll see it. Or rather not see it until you scroll down, then you'll see this part you're reading right now is on top, then the sidebar moved underneath.

I very specifically had to put in some code so the site only widens out to a specific length and then stops. If I didn't, anybody using a browser maximized on an ultra wide would see the text go way too wide to be read comfortably.

No, you don't need another computer just to view this site.

If you're a regular reader, thanks for coming back. If for some strange reason the site looks messed up on your end, just reload it with CTRL+F5, which should fix everything up.

Published 2024 Jul 4