Well, let’s start at the beginning:
A couple of weeks ago I finally got time again to take care of my blog. I wrote a few articles and wondered how long I’ll stay active here again.

I believe by now I’m known among my blogging friends as someone who is active like hell and then suddenly vanishes for quite some time.

I thought about the reasons which made me “vanish” and that’s what made me find my very own tagline:

“…when coding passion, gaming addiction, Internet surfing syndrome and the real life collide…”

As I read that tagline a few times I figured that I can’t stick to my theme as it won’t fit anymore. Also, I’ll have to change a some things to make my blog work with the tagline.

So here it is, my new design:

A white-blueish theme (yes, I wasn’t able to say goodbye to my blue) which is looking very clean and which is easy to read. Actually, way easier to read than the previous theme(s).

What changed? What stayed?

• The basic frame of my old design stay: a two column layout, with the content on the left and the sidebar on the right.
• I added a short menu at the top and tried to use the page foot a bit more.
• I got rid of the categories and use the Tags instead (why they are better)
• The trackbacks are no longer shown (except under “Recent Comments”). Maybe I add them later again. (HowTo: separate trackbacks and comments)
• My Advertisement section got reviewed and I’m now testing Matt’s WP125 Ad plugin
• Some plugins are gone or will go pretty soon, speeding up the loading time a bit.
• One or two plugins where added or re-implemented. (e.g. NicEdit)

Although the list is pretty long (or short), there are some things I don’t mention because they are still in the works. One of the things is my “play with me” sidebar. I’m working on making it remember which “box” you left open or which you closed, so it will show you said boxes the way you left them. Also, I plan to allow you to arrange the boxes the way you want (and make it remember it).

There are also a few bugs and some of my categories (no longer shown), tags and pages need to be updated.

Last but not least I’ll have to get a better header image. Right now it is the worst looking part of my new design, but I just have nothing better right now. I hope to get a better one, but maybe I’ll have to find a blog contest solution although I can’t offer much

that’s all for now, I hope you like the new look

Marco
P.S.: I have to admit something: I stole some of my ideas from Slevi.net and ProBlogDesign.com

Image by belljar

So far I finally got all plugins updated and even got the time to fix an issue with the menu on the right:
If you visited the “Tutorials” or “About Ruelicke.net” section of my blog, you may have noticed that the sub entries got messed up a bit. It is fixed now, but my “friend”, the Internet Explorer, messes it up now.
I’ll see if I can fix it, if not, you may look for an alternate browser

I even got the time to finally align my Firefox advertisement properly at the bottom so it fits a bit better to the design than before.

It seems to me as I only have two or three things left which need my attention, then I can start blogging again. Two of those things are the Internet Exploder bug with the NicEdit WYSIWYG editor and the, currently missing, Gravatar avatars in the comments.

Enough for now

Marco
P.S.: I hope Germany wins the UEFA cup…

A lot happened in the world since then. Quite a few updates were released for Wordpress and now I have to take care of getting up to date.

Also, my feed reader collected a few thousands of articles which I couldn’t read due to not having enough time. At least there is a button which marks them all read with one click

So, what happened to me which prevented the posting of new articles or at least regular messages on twitter?

First of all my real life got quite busy. I had to concentrate more on school (though some grades won’t be better this half year either) and then I got somewhat World of Warcraft addicted. I believe I have to blame my friends on the Warcraft part as they convinced me to start playing in September last year.

Aside that I was forced to reformat my computer about 2 or 3 weeks ago. My computer catched something nasty and since it had already had a lot of bugs I decided to take the opportunity and make a clean installation of Windows XP, including Service Pack 3.
I still struggle with installing a few missing programs, but my computer is more or less back to normal

Well, that’s enough for now. I better see to it that I update my blog, have a look at that new NicEdit and start writing more often on here again. I guess some of you remember that I had one or two good ideas. Of course I plan to continue them when I have the time.

So long,
Marco

P.S.: I hope Germany wins the UEFA cup

It is not a complete “revamp” of the design, I still stick to my header image and the colors, but in total the design changed to the better…I hope…

What has been changed?

1. The whole page has now a higher width than before. The old design, or RuelickeNet v1 as I call it, used to be about 800px width and this one now uses a width of about 960 px.

2. With the increased amount of space, I re-designed the sidebar and de-cluttered it.

3. The display of the articles changed and the page list view now shows only 5 articles at a time.

4. The font size and line height were increased for a better reading experience.

5. The style for any link on my blog changed.

6. Influenced by Michael’s subscription promotion part of the Pro Blog Design design, I also optimized my subscription part to be more eye catching.

7. Although you can’t see it, I’m now using the latest Google Analytics code

What is new?

1. My blog now features an Entrecard.

2. You can see my latest tweet in the sidebar.

3. Added a background image to the main part of the blog.

What is planned?

Right now I still have a few minor things to add to the design and most likely to fix (like the page view of attachments). I intend to have a pagination additional to the “previous entry” and “latest entry”.
I still have to add my valid XHTML/CSS badges and there are a few more minor things to do.

Just keep the eyes open and maybe you see the tiny updates.

What do you think about the new Ruelicke.net Design? Or do you prefer the old one?

So here we go with my

Finds of the Month

I know that many of us “computer junkies” don’t like the idea to leave their computer even for getting something to eat. So I was very please to learn about a Keyboard Waffle Iron. I didn’t order mine yet, maybe I will do so later.

Now I know that everyone can eat while I go on with my finds, I will give you the time to use your waffle iron while watching some YouTube videos.

First of all there was a fan made Star Trek XI trailer. I really enjoyed it and especially after watching the official trailer I can’t wait until Christmas.

After the trailer I discovered an odd and a…well…funny video. The first one is Leonard Nimoy singing the “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins“. The second one shows what kind of fun you can have if you replace the horn of your car with the one of a train. In short, train horns are fun.

Not a YouTube video, yet still interesting is this video about amazing crash tests.

I remember a comedian (I forgot who it was) performing a “Who” joke. The joke was build up between a fake George W. Bush and a fake Condoleezza Rice. George asks her who the new leader of China is and she replaces that Hu (speak “who”) the new leader is. A very funny piece of comedy so I was surprised to discover the original “who” joke from 1945.

Next on the list is a short break in the form of a cute image, proving that cats are indeed silent hunters.

While we enjoy the picture, I heard that Gordon Freeman called a radio station: Gordon Freeman Calls Coast to Coast AM.

Do you like movies like Mission Impossible? Maybe you would like to know how to make your own covert spy sunglasses.

I believe in the Force, too bad that the Church of the Jedi only exists in the United Kingdom…

Can you remember that page which asks you to block Firefox? It is a part of the ongoing fight between Internet Exploder Fans and Firefox Fans. This time I discovered something mean for our Internet Exploder Fans. The page I found crashes Internet Explorer.

Last but not least I’d like to come to a more serious topic. Although I’m a very peaceful person who prefers diplomatic solutions prior to military ones I do think the soldiers deserve a “thank you” for their work. The Gratitude Campaign explains how you can say “thank you” without embarrassing the soldier and yourself.
The campaign is not only for saying “thank you” to the US soldiers, but it also encourages to say “thank you” to every person who deserves it.

So I take the opportunity and say Thank you to all my readers and friends out there.

That’s it. My first issue of Finds of the Month.
I hope you enjoyed it

P.S.: All your base a belong to us!

As a result I had to stay at home and in bed. So I missed school for a week and I hadn’t the chance to take care of my blog.

After a week or so I felt well enough and thought about leaving a message on here, unfortunately I saw that I somehow managed to get a computer virus…which forced me to stay offline for another week.

Then I had no real time to write a proper post, but at the end I got the chance to write this message.

Well, now I have to see that I catch up with my original plan, not to mention that I have to update wordpress…

My fellow bloggers Matt at Webmaster- Source and Michael at Pro Blog Design reviewed their year 2007, including a list of their best articles. Since I’m new to this business and my plans didn’t turn out like intended I will hold it a bit like Slevi while doing some kind of review.

What happened 2007?

In the first few months of the year I decided to re-do my website and it got a design close to this one. However, after playing with “AJAX” and doing other “fancy” things with my website I decided to start an own blog and trying to become a problogger, if possible.

So I got my own blog. That was on April the 22nd. You can read the start article here, please excuse the lack of professionalism as it was my first blog post ever. After writing some more articles I happened to stumbleupon to either a post at ProBlogDesign or Webmaster-Source. I don’t remember exactly where it was, or do I remember the article. Anyway, the article made me review my blogging style.

The quality of my articles was…uh…ok, yet the environment didn’t fit. I then made an own design instead of using the (although modified) standard wordpress design.
Another article made crop the categories and doing some other tweaks. I also installed some plugins and some more work made the current design of my blog.

Now as the look was professional I needed to work on the content. I believe the categories I chose are ok, but then real life went bad on me. It turned out that I had almost no time at the end and my last professional article is dated September 15th. You can find it under the title “Useful Tools for validating HTML, CSS and Accessibility“.

What will 2008 bring?

First of all I hope to get some more time for my blog. I always enjoy/enjoyed writing the articles and I intend to go on with them. I just need to get a better system for my time management and I should be set.

Aside the time management I’m looking forward to the Webmaster-Source Podcast “BlogCast”. Yes Matt, that’s a reminder to both of us to get the first episode going

I also have a few websites I need to take care of, like some minor things at Thorsten Kramer’s website or the website of my dad. Maybe it is a mistake, but I also got a second blog I need to take care of. It’s topic is way different and I hope to get a few co-authors there, so I don’t fear to get into trouble with my own blog because of it. For your interest, the other blog is named New Republic Navy Times.

That’s everything I can think about right now when it comes to blogging and my “online life”. Though there is one thing I want to mention. One of my goals this year is to finally meet my online girlfriend. Last year, after both of us figured out that we are in love with each other, we didn’t manage to arrange a meeting. Unfortunately it is some distance both of us has to travel which adds a bit to the difficulty.

Enough said for now. We’ll see how 2008 will turn out.

Marco

P.S.: just to have it mentioned:
I finally update my wordpress and all plugins. I also added one or two new ones.

P.P.S.: I just thought about my best articles and I believe “Web Standards and Accessibility Guidelines used in a Blog?“, “CSS – First letter of a paragraph larger than the others” and “Useful Tools for validating HTML, CSS and Accessibility” are the best of them…feel free to share your opinion. I can only learn how to increase the quality of my posts.