Well having finally managed to make my long term aim become a reality. As most of you seem to have noticed, I have switched (most of) my site over to a new look and feel.

Interestingly enough, this has gone live 3 years after the launch of V1, 2 years after V2 (which was the start of the diary) and about 9 months after V2.5 (the red layout).

On the surface, this may look as basic as a a change of colour to the old design, but you can rest assured that under the covers a lot has changed. Firstly, the benefits for you…

The new design should fix the painstakingly slow page load times that the site used to have (my appoligies for taking so long, I’ve been intending to fix this since I originally put the site up). The pages should also have a more consistant look and feel (making it easier to get around) as they are all based on the same template.

The reason for the changes is that all of my content is now stored in a database, and the pages are generated out of this database as required. This is a huge change, even if it isn’t apparent on the surface. It actually makes new developments a lot easier (as the page is now dynamic rather than static) so you can expect these to appear from time to time.

Now, onto the important bit…

If you have any suggestions, feedback, wish lists, gripes or otherwise, then please send us an email. The main focus of these changes is to make the site more useful/user friendly to you – the users. So let us know what you think, we also love to hear the ideas you have for new pages.

Anyway, must fly – I have a heap to do… as a parting note, I cant believe in the space of 3 years I have gone from having no idea, to teaching myself to use databases and dynamic pages. Oh how the time flys when your swearing at a computer.