Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
Home > Type > News > Site work

Site work

May 17, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

In what I should obviously admit to myself will be a never-ending ongoing process, I'm going to spend a bit of time working on the site layout and design this week. I kind of like the way the site looks now, but I think I'm going to change it to a fixed width and, sometime down the road, do something a bit more sophisticated to allow people to size it as they wish.

In the meantime, here are some of the things I'd like to work on.

Adjust the site design and get the main pages moved over to that design.

Create and publish the new "Windows" and "Cloud Computing" activity centers, replacing the current Windows Vista and Xbox 360 activity centers.

Clean up the Reviews and Showcases pages so they're actually useful. There's too much content on this site and its getting hard to find things.

Move the blog over to the new design. If I had control over this, it would have happened months ago, but I don't, so I need to kneel before the Web team and beg. I will do so again this week.

Figure out something more elegant for screen shot galleries. This is a long-time problem, but every time I've tried to do something about it, people have complained that the new versions don't work for them.

Update "What I Use" ... I actually did this in the past month but something happened with the formatting so I had to delay publishing it.

Obviously, I'm curious what you think. If there are things you'd like to see changed, please let me know. Honest feedback is always appreciated, and that includes virtually anything related to the site, including the direction and focus of the coverage here, the way information is presented, whatever. I'm not interested in fanboy stupidity, however, so if you're going to use this post as an excuse to troll, please don't bother. Life is too short.

Thanks everyone. --Paul

 

UPDATE: I need to get back to work on the book (which I hope to finally finish this week), but here's what's new:

Home page
Sample article (though I will be expanding it and adding the correct images later)
Windows Activity Center (replaces Windows Vista Activity Center)
Cloud Computing Activity Center (replaces Xbox 360 Activity Center)

I also did some basic cleanup on the Reviews and Showcases pages, though I didn't change them to the new design yet. I pushed all the pre-release Windows Vista reviews and showcases to sub-pages (along with the XP/2000/Me/9x reviews and showcases) and pushed the Xbox 360 screenshots to their own sub-page.

I will work on the other top-level pages later in the weekend if possible.

Discuss this Article 10

da-chief
on May 17, 2008
Paul, don't ditch the 360 stuff.. Nooooooooo ;-) D/C
beaker
on May 17, 2008
I vote for keeping the 360 stuff too!! The only criticism with the site that i have is it is a LOT of content.. but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is just hard to find some things that I read previously that I want to find again. I'd figure out how to stop the spam from the pingback sites. :)
clindhartsen
on May 17, 2008
Honestly, the whole move to the dark style and the weird aurora thing behind the logo just doesn't seem right for the site, almost giving it an Apple feel oddly enough. I kind of find some of the changes interesting, but the contrast behind the background of the homepage and the content background just clashes too much. Maybe try some shadow's or something, I don't know, but it doesn't work for me at the moment. Still, I have to admit, I search around some of the old stuff to just remember how far everything has come, I mean, Longhorn was amazing.
garychell
on May 17, 2008
Hate the black background.
Cfischer83
on May 17, 2008
You should have some recent blog posts or at least something like the 5 more recent blog post titles on the main page. I do think it's a good idea to keep the Zune section, however I realize that it would have maybe 1 or 2 posts a year, but maybe you could combine it with an iPod section, or have a digital media area with Zune, iPod, Media Center etc. Personally (and being a web designer/developer) my opinion would be to do the following sections: 1. Combine Reviews and Showcases into one. Maybe even FAQ. 2. Have a Windows section with sub-categories for each Windows version. 3. Digital Media (Zune, iPod, Media Center) 4. Games (XBox as well as PC games) Then from there you could keep the Paul, Blog, Forum etc. Just my opinion, but I'd really like to see some blog info on the front page.
DRWAM
on May 17, 2008
Paul, I think that it looks very nice. I actually like the dark background. It makes the rest easier to read. Studies show this to be true as well.
rseiler
on May 17, 2008
The sample article's width is narrower than others I've seen here, so hopefully that's not incidental (I'm not sure what you meant by "fixed width"). Ideally, articles should be about as narrow as you'd see on Boston Globe, NYT, etc.
pthurrott
on May 17, 2008
Thanks everyone for the feedback. This is ongoing effort, of course. Regarding the Xbox 360 stuff, I won't stop covering games. But it won't get the emphasis it did. I'd like to do something around digital media as well. Ultimately, the site will be organized around topics, not article types. (Which, in retrospect, was poor planning.)
Cfischer83
on May 17, 2008
Either I never noticed it before.......... or you just added blog info to the front page! either way, Thanks! :D
swat671
on May 19, 2008
Change is always good, but it killed my RSS feed. It just died on the 17th at 12:33 am

Please or Register to post comments.

Related Articles

IT/Dev Connections

Las Vegas
September 30th - October 4th

Paul ThurottYou'll have the opportunity to experience:
• 120 Technical
Sessions
• Networking with Peers
• Expert Speakers


Come See Paul Thurrott & Mary Jo Foley in Person!

Register Now

Office 365 InfoCenter

Get the latest insight and info from Paul

Read Now!

What I Use
Apr. 18, 2013
Article

What I Use: On the Road 21

Every so often, I publish an updated version of my “What I Use” document, which details the technology products and services I actually use day-to-day. Since I’m currently on my third business trip in five weeks, this is perhaps an ideal time to discuss the technology products I rely on when I travel and a few related points....More
Mar. 6, 2013
Article

What I Use: March 2013 33

Lots of changes since November, including a new PC-based home server running Windows 8, several new smart phones, new PCs and tablets, new cloud backup, Office 365 Home Premium and a nice doubling of my Internet speeds courtesy of Verizon FIOS....More
WinSuperSite.com
Related Penton Sites
Copyright © 2013 Penton Media, Inc