You may be right about JohnDilbeck.com needing a better palette of colors. You’re not the first one to suggest that.

That’s a good point about changing the font. I’ll look into that the next time I update the site.

I appreciate your comments.

Act on your dream!

JD

I know what you mean. My next major purchase will be a MacBook with a larger screen. Working outside my home with local business owners means that I’m going to find it much easier to bring my work with me. Like you, I intend to get bigger, not smaller.

(Well, at least my computer monitor – I’m still trying to lose more weight.)

The center column on JohnDilbeck.com is just a few pixels narrower than this one. The difference is that both the left and right columns are a good bit narrower than they are on this blog.

I pulled up both sites in different windows and put one over the other. This blog does look quite a bit larger, but it’s not all that much.

I think one of the reasons I don’t see what you do is that I normally work with multiple apps open with multiple windows and usually quite a few tabs in my main browser window. Because of that, I have the windows smaller and overlapping so I can pick one to bring to the front easily.

Act on your dream!

JD

I was just thinking, though, that your JD.com site doesn’t seem as big as this one does. Maybe it’s because it’s not centered, or maybe I just forgot to increase it’s size like I normally do; I’ll have to check again.
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Thanks for taking a look at my old site with a fresh coat of green paint.

I’m getting about as many comments in email about the green as I used to get about the blue. My daughter, for instance, hates the blue color that I used to have on JohnDilbeck.com and still have on most of my blogs.

When she saw the new site I’m working on, she said she liked the way it looked – better than that old blue I like.

PHP is just a scripting language that is designed to work well with databases such as MySQL. It can also be used for other types of scripting that don’t interact with a database.

On JohnDilbeck.com, I use it on some pages to run a program called CaRP that makes it easy to syndicate RSS files so that they show up as text to the search engines rather than using something like Feedburner’s javascripts to show a feed.

That way, Google and others consider it fresh content.

If Google ever starts reading RSS files from javascript, it will remove one of the last reasons for using PHP on that site.

I put all my most important RSS feeds on the front page of JohnDilbeck.com so I can load one page when I start my work day to see what’s current on my communities and forums.

Since WordPress is coded in PHP, learning at least something about it would probably be helpful, but not as helpful as it once was. Before WordPress became so adept at modifying the appearance of a blog using the Appearance tab and widgets, it was almost required to know how to modify and/or program PHP to do what you wanted to accomplish. It’s much easier now.

Those days of 13 inch monitors aren’t that far gone for some of us. I still use a 15-inch monitor on my primary computer and main backup computer.

But, that wasn’t my main reasoning when I created that site and GeorgiaDragRacing.com. I designed them to that width so they would print properly on paper.

Web browsers have made big improvements in their ability to print over the last decade, so maybe it isn’t necessary, now.

Still, I’d prefer a long, rather narrow page to a wide, shorter one. I find the narrower columns much easier to read. In fact, I think a 500 pixel text column is about the maximum I’d want for reading comfort.

Apparently, you don’t.

As far as the green color, at least I’m not using some low-contrast, artist-designed color scheme that is impossible for anyone to read if they’re over 20 years old.

My tired old eyes just can’t read some pages that I come across, and one of the worst is an all black page with small white text and blue links. Even if I increase the text size several times, I can barely see it well enough to read.

I quit going to one of my favorite sites, because it hurt too much to try to read it.

These tired old eyes have spent too many years working too many hours reading text off a screen searching for bugs to stomp.

Having said all that, I think you’d agree that JohnDilbeck.com looks better than it did a few weeks ago.

And, more importantly to me, I no longer have ads promoting Amazon.com on every page.

Thanks for looking, my friend.

Act on your dream!

JD

I went to take a look at your site, and I remember all the other stuff that was on there. If I may, I think your front page would benefit from making it much wider than it is. I’m betting you originally created it in the days when most of us had 13″ monitors, but in today’s world, you’ve got lots of real estate at your disposal, and your page wouldn’t be so long.

Keep up the good work, my man!

Of course, I’d say something about the green, but it wouldn’t be fair because I hate green. LOL
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