Sunday, September 6, 2009

Like Our New Look?

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Hmm, something seems a little different here on Cake Wrecks today, doesn't it?

:D

Yep, behold the glory of our brand new site design! Thanks for the many lovely comments so far; I do hope you'll all find it more streamlined and purty-like.

Shout-out time: many MANY thanks to Awesome Aric (yes, I think that's how I shall refer to him from now on) of Tiki Kitchen Design. Aric has been working with me and John for weeks now, and for every "hey, what if we tried THIS?" he gave us multiple options and somehow managed to mask his desire to throttle us with unbridled patience and enthusiasm. Those of you familiar with web design know just how difficult it is to design a customized site in Blogger, so the fact that Aric was willing to try - and had the skills to write code from the ground up when necessary - has been a godsend. We'll be continuing to tweak some of the links and pages this week, but in the meantime y'all be sure to thank Aric in true CW fashion, k?

And, Aric? We mean that. Truly. ;)



Update: It seems we have all the bugs worked out now but we're hoping you guys can help us out by telling us about any problems you encounter. Let us know okay?
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Nathalie said...

I think it's great! Works fine for me on Mac OS X, Firefox. Love the new banner. :D

ki-mava said...

great, works perfectly in firefox windows vista! love the carrot jockeys header, brilliant!

April Mack said...

Very nice! I like it a lot.

Everything seems to be showing up just fine for me. I'm using Safari (v 4.0.2) on a Mac (OS X, v 10.4.11).

Anonymous said...

Mac OS X 10.5:

Fluid, Vienna, Safari, and Firefox all look lovely; some loads are showing more ads than others, though.

Unknown said...

I like it. it loads faster and has a cleaner look to it.

Rose A. said...

Looks great!

Karen said...

Love the update. It looks really slick. And everything looks right to me. I'm running it on Safari for Mac.

Nonna said...

I like the new look but thought it would be a lot fancier than it is. It is user friendly. The ads kind of bug me too but time is money after all ! LOL

kayoko said...

Works great and looks great too!

Only wish there's a "post comment" option right after the post instead of having to scroll down 200+ comments before I can add my own. =)

Annieofbluegables said...

It works on my Firefox. Looks great. I cannot imagine writing code. Amazing to me.
~a

Unknown said...

ok this time when I came to site it was way differnet, white under text & blue surrounding, & the ads weren't the main focus, so this time I vote yes!

Nat said...

Works great for me. I'm running Firefox on Win XP SP3

Anonymous said...

Working on Linux, with Firefox, for what it's worth. Site looks good.

Just as a technical heads up, the term PC would most closely reference a hardware configuration, not an Operating System. And since Macs are now Intel based, they fall into that generic PC category as well. So the relevant question is, what operating system (OSX, Windows, Linux, etc) and browser (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, etc).

Hayley said...

I"m on Safari on Mac OS X and can see it just fine. Looks fantastic!!

Etiquette Bitch said...

Aric-
Thank yew
underneat that
it looks cool.

Anonymous said...

What's fun to me (I view the site on Firefox) is that the first thing that comes up is the carrot jockeys, and it looks as though they are riding into the sunset. Good times.

I can't believe you're right here in my city and I can't meet you. Hope you guys are enjoying the Con!

Sarah said...

I'm using Safari on Mac OSX 10.5 and it's just fine for me! Looks great guys! Good one Aric!

Laura said...

love the new look! great job jen, john, aric, and all who helped!! i especially love the carrot jockeys on top. :-) great blog and keep up the good work!!

Beth Howard said...

Love the new look - great header!

Peter L. said...

Seems to show up in good 'ol html in opera too. How's the new look supposed to look? flash/flex?

Jen said...

I'm a week old reader...and I love the new look!!!

holly said...

To be honest, the white font was easier on the eyes (and my eyes ain't that old!) and just easier to read on the blue. The white seems very glaring and I'm just not diggin' it.

The rest matters very little to me (layout etc). I never read blogs because of layout or appearance. I read them because the person writing is intelligent, writes well, writes about things that interest me, has a sense of humor...whatever it is that catches me. I could tell you nothing about the layout of blogs I have read for YEARS - but I can repeat many of the things I have read on those same blogs. If someone is a terrible or boring writer, all the fancy layout in the world isn't going to keep me.

I do like the carrot jockeys on the top though.

Anonymous said...

I really wish you didn't have to have the banner across the top. It takes away from your header and the jockeys, esp. since it's moving.

ari said...

The new look is great! I run Mac OS X, and I can see it just fine on Firefox. Dunno why the others are having problems. :P

Thak you!

ari

Lucille Ball Jr. said...

the new site is awesome!

Lorry said...

I tried in both Opera and Safari on my Mac and it looks awesome, no reloads necessary. Great job! :D

Anonymous said...

Looks great on Firefox 3.5.2 on Mac OS X.5.

It is beautiful. Although, the comment count and "newer" "newest" links are overlapping the first comment on the page.

Anonymous said...

I realized I forgot to say thak you to Aric.

Oh, and happy salkerfadhoodnadir day.

David Plass said...

Meh. I don't like it at all. I thought you said there would be fewer ads? Also the "add comment" is all the way at the bottom. Should be before the first comment.
Just my 2c.

Jess said...

I love it! I'm SO happy that the pictures get bigger when you click on them now!

David Plass said...

Oh yeah, also it says:

"SEARC
H"

(two lines)

OS: Windows XP Home
Browser: Chrome 2.0

Shannon said...

Love the new site--esp. the creepy carrot jockeys!

texpenguin said...

Pretty, pretty please can you and the Amazing Aric add the post navigation buttons to the top of the blog, as well as after all the comments? Many of us don't get to log in everyday (boohoo for us!), so when we do, we'd like page through several posts at once, and it takes forever to page down through the hundreds of comments to get to the navigation buttons. Alternatively, you could have sidebar navigation by date towards the top of the blog. It would be much appreciated!

Unknown said...

Love the new look! I'm on Mac OSX using firefox and everything looks great to me!

Chakolate said...

Very nice! I especially like the text on a white background - these old eyes appreciate the ease of it.

Unknown said...

eeepc/google chrome work just fine for me. The new site is much easier to read. :) Looks good!

Bilby P. Dalgyte said...

It's all working fine and looks pretty snazzy :)

Merry said...

Looks good to me, much more organized than it used to be. Great job!

Anonymous said...

Please put the explanations or stories of the cakes above the photos! It heightens the effect when you get to the picture.

I like the new look. I have Mac OS X, using Firefox, and it looks great.

Tilly said...

Working fine here. I use Firefox 3/Ubuntu 8.04. Looks shiny!

(I'd love it if it were fluid width too, though I rarely maximize my browser.)

blah said...

Me likes!
It looks really chic and modern.

Amanda said...

I love the new look -- Thank you! I have only been a Cakewrecks fan for a month or two; I don't know when I've had so many laughs. The new look is much easier to read than the white text on dark blue.

Anonymous said...

Looking good, Jen and Aric! Loaded correctly the first time (from a bookmark) -- Vista Home Premium and Firefox 3.5.2, if you're still keeping track.

Stillapill said...

I love the new site. It was actually up on Saturday night around 10:00 pm central standard time. BTW - I have been using FireFox and have not had any problems viewing the pages.

Pat said...

Working perfectly on Vista in Firefox. Beautiful new design!

dykewife said...

the site looks beautiful. it's easy to read, easy to navigate and easy on the eyes. at 9:15 mdt it works fin with firefox.

Laura said...

LOVE it!!

Natalie said...

Yeah, new design! I am SO glad that you decided to put black text on a white background for the posts. The light colored text on the dark blue was hard for me to read, especially when reading several posts at a time. Thanks! (And the carrot riding jockey babies are just to DIE for cute!) :)

Linds said...

LOVE the new look! and as always LOVE the blog! I'll have to submit my own wreck worthy cakes some time so you can all laugh at (I mean with) me. I'm for sure an amateur baker- it's okay I can handle being laughed at!

Vi said...

I have Windows Vista and it looks GREAT!!!!!

terri s said...

Love it! Aric, ya did good. But I'd come here if it were plain old vanilla (icing that is), cause, Jen you're just that funny!

Anonymous said...

LOVE it! Thanks for making CW more reader friendly. Great job!

ps. Seeing the babies riding on carrots made my day.

Anonymous said...

I'm on WindowsVistawith firefox and I can see it fine. I like it but I kinda miss the simplisity of the old cake wreks (I really do like it though)

Christina said...

The site looks great! I had no problems using Firefox on Vista. I checked it out on my phone, a Palm Centro using Blazer, and the banner didn't load properly, but to be honest most websites don't translate properly so I usually just disable style sheets.

no one said...

I like it!

I'm on Firefox, on Linux. The new look works fine for me.

Little Lovables said...

love it!

Liv said...

Looking good!! Loving the Baby Carrot Jockeys up the top!! :)

I'm using vista & Google Chrome as my browser, and it's working fine! :)

Again, very nicely done :)

Anonymous said...

I much prefer the older layout. But I'm a well known reactionary style curmudgeon.

Ruby

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, I can't see it as much as I would like, because it causes Safari on my Mac OS X to freeze up. I have to open an alternate browser (Firefox) to check the site, and I just don't get around to doing that anywhere near as much as I used to check the site when I would read it on Safari. Sorry.

WV: cytes: I can't see the CakeWreck cyte(s) as much as I used to.

Lisa

Thea ZebraMama said...

I'm running Firefox on windows Vusta and it's working great!

Subhangi Arvind said...

I like it!
But can you substitute the font of the post content (in Arial) with something else? It looks a little hard to read. And I'd have chosen a colour other than blue, but overall it's not too bad. Yum!

R'laine said...

Windows Vista here, Firefox 3.5.2 - perfect!! And yup, very purty, well done.
Smiles

Noortje said...

Hi, I like the new look, very easy to read. And off course the baby carrot riders are the perfect header :)

P.S I am using Mozilla in Windows, works like a charm...

:::b r a n d i::: said...

The new site design rocks!!! Love the carrot jockeys at the top! THAK YOU ARIC! Under neat that YOU ROCK!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Aric! Looks great!

twinkle teaches said...

I love the new look! :)
tina
p.s. it is showing up fine in firefox

Anonymous said...

no, sorry i dont.

Subhangi Arvind said...

At first I liked it... but after looking at it a second and third time, I gotta say that the new get-up actually makes Cakewrecks harder to look at. The colours aren't quite right and the lighter text box (and font) isn't attractive. I tried to like it, I really did, but the new look isn't as readable as the older one. :( Sorry.

mommiebear2 said...

Love the new look! Congrats!!

Rebecca F. said...

Anon said

"Please put the explanations or stories of the cakes above the photos! It heightens the effect when you get to the picture."

_________________________

I couldn't disagree more. I love it when I get to see the cake and have the OMG moment and then get to read the even more disturbing explanation. Sometime I don't even know what the pic is supposed to be. The surprise is waaaaay better.

Rebecca F. again. said...

Maybe have the white text boxes a light cream color instead?

Otherwise, awesome.

And take all the comments with a grain of salt. It is your blog after all! Do what you like.

All the best.

Blog fan

Rebecca F.

Rebecca F. said...

Nevermind. I see they are a light blue now? Or maybe I'm just getting used to them.

Great job regardless. I'll shut up now. LOL.

Butterflyfish said...

NICE

Amelia Antwiler said...

I literally LOL'd at the carrot jockeys.

I'm using Windows XP (probably the last bastion of XP goodness on the planet) -- with Firefox. and it showed up in all it's awesomeness.

WV: Dabla
Aweseome Aric doesn't just dabla in designs - he's a genius!

Anna said...

You even changed the little toolbar tab to a carrot, I LOVE IT!

Tierra Wakefield said...

Can I be a downer and say I'm disappointed? It looks pretty close to what it used to look like...except with MORE ads instead of no ads. Content is still fabulous though!

pearl said...

i haven't been here in awhile..and the awesome webdesign was a surprise! :D

step0nmi2 said...

oh man! the new page is so great! everything looks fantastic and it seems that I can navigate to all the blogs easier! plus, I spent like a whole hour going through old blogs and found some I hadn't seen before. This is too awesome!

Chris (Topher) said...

I'm fine on Safari on Mac OS X. Looks great!

Anonymous said...

Hooray! The slighty background is about 10,000 times easier on the eyes than that stark white white. Whew. Thanks. Now if you take the font size up just a smidge, it'll be as clear as it was before. :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm a web designer and I think the changes are wonderful. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm on Windows Vista, using firefox and I can see the layout without any bugs! I like it a lot! It's very clean!

mackenzie said...

I'm using firefox on a Mac OS X and it's working fine for me.

i love it. :)

Sheila said...

Oooh, looks lovely!

Bre Snodgrass said...

I LOVE that the icon for this website in my bookmarks toolbar is no longer the orange Blogger "B", but is now a frosting carrot. WIN.

Anonymous said...

I sorta like the new layout but i miss the day/month jump area that was on the right. I can't make the time to visit every day and i liked being able to jump back to the last date i was looking at and move forward.

john (the hubby of Jen) said...

Hey all,

Thanks for the input and the help. I think we have all the bugs worked out now but please let us know if you find any.

A couple of issues:

The ads. We had 13, I cut it down to 4 not including our book and zazzle. I have to be honest, the ads have to stay. We now have three people full time, a web designer and hosting on an outside source. If it makes you feel any better, Cute Overload has like 20 and Fail Blog is a mess with them.

The white middle column. Honestly, it's just easier to read. We may tweak it to make it less stark but overall, it's getting good reviews. Probably why most books aren't printed with white lettering on a black background.

The dated links on the right side. Whoops! It's back. Sorry about that.

The load time. It's blogger. We are now listed as "very slow" on Alexa but we're doing everything we can to change that.

Thanks all and Wreck On!

john

P.S. to the anonymous poster who's angry comment I didn't post: please feel free to e-mail us directly so that we can take whatever picture you are angry about down. Thanks, j

Anonymous said...

Alright, a little late on this, so post only if you want to, but the new design looks great! The naked mohawk baby carrot jockeys flying across the top banner is especially terrific. Nice job, Awesome Aric!

~kate

Bookworm said...

I love it--super cool!

Anonymous said...

I don't care for the white background around the photos. It hurts my eyes and makes the wrecks look less spectacular.

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I don't like the new look at all. It's just... big and all over the place and the colors aren't easy on my eyes. The old look was nice.

Katie said...

Kudos to Aric for all his hard work.. my husband was running from me in terror last week when I had to change some html things on blogger!

My only complaint(which I am stating in case this comes up as an issue for change, not because I feel that the world should do everything my way,) is the white background on the posts.

My "old" twenty-something eyes read better when the background is darker and the lettering lighter; plus, I think it helps make your pictures stand out better.

That's all! Congrats on the face-lift!

Jessica - Magical Mundane said...

I am using Firefox 5.0 on a PC with Vista. Works on my end. I love that my RSS feed icon is a carrot LOL

Andrea said...

Hello, Can't see the header - using Windows on PC. Maybe my company is blocking the mohawk baby image.

Older design easier on the eye. eg lime green comment boxes take away from the garishness of the cakes.

Thak you John, Jen Aric! Enjoy Dragon*Con and the book launch.

Anonymous said...

The new look is much, MUCH improved. The banner ad on the top of the page is a major eyesore, though. But otherwise, it's a cleaner, easier on the eyes look. Kudos!

LunaRoseNocturna said...

Looks great on my laptop with Win XP and Firefox... not so much on my Blackberry which I often use to check Cake Wrecks on the go...

JainaKay said...

It's absolutely beautiful here in Kubuntu and Firefox-land! =D

Melissa (& Billy) said...

Ur welkom. =D

brista said...

The answer to your title question is, "Ooh. Yes, I do."

And I actually said that out loud when I clicked over to the site from Google Reader. Just so you know. :)

Mel C said...

I love the new look, but can I have some sprinkles on it too? XD

Anonymous said...

Do you think it would be possible to have a link to the original naked carrot jockeys cake in the area where they're featured on the front page? It may be a bit much for noobs to understand.

ME! said...

Long live the Carrot Jockeys! Love the new layout. :)

Anonymous said...

:( Now I can't view the page on my BlackBerry anymore, since it takes forever to load, then thinks and thinks and thinks and I have to reset my BBerry. bummer.
-Melissa

Hannah said...

Saweet design, much nicer!

Becky said...

I love the new look! Great work, Aric!

Tabitha (From Single to Married) said...

Love the new look - it's fantastic!

annacakes79 said...

I wish it had the links that change color after you click them. I knew what I had seen already without clicking it before. I had found a little pocket of Wrecks I had missed before "The Change", now I cannot find them. :-(

Unknown said...

All that's missing is the sprinkles!

kb said...

love the new design! i'm on 10.6/safari 4 and it looks great. nice work.

Anonymous said...

I second the comment about preferring the wider middle column to the new design. Just a preference. And the ads on this version really seem to pop out even more... :/ Sorry. I guess I liked the old version better. I guess it's mostly the prominent ads on the left side and the narrower column of content. Good luck though.

laura said...

Thak you - that's exactly how my toddler granddaughter says it!

Coco Cake Land said...

love the new look! also love the moldy strawberries on this appalling cake!! :)

Anonymous said...

I tried to post before but I don't think it works. Sorry, but I liked the old design better. :/ The ads seem so much more prominent in this version. And I agree with the person who liked the wider center column instead of this narrower one. Those are my two main problems. The rest I guess I'll get used to, but I had to admit I liked the old version better.

Anonymous said...

I would just like to commend you on properly spelling the word "y'all" in your thanks to Aric. Sadly, I have seen many of my fellow Southerners misspell this word over and over again (and it drives me crazy!). I don't know where y'all are from, but I'm happy to see it spelled properly, whether by a Southerner or a Yankee (bless their hearts). ;o)

Gale said...

Hello! Another problem I'm having a problem. I can't e-mail! See, my e-mail isn't through my computer...I use gmail (and hotmail for my junk-mail and yahoo for my website). All of them are browser based e-mails...so the little Java based thing you have going just doesn't work for people like me (if you have a browser system you need to be able to copy-paste the actual address).
Thought I'd bring that to your attention. I understand that what you have now cuts down on spam, but I'm wondering if the wonderful Aric maybe has a solution to this up his sleave. (By the way...the new design looks great!)

katiegirl said...

Is it supposed to have a huge verticle line running down the center of the page? If so, it sucks. It's hard to read the text by the line, because they're both white.

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