Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Website: Complete

     Well folks, I'm kinda nervous to say it but I think the building of the "Fluff and Wilson's Miscellaneous Debris" website is complete. I know some folks thought it would never get finished. I mean I had the majority of the core site up and running but it wasn't anything compared to what I have developed over the last several days. I must say that I am quite proud over what the site has developed into. There's a lot more functionality and user-friendliness than there was prior. I'll talk more about that later.

     All I can say at the moment is, that while I should be popping a cork on a bottle or rolling a fatty or something, I just want a nap. My brain is so mushy at the moment. But I feel as if it was worth it. And hey, I learned a few new things along the way. Currently, the rest of my cast and crew have no idea that I have been secretly finishing things up. I didn't need the attention since I was in a pretty heavy groove. Boy, they will sure be surprised when I upload the finished product in a few hours.

     So what's new, you might be muttering to yourself. Or maybe you're not. I'm not a mind reader anymore since I made that deal with the gypsies a few years back, so I'm just guessing. Anyways... website... new stuff... oh my! Well first and foremost there's now handy sidebar navigation that controls a lot of the new website features. You can track the latest episodes, jump to the latest blogs, try new things in the Topic Shuffle, etc etc. The main top navigation bar has changed as well. Buttons have been renamed, moved around, added, and even deleted! So take some time to get yourself acquainted with the new setup. It's not that hard, really it isn't.

     Over on the Show page we added a nice handy clock so we can try to keep from rambling too long while we broadcast. This is a good thing for all of you so just roll with it. It's a shiny new clock, deal with it. In the Archives section some things have been slightly altered. It's now much easier to quick jump to a specific episode so you can get your fix in right away! I hope you all like how I integrated that in there, I thought it was neat. Yes, I know I have been slacking a bit on getting all the episode info entered into the site. Part of it was that it was tedious to do until I developed a better system, which I have now. So I have no excuse. But I'll try to find one anyways. I'll get back to you on that. So anyways, the new info should start coming in at a better rate.

     Ok so now that the less major changes are talked about and out of the way, let's get to the new shit. And boy, oh boy, have I brought you a bunch of new things to play with. First off... the Blogs. Major revamp here. If you saw what it was prior, it was pretty bare bones. The structure and material was there but the styling and interface was heavily lacking. That has been changed. I had fun working with this page as I am not entirely familiar with RSS and everything it entails. I still don't know a lot but I'm glad I figured out enough to get it working nicely. We don't blog a whole lot but we sure plan on trying to do more of it. So this section has been made more user friendly to navigate all the blogs quickly and easily.

     Next is the Links section. Totally new feature. Everyone has their share of favorite links and we of course are no different. I figured since the podcast is very media related that offering a a healthy supply of links can't be a bad thing. But don't worry we won't put bullshit scam links up. Fuck that noise. You'll notice that the Links section is broken up into category for easy viewing. Take some time to try some new sites. Especially our personal picks! We'll be adding many more Link entries over the next few weeks so bear with us. One last note, some people may notice that the Links button on the main nav button no longer triggers a pulldown menu like it used to. This was an intended choice and it is not broken. A new links nav bar has been created and implemented. So don't ask. :P

     The next feature came to me late last night and I thought it was a pretty cool idea especially since I had spent so much time making the framework graphics for the Show page. So I re-used the framework for my new idea. I was at YouTube for some reason and started playing with their embedded playlist feature. Very neat. I'm a person who likes making YouTube playlists and I have a feeling Fluff does as well. So we're gonna make some playlists of videos to share with you all. I even decided to get our producer in on this section! I really like how this section came out and I have a feeling I'll be using it a lot cause I came up with a really fast way of navigating your playlists.

     And last but not least we have the section that Fluff hounded me soooo much about. The About Us section. I mean, as if you guys don't get enough of us through the live broadcast, the replays and all our incessant advertising. But whatever it'll make him happy. Pretty straightforward section but I stylized it up a bit and I think it's pretty nifty. So Fluff.... smile.

     So there you have it folks. I babbled way too long but I was excited to share all the news with our fans. If you want to give out some feedback about the website please drop us a line. Even if it's just raves. In fact, I prefer rave reviews. I had a lot of fun making this website. I'm excited to know folks will be utilizing my virtual playground. I'm sure down the line we'll add some fun new features, but for now the structure of the website is complete and now it's all about updating the info. Enjoy everyone!

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