Success!

I have redesigned this blog!

OK, I didn’t do most of the designing. All I did was tweak the CSS and move some template code about. The amazing thing about Movable Type 4 (MT) is that it allows me to backup my old templates, purge them from the live system and replace them with the latest MT templates and stylesheets.

The even more amazing thing was that I didn’t notice such a button until I surfed around by accident. Doh!

There were some minor hiccups and a few big belches as the system transited from old to new. The biggest problem was getting the server to overwrite the old template code. After several re-publishing attempts in vain, I FTP’d into the server and realised that the supposedly new Home page template was actually the old one, which explained the broken link to the stylesheet.

After some forcible file replacements and flushing of the bowel system, all the gas seems to have left. My blog is now sitting up without much indigestion, though there are still some pellets I need to wash out.

Eventually all my static pages will be moved to MT4 which also publishes web pages (not just blog posts), like Wordpress does. So this will become a general Content Management System, controlling a few thousand blog posts and several pages.

If only major corporate website revamps could be done this quickly!

ps. The Cityscape you are currently viewing on my new masthead is that of Austin, Texas… the city I just returned from! (SXSW)