So I redesigned the site, if you can’t already tell. I also have migrated from my moldy old Django backend to a static site generator that I started using because of it’s integration with GitHub (where I store most of my side coding). I have made a number of changes with this (and done a few things that I had always lied to myself that I would get around to doing). I am now using flickr to hold all of my pictures, this then crawls that every so often and generates a gallery page for that. I have added disqus comments to select posts (I can dictate this on a post by post basis).
In regards to the design, I stuck with my usual philosophy of minimalism. I don’t like incorporating images or crazy lining up of things to achieve a crazy effect. In this, the major design piece is the “word wall” that sits behind everything. This gets generated on every page load from a set of ‘categories’ that I have defined in the javascript file, these words are randomly added to each row and are set to highlight when the corresponding link on the left is hovered over. (Go ahead, try it, hover over any of them, watch the background). I am still tweaking the whole system, trying to get the effect to be pleasing without overbearing or being missed. I also want to cover the text itself so you can’t accidently highlight it.
I want to have this work on various devices too. I have tried it before with my programming log and have mixed success. I also have basically forgotten tweaking that since I got it up. As always, though, I will continue to use this as an experimenting ground for stuff I want to try. Ideally, I will get this working with one of my side projects to have it update on demand.