Unveiled

Posted on January 29, 2007 by Tim Golden

mary

Well, it’s finally here…the unveiling of CTM’s new look. It’s taken me almost a week longer than I’d anticipated, but I hope it will have been worth the wait.

I have to say that I’m glad this farce of a contest is now over. I’ve received encouragement from Clint (thanks, bud, I’ll remember this) and there’s been some cheating by another Guy. But at last the moment of truth is here and I hope you like what you see.

Like Jim said the redesign is a complete overhaul, not just a (desperately needed) clean-up of the old site. It’s a lot cleaner and leaner. It’s darker, too, but I like it. We have a new logo and I used a couple of cool scripts I found at script.aculo.us for something just a little different (note the toggle links).

I still have a few things to clean up code-wise and I’m sure there will be glitches to smooth out, but all in all, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turned out. I hope you like it, too.

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12 Responses to “Unveiled”

  1. Jim Walton on January 29th, 2007 10:12 pm

    farce of a contest?? Whatever!

    Thanks for all of your hard work, sweetie!

    Looks awesome.

  2. MacStansbury on January 29th, 2007 10:38 pm

    Boy, it’s nice and green-y and all, but does anybody else think that picture up in the header sorta looks like a skull? It took me a minute to recognize it was a cross on the planet.

  3. clint on January 29th, 2007 11:16 pm

    Ok, true to my word, I’ll now say, “Welcome, Mary!” Your presence here has been long anticipated. Nice work on the new design.

  4. Antoine of MMM on January 30th, 2007 8:24 am

    Very nice. I like that the green was kept. Granted, now I am looking at it on a computer monitor and not my Treo, but it looks good on both. The only issue that I’d have is that there is no way to quickly get to the content of the page when using the mobile. That’s a minor thing for most though as I think I am way too wanting of sites to be mobile-friendly.

    Now, Jim and Mary, if you two can keep me in prayer for a wife that would clean me up this well, that would be great :-D

  5. mary on January 30th, 2007 10:41 am

    MacStans, I’d sure love to see a screenshot of what you’re seeing! I certainly don’t want the new header to look like a skull!! ;) Thanks, Clint…I still owe you a couple of templates . Antonine, as I work on tweaking the stray pieces of code I’ll see if I can’t put some navigation down at the bottom of the page. Granted, you’ll have to scroll, but it’s the quick ‘n dirty way of taking care of no nav for ya. I think the problem is the cool script.aculo.us js shelf up there is covering the header and the navigation on hand-helds (anyway, that’s the way it looked on my phone).

  6. J.C. Jennings on January 30th, 2007 10:48 am

    Awesome Guys! Love the new logo, tight, clean, crisp look. Thanks for the link to my blog!

  7. Laquita on January 30th, 2007 12:26 pm

    Good job, Mary!

    I love the logo. It brings to mind the idea of reaching the world through technology. Cool!

  8. David Russell on January 30th, 2007 5:49 pm

    Sorry for the flagrant use of an overly pervasive term, but welcome to “Web 2.0″. :) Nice work all around.

    I wouldn’t mind a timestamp on the comments / posts, but you may have been intentional in leaving those out. Also, there is an alternate comment feature in WordPress you may be able to use to tint every odd comment to help bring a little more “separation” to each. I wouldn’t make it drastic, just a couple of shades darker on every other one.

    Just a couple of thoughts, take ‘em or leave ‘em. :)

    And it is good to “hear” from you, Mary.

  9. Brandon on January 31st, 2007 1:25 pm

    Jim and Mary,

    Great Redesign!!! The site is very clean and easy to navigate. I’m impressed. I’m sure everyone else really appreciates the hard work you two have put into this blog as well. Thanks!

  10. David on February 1st, 2007 1:16 am

    I like the colour, but just to let you know, using the extension adblock with the Adblock Filterset.G Updater on Firefox which causes the header image not to display.

    I think this is because you used the word ‘banner’ in the file name of the graphic, so it is assumed that it is an advertisement.

    Sorry, just letting you know.

  11. Bertha BJB on February 1st, 2007 8:51 am

    Not much flash… The opening header is AMAZING. It kept me mezmorized for a good 3 minutes. As one completely ignorant of tech. but knowing a little about consumer marketing tactics…KUDOS to you both. Great site! It’s user friendly and still cram packed full the VALUABLE information we are all seeking. I will continue to put your name out there and good luck!
    Hey, Mary. i got content :)

  12. Jim Walton on February 1st, 2007 8:57 am

    David, thanks for the info about adblock. I don’t use those add-ons in Firefox, but just for fun, I installed both Add-ons that you mention, so I could duplicate your scenario. Initially, the banner was unchanged, still visible, however, if I right clicked the banner and manually set it to be blocked, then it was gone. I also looked for a setting that would automatically block certain items and could not find it. I was able to go in and switch the block off, so the banner appeared as it should.

    I think using that type of add-on will give you some benefit but can also interfere unnecessarily.

    Thanks again for the info, keep in touch!

    Jim