Searching for a new template
When you have a blog, one thing you need to decide on is how you want the blog to look.
I decided that 11 months ago for CTBizBlogs, but for about the last 3 of those months, I’ve been trying to decide on a new look. Feedback on this has been mixed. For the old theme, it’s almost as if you can put your self on the geeky to normal spectrum based on your reaction to it.
Loved it = techy
Accepted it = techy tendencies
Confused by it = non-techy
For the record, here’s what it looked like:
The main reaction from non-techy types was that it was busy, and not clear where the focus was.
Now, one cool thing about most blogging applications, is that you can change the theme at the click of a mouse, if you want to. In Blogger (Google’s free blogging application) there’s a section called Templates, where you can browse through quite a few nice-looking examples. In WordPress, that section is called “Presentation.” WordPress comes with quite a few templates, and if you have the WordPress.org version (the one where you download the application and install it on a web server) you can add more. If you are using WordPress.com (the free, hosted version), you can’t.
In both Blogger and WordPress.org, you can even modify an existing template or create a new one (or hire someone to do that). You can’t with WordPress.com. As always, there’s a trade-off.
Here’s how the dashboard of WordPress looks:
Pretty cool — you can scroll down and see all the available themes, with thumbnail images, if the designer of the theme has included one. For the record, my theme was “Journalized Sand,” by Mike Little. It is a great theme, easily customizable. He’s got a new version out, and I’m very tempted to go back to the tried and true.
There are a few issues to think about when you decide on your theme. I’ll write about them tomorrow.
![email address: ctbizblogs [at] gmail.com](http://www.ctbizblogs.com/wp-images/email.png)
July 5th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Good points on choosing themes. It’s nice to be able to choose from a list of nice themes.
I always start with a theme that I like and then make small modifications until I’ve tweaked it to exactly what I want. I’ve done this in both Blogger and Wordpress. Newer users will probably want to stick with a default theme design or hire someone to modify.
Wordpress.com is great, with a lot of nice themes but the fact that you can’t edit them is a bit of a drag. My current webhost, Dreamhost, offers a one-click install of Wordpress, and they pre-install about 50 themes which users can edit if they like.
I think that’s a nice feature for businesses looking to keep control of their blog while minimizing the technical overhead.
July 5th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Rob,
I agree!
Funny you should mention Dreamhost — they’re my webhosting provider, too. I think they’re great. And it’s all their fault that I’m such a WordPress fan now.
If only it was that easy getting a local version to run on my computer. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to do that. But now that it’s done, I can tweak away at the next version of the blog, and do it all behind the scenes.
July 6th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Maybe its because I’m resistant to change - but I miss the old site.
I quite like the idea I’m a secret geek!
The thing I like about your blog Sabine is that it always feels like a reference book that you can dib in and out of - and always come out with something useful.
Heather
July 6th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Aha! See that Heather? I knew it!
Thanks for the feedback. I do miss the old site, too. I’m trying to get up something a little simpler, but with all the information only a click or two away.
I do know that two columns just doesn’t cut it, for sure. “I am large — I contain multitudes!” (Walt Whitman, American poet).