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I'm "rebooting" this site this week - implementing a new design, condensing my stylesheets and reworking some of the code - so some things might be a little wonky (yes that's a technical term). It's been a while since my last redesign -- and this one is definitely the darkest I've ever gone. I've been having fun with Photoshop CS2. If you haven't upgraded ... it is SO worth it. GREAT upgrade. :thumbsup: (And the Illustrator upgrade is worth it's weight in gold. It's FANTASTIC. Just go for the whole suite. Great investment.)

So back to the reboot - it's dark and grungy - but I like it. It's my first departure from an 800x600 friendly design. I am so tired of the huge expanse of wasted space. If you have your screen set at that resolution, you're going to horizontal scroll. While I would never design a site for a client that isn't 800x600 friendly (because the average computer user uses the resolution their computers came out of the box set at, and until recently everything shipped with 800x600 native) - my stats for THIS site show that 99.9% of my traffic views this site on at least 1024x768 (and then there are people like me - my screen resolution is 1280x960!) If you're still at 800x600 ... what is wrong with you? Don't you know how many pixels you're missing??? :tongue:

So - it's Silverberry Rebooted, Bigger and Darker (with a little more cowbell).

Brittany Gilbert is one of the first full-time paid bloggers - she maintains a very frequently updated blog - Nashville is Talking - for the ABC affiliate, WKRN 2, here in Nashville.

Within three days, my blog and two blogs of people I know were all linked at Nashville is Talking. Here's my link, Katherine's link, and Patrick/Lydia's link! Brittany also linked to my "Burning the Flag in the Land of the Free" entry from today :)

It's pretty cool because now all three of our sites posts will be aggregated in the NIT sideblog - you gotta love that :)

Wow - I've been blogging for THREE years now. I never thought I'd keep this up as long as I have.

Interesting that we are dealing with one of the same issues we were dealing with when I first started this blog three years ago! We got a letter in the mail this weekend from the Office of Homeland Security. (I know our postman must wonder who lives here. We're always getting stuff from that office!) It seems they have finally gotten to Steve's application to make his greencard permanent. We sent in the latest set of papers six months ago -- and they're just now saying - hey, yeah - we got these - can you send this and this and this and we'll get this finalized. Six months - not too bad. (If you're from the Phillippines, and in the 4th preference level, they're up to date on applications from November of 1982. Yes - 1982. That means if you submitted your application in 1983, it hasn't been processed yet. Oh yeah! We do the website for our immigration attorney - and every month she has us posting the Visa Bulletin - which shows how up to date they are with applications. It's pretty interesting! After September 11 - it was amazing how the numbers slowed down. They were already REALLY behind ... and then the terrorist attacks happened ... and they were being even more careful with applications. Now they're backlogged so much it's unbelievable. But that's good. If you've ever been in an INS office, you completely understand why they are so tough and require so much documentation.)

Anyway - when we had our original interview with INS for Steve's greencard - 2 years ago - we were 3 months shy of being married two years. At the time, we were glad to be getting the interview over with - and excited they processed him so quickly (quickly = 21 months). But then at the interview we learned that since we hadn't reached our 2 year anniversary yet - he would only be getting a conditional green card. When we were married for 4 years - they would review the paperwork and then give him his permanent green card (which is then good for like 10-12 years). If our interview had been three months later, we wouldn't have to do anything with INS for another 10+ years. Soooo ... the 3 months early interview ended up being more of a hassle than it would have been had they been a bit slower processing his forms. Because now we're having to get more paperwork together, file more forms, and, of course, pay more money. Perhaps that's the reasoning behind it. They can pull in even more money by interviewing people before the 2-year anniversary.

Anyway - 3 years ago - Steve and I were battling with INS over some paperwork that they DIDN'T file quickly. This blog has been through it all. Now we're still dealing with INS - but we're both used to it now.

Anyway - back to the original reason for this post - Happy 3-Year Anniversary Blog!

Some fairly interesting statistics ... at least to me!

Summary of June 2004 Statistics for Silverberry.org

Operating System Stats
89.4% - Windows OS.
5.4% - Mac OS.
.5% - Linux
Less than 1/2% - Sun Solaris, Irix, FreeBSD, WebTV, Dreamcast, Symbian, etc.

It's been a frustrating week here at silverberry ... my MT installation somehow got corrupted and this site was eating up bandwith like crazy. All the cgi scripts were just going and going and going - like an energizer bunny! Suddenly, the php includes I was using in several places across the site were just spastic. I tried just replacing all the cgi scripts with fresh copies - but that didn't solve anything. So I had to do a complete fresh install, restore my database (thank goodness I'm anal about doing backups!), reinstall the scores of plugins I use, and then do a full site rebuild. :crazy:

Not much fun - but everything is back up and running. There are still a few kinks I need work out - you'll notice my Currently sidebar on the right isn't working completely - the overlibs are popping up on the left side of the screen or sometimes even down at the very bottom of the page? That's a javascript/CSS issue I've got to work on this weekend. :arg:

The plus side to doing a fresh MT install: suddenly, typekey is working perfectly. :thumbsup: Not sure what is up with that - but I'm happy it's working. I don't think I'll ever restrict commenting to typekey only even though I am still getting slammed by some annoying comment spammers - but at least with comment moderation in place, nothing shows up on the site and I can do the oh-so-handy mass deletion. I'm hoping that MT Blacklist is updated soon to be compatible with MT 3.0 -- I'm hoping Jay Allen is trying to get it completed for the Plugin Contest via SixApart that ends soon.

I'm doing a little site maintenance this week. I'm finally getting around to updating all my templates to MT 3.0 - mainly the individual archive pages are set up a bit different. Although I'm still having problems with typekey. Even using the default individual entry template - typekey is not working. It doesn't even prompt you to sign in? Oh well - I'll work on it later.

So - forgive weird page setups or :scared: missing pages while I'm fixing stuff :)

I've created a new template for Silverberry that's PDA friendly - so if I'm not the only one who looks at my site on a small PDA screen ... this will load much faster :)

Anyone else out there have PDA friendly versions that I can bookmark on my phone?

One of the reasons I created this blog in the first place was because it would be MY space - where I could do whatever I wanted to, without having to please a client's wishes. It's a great place for me to test new ideas out. But you know how if you're the only one working on a project - graphics, websites, writing, newsletters - whatever it is - how it's impossible for you yourself to be objective about what it looks like, sounds like, reads like, etc?

I've had tons of comments about different layouts I've had on this site (Jeff still loves the swing one the best ... maybe because it was my whimsical side?) - I think the Windows Madness theme that I had up in 2002 was the most commented layout ever though. That was a fun one!

I've had some version of this layout up for over a year now -- the colors and gaphics have changed a bit, but the backbone remains the same. I've kept this design for so long because I haven't come up with anything I would like more that would display my content how I want. I like a few things about this design -- (1) the floating menu - although I wonder how many people actually browse anything other than the bloggy part of the site? (2) it expands and contracts depending on your screen resolution. I like that - and I've usually tried to do that with all of my designs. I work at a high screen resolution - and don't like it when I go to a website and it only takes up 1/4 of my screen. This site works because I've set it so that it looks good at 800x600 right on up to my wide screen laptop resolution - 1920 x 1200 (granted - I'm squinting to see that one - but it stretches!). (3) I like having the two side columns - so I can pull info from all the secondary blogs I have set up. Most sites have at least one side column - so this isn't something new. Whenever I do get around to redesigning, I'll definitely have 2 side columns - I can't give up my side content :)

What do you like about this type of design? What don't you like? What type of connection do you have - and how long does it take to load? Have you ever tried to view Silverberry on your PDA (it's a slow download because of the images - but it's viewable)? Do you prefer pure CSS layouts or tables - or you don't really care? Whose website out there do you consider the 'mecca' of design and usability? Do you prefer simplicity over complexity? What's your opinion?

When you create a new look for your websites -- what are your 'requirements'? Columns? Colors? Graphics? Content available on the main page?

Do you use a newsreader to read your favorite blogs? Which one? Do you prefer entire entries being included in the RSS feed, or just excerpts?

I've made a few changes on the site over the past week. The one I'm most excited about is the aggregation of all of the different blogs I have set up. Now my favorite links, movie & book reviews, odds&ends links, and my regular blog entries are all aggregated together on my index page. So no matter which blog I post a new entry in ... they all get their "time in the spotlight" on the front page. And they all can have their own design. (which is what I really wanted ... I didnt want it to just list all my entries in the same format. Especially since I use different fields for different things in all the blogs). All it took was a few MT plugins (SQL and Compare) and a little coding frenzy -- and wala aggregated index page!

And I've moved most of my previous book and movie reviews into their own blog ... complete with the berrylicious rating system. To see all the reviews I've moved over to date ... visit the Reviews Page :)

It's hard to believe that two years ago today I blogged my very first entry! I don't think I ever thought I would still be doing it two years later ... especially since all I blogged about in the beginning was what fanlistings/cliques I had joined and a constant stream of answering weekly meme questions.

Now I find my blog to be a part of my life. When things happen, I think -- that's blogworthy! I even have quite a few real-life people who know about my blog ... and though that has caused me to have to censor some topics I might discuss, it's ok. It's sometimes fun at work when something silly happens to make a comment to one of my co-workers, "That is SO going in my blog ... ".

Ah well ... I have two years behind me now! Wow! I wonder if I'll still be blogging in another two years? In another four years?

How long have you been blogging? Do you think you'll still have your blog in two years? Do people in your real life know about your blog? If they do, would you rather they not?

Well I'm back out to the yard ... I planted some strawberries and lettuce today. Steve's been working on a pathway in front of the front porch. It's beautiful weather here today ... if only it would stay this way right on up til summer. I'm tired of cold days!