It has been awhile since I updated The Library Geek. Initially, I wanted to move my blog into Drupal and convert it into a CMS, or a one-stop shop offering everything I can think of. However, even though I like Drupal a lot, I just keep hitting road bumps in realizing what I envisioned in my mind. So I went from deciding to do a Drupal site, then back to WordPress, then deciding to do both. I am reserving the Drupal project sometime in the distant future though as I plan on concentrating on WordPress and posting all these ideas that are just buzzing inside my head.
So I went to work on rebuilding my WordPress site from a blog that was a vehicle for my assignments for my LIBR 246 course to a more personal one that will reflect my interests. Of course, that will still include stuff from my MLIS courses, but hopefully it will be more varied and less staid. The next road bump that I hit was choosing a different theme from what the original WordPress install has. That theme was Atahualpa, which is a nice, easily configurable, and clean theme, but I wanted something new. Fickle-minded that I am, I went through literally hundreds of theme, trying them out sometimes thrice, before moving on to another. I probably wasted about four weeks doing that, which I rationalize as my research and development phase. At first, I wanted to have a magazine-style blog, but after trying out different designs, that style just ain’t happening. I then decided to do a CMS-like WordPress blog. So that means I have to scour the Web for tutorials on how to make Wordpres behave as such.
Talk about punishing myself.
But I like to think that all of that paid of. I now have a blog that reflects what I want for it moving forward. it also have a design that is not too garish, but not too plain either. The theme I used for The Library Geek is called Arclite by digitalnature. The Library Geek has a static front page that has my “About Me” information. The next page is the Blog page followed by the Lifestream page. The Lifestream page gathers and streams different feeds from Web applications that I have an account with. It was made possible by this nifty plugin from David Cramer and from the ibegin site. I also reused my Yahoo pipes mashup of my Flickr photostream and placed it right after the Lifetreams on the same page. I think it turned out beautifully. The last page holds my Star Trek Resources Google custom search engine which was a final project for my LIBR 202 class. I hope to come up with a post in the future on how I designed this blog and cite the resources I used to accomplish it.