Shifted to Moveable Type which offers archiving by both date and categories (although the categories won't appear alphabetically in the nav until a couple releases from now). Seems to be a bit more stable than GM and has more features as well as ongoing support. Lost the search capability, but will be adding that back in via the Search engine on my ISP. Hopefully this won't break too many links out there.

Trying to upgrade DesignWritings to the new layout which is totally done with CSS. Combined with GreyMatter, I am finding the full template set a little wacked out. This main index page looks fine, but the individual entry seems to be uncooperative. They are almost identical templates, but sit in different directories. Am wondering if that would screw things up. Most of the right nav is missing on the lower pages.

Anyone else have these kinds of problems? It is late and I have to go to sleep - so apologies for this being screwed up.

It seems that, along with everyone else, I have been experiementing with redesigning my site using strictly CSS for positioning. This takes me back to the days of hand coding HTML and not really being sure of what you were going to get.

I started sketching and had the idea to use some of the images that I have been posting in my other log as imagery for everything - I am using an SSI call to refresh the main sidebar image everytime you come to the page. Then I saw that EH was thinking about redesign and suddenly there everyone was doing the CSS thing.

Comments are - as always - welcome. I have looked at these pages in IE5 (Mac), NS 6 (Mac), Opera (Mac), NS 4(Mac - layout doesn't come through - but you can read everything), IE 5 (PC) and NS 6 (PC). So far so good. Let me know what you think. I have a lot of pages on the site - so it will be awhile before everything is implemented.

Comments?

I have had continued requests for the AltaVista project process diagram my team developed while at AltaVista and as these weblog entries scroll away, the file is getting harder and harder to find. So I have created an Artifacts page that will have a permanent home in the side navigation, along with my recommended sites and reading list.

I will add items from time to time. The Process diagram is there, as well as an artifact that I presented at the Advance for Design summit last summer. This PDF shows samples of userflow diagrams, written notes and annotations, wireframes, more written notes, mockups and final published screen for the AltaVista registration process that I worked on over the course of a year. These screens are just a few samples to show the iterative process and how the items were used when working with engineering, marketing and other team members.

I hope to develop a couple of case studies around some of this past work in the near future.

If you are observant, you will have noticed that I have made the switch to GreyMatter today. This was an interesting process to setup and test and still try to have the Blogger postings available for reading.

I hope everyone thinks it is worth it and participates in the conversation. I look forward to hearing from you.

In the spirit of Community and collaborative discussions, I am experimenting with GreyMatter and with switching my blog over. It seems to be working but I am still fighting with the templates. Look for this space to change in the next week or so.

Why am I changing?
I like the idea of having comments associated with my writings. To know what people think and have a discussion is part of the point. I have been getting some great emails that further the ideas I have brought up and I believe it is important ofr everyone to hear the other sides of the conversation.

Hopefully it will be a smooth transition. My personal blog "musings" will continue to use blogger as I feel it is important to support.