Housekeeping and winners

As you may have heard, the new look is here, I hope you like it. I do. We had a mostly favorable response, and we appreciate the feedback and suggestions, there is still some tweakage going on. By the way, we upgraded to WordPress 2.1, so the site is apparently more secure, among other things. There are some nice new features on the backend.

As Mary touched on, this is a cleaner look and one that is simpler, as well and faster loading. The archive page is nice, check that out, it provides a good view of past posts.

You may notice there are no sidebars, which is intentional. Some of the info was moved above the header, click where it says ‘toggle here’. The purpose is there, as well as the focus and some other important things.

One thing that I added was a links page, which currently has most church tech blogs that I am aware of and also resources that I have begun accumulating. If you are a church tech blogger and you’re not on this page, and want to be, let me know. I stopped doing a blogroll quite awhile ago, because it was too much trouble to keep up. But the links page is there mainly for reference. I have been asked from time to time about other church tech bloggers and under the gun like that, there’s no way to rattle off even a portion of that list. I know I miss some, so this way, I know I give a fair representation.

The contact page is basically the same as it was, the verify box does not always display characters until you click send the first time. Then they show. I’m not sure why, so just know that.

The about me page is the same, it’s……about me! I did make a slight change about a week ago or so and I’m sure it went unnoticed, until now. You may have noticed this logo around. I have finally added the link to that image so it directs you to it’s source now. It’s just a site I have been playing with for fun. Check it out if you want, it’s still a work in progress. For the record, Mary’s only input on my own personal site has been creating the logo, I get credit for the rest. (In other words, the design and flow of this new site is not nearly at the level that this blog is!)

Now, for bonus points, after I suggested everyone guess the go live date and time, I realized I could really favor someone, by just holding out til the time they guessed. However, I never anticipated how it actually turned out. Mary has been working hard on getting the site done and we really had no clue when it would be ready, so the contest was hardly rigged! So, here’s the results:

1st place – Clif, guessing within 1/2 an hour (we were having an IM conversation at the same time Mary was tying things up and I suggested the time may be drawing near and he stepped up and took a guess. If you consider that cheating, so be it, it’s my contest) 6,734 bonus points

2nd place – Clint, David and Brandon – For simply coming out with a guess in my rigged contest, you’re all winners – 6,734 bonus points each

3rd place – Brad – You can’t IM me 3 minutes after the site goes up and guess 3 minutes prior to that moment. Sorry. – 3 bonus points

Honorable Mention – Laquita – For her comment, which involved late nights and being soul mates.  I understood perfectly and I even knew that the two were not related.  Regardless, we will always be soulmates. (according to Flixster) – 0 bonus points (c’mon, it’s honorable mention, that’s not like a real award)