The first and easiest thing on my list of goals is a new and streamlined look for this blog — something not so heavy and difficult to load, but at the same time attractive and clean.
I’ve had the same boxed blue look (K2-lite, if you liked it) since August 2006, when I started. A couple of times I changed it for a few hours, but didn’t like anything but the blue, and so I kept it. It’s grown a bit old these days, and it’s a new year, so I changed it. The new one is also a bit less vertical.
Some other changes were due. I trimmed off a lot of the extraneous links as well as the flash side box, mostly because it was causing slow load times for me. It didn’t do well to have a blog intended for older computers … that wasn’t courteous to older computers. 
I’ve kept the two snapshots from a desktop and a game, mostly because those are very small pictures and easy to load. I’ve thought about using “more” tags to make the page load a little faster, but I’ve never liked those. I suppose it might be a good idea for some of the longer posts.
That’s about it. Goal No. 1, check.
Can’t you get rid of the extra scroll bar? It doesn’t work with mouse scroll wheels and is a pita.
And the new theme isn’t user-friendly either. White on black is hard on the eyes and the title is too long for the header background.
Thanks.
I do like the new layout in terms of where things are, but I think the colors should be a bit lighter. I agree with srlinuxx
Still nice job
Now for the good news, your page loads as fast as Open Box.
I like the new look! Loads fast, distinctive, and almost University of Georgia colors, so thumbs up from me.
@srlinuxx: I don’t know how much I can change; WordPress.com charges for CSS editing, but I’ll look into it. They only allow preset themes on free accounts. …
But the double scrollbar thing. … Which browser are you using? Does it happen on other WordPress.com sites? I don’t get one with Kazehakase or Firefox. I’ll do what I can to look into it, but again, I don’t know how much I can change.
You’re right, that extra scroll bar isn’t there in Firefox - hmmm, weird. I use konqueror about 99.9% of the time. I’ve run into it maybe once or twice before on other wordpress sites, but mostly not - no. I’ve never worked with wordpress, so I figured it was a setting or an option. Well, not that bigga deal if it’s not anything you’ve enabled or something. But I do like the old theme better.
Hello, K.Mandla
I like it.
One problem though, as mentioned by srlinuxx, the blog title comes over “About” and “Howtos” page links, making them unclickable. My screen resolution is 1200×800, and I use Epiphany:
http://pix.nofrag.com/5/0/5/5564a03f0a143f31838e43397042e.html
Wow! That’s really odd. I wonder why it does that. Is it some sort of font encoding issue? I’m using straight Dejavu Serif on this side — does it look better if you change the font?
I like the new look. For a minute, I thought I was on the wrong blog
Dr Small
Tested with Dejavu Serif (used Bitstream Vera system font in the screen shot) and same thing..
Strange. My only clue is that the page source calls for a CSS style that’s located elsewhere on the WordPress.com system. Perhaps someone with a CSS capture plugin can tell us what font it’s calling for, and see why it gets mangled (I like to think that it wants a Microsoft font — but I like to blame things on them
). Maybe I can look into this tomorrow, although I really don’t think I can do much about it. 
Hi K.Mandla,
I was quite surprised when I saw the new lay-out. At first I even thought that I got on the wrong site
I must say that I like the new lay-out. A dark team is much better for the eyes than a white one. 
Speaking of lay-out’s: I have a question for you: which theme did you use on the Audacious-app? (Like you show here)
I have tried to find any references to it in your entire blog but I even failed to find the search-function around here :s
Never the less, nice lay-out and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincere greetings.
ShadowDragon.
@ShadowDragon: If I remember right, that theme is bundled with Audacious, and a GTK2 version is included. I used the Openbox Onyx theme which fit perfectly, and added tint (I had been playing with tint for a little bit, but I don’t like panels so it’s gone now). The wallpaper I scrounged from somewhere. Here it is, if you want it too.
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs123&d=08013&f=wp-aquanight-1600×1200.jpg
not bad, but i know other blog with this theme
then isn’t new to my eyes :< anyway it is cool
Yes it looks cool, and the layout seems nice, but I’m afraid I grew up on printed ink on paper and really find dark text on a light background easier on my eyes. I have to look right up close to the screen to figure out some of the links. Hey, how about supporting my old wetware!
(There are a lot of people who claim tp prefer the terminal-style white on black but I suppose they must be from a different planet…)
Oh yes, one more little thing: could we maybe have the two little arrows back on left and right at the top that linked to the previous and next posts? Quite useful with a blog as prolific as yours!
Hmm. It may be time to start investing in the blog. I can’t seem to manage minor points like the previous/next links, but I might if I pay for custom CSS (and again, maybe not). I’ll look into it further.