Migrated to mephisto - new design
I’ve been wanting to convert my blog over to something Ruby-based so it would be easier and more fun to extend, so I migrated to Mephisto. Mephisto isn’t the perfect blogging package, but it’s the best of the worst. I think it has great potential. (That’s what people tell you when you suck at something and they think you could suck less.)
I’d played with Mephisto in the past, but I never really liked it. When I started tinkering with the them, I realized that most of what I didn’t like about it was theme-related. Besides the design, I didn’t like how it was using “sections” as categories, and pretty much ignores tags. So, since I was redoing the them, I decided I’d just bite the bullet and put up a new design. This probably doesn’t really matter, since, according to my stats, upwards of 60% of my readers do so via a feed reader, but, oh well.
I’ve made my theme available. You can use it as-is if you don’t like being creative or original, but I’d encourage you to come up with something of your own.
Those using the feed will want to update the URL to point to http://opensoul.org/feed/atom.xml. I have a rewrite rule for now, but that may not always be there.
What’s with the leaf?
Um…it’s green, I like green, therefore…ok, I got nothin’. Because I think it looks good, how’s that? And, according to about.com, “Tri-color combinations of green with yellow and black or white are sporty, outdoorsy colors.” So, now my site is sporty and outdoorsy! Yay!
I’d appreciate some constructive criticism. I plan to make some improvements to my theme and add other content to my site.
Destructive Criticism
“Dude, your site is teh sux0r. Quit using the GIMP and learn how to design.”
Constructive Criticism
“Hey, it looks alright. I don’t like all the white (green) space on the left. The archives list is blank if I click on a single post. The comments box is way too small. It doesn’t render right in IE, and in Safari the search box is all messed up.”
update: I’ve made some changes to my theme again.
I am Brandon Keepers, and I work at