Hey, what happened to this website?

ruk logoIf you’re a regular reader of these virtual pages, you’ll notice that there’s been a rather dramatic re-branding here.

After a little more than five years writing under the Reinvented corporate banner, I’ve relocated my writing under a non-corporate banner that you can variously call ruk or ruk.ca.

How come?

Back in 1999 when this weblog sprang to life, Reinvented was just me. In recent years I’ve been joined by others: my brother Johnny is a fulltime programmer, and my partner Catherine is a part-time jack of all trades. Who knows: someday there might be others!

So where it used to be true that “Reinvented = Peter,” this is no longer the case. And it didn’t seem fair to be making broad pronouncements about important issues (or irrelevant blather, as the case may be) using a “royal we” that is no longer just me.

There’s a slightly more verbose explanation for the move on the About page. You’ll also find a neat little visual trip through website history there.

Some important things to note:

  • The old trifurcated “Reinvented,” “Reinvented Labs” and “Reinvented World” blogs are gone, the posts from each aggregated under this new site. The “Labs” and “World” sub-blogs were drafty places that never got the attention they deserved.
  • I’ve ditched the Google AdSense ads. While I was deriving some income from these — about $140US a month — I decided that I could no longer conscience having random ads, not under my control, appear associated with my writing. If I run ads in future, they’ll be for products and services I would use myself.
  • There’s a somewhat more minimalist design to this site. I’m sure things will get more cluttered with time. Type and headlines are also larger; I’m getting older and feeling bolder. Thanks to Steven for some tricky CSS debugging help with the new design.
  • Links to posts on the old blog should get auto-redirected here. There’s some chance that quirky links and images might be missing or mis-directed; I’d appreciate a note if you notice anything awry.
  • The URLs for the RSS feeds have changed: read posts via RSS at ruk.ca/rss/index.xml and read comments at ruk.ca/rss/discuss.xml. The old RSS addresses will redirect (if your reader follows redirects), but please update addresses as required.
  • The “Search” feature has disappeared for a bit; it will return. Same thing for the “audio comments” feature.
  • I’ve succumbed to conventional usage, and that formerly known as “Discussion” is now known as “Comments.” I still think of it as discussion though and welcome you to do likewise.

I’m sure the design and features of the new site will evolve over time, much as they did at the old home. The Reinvented.net website will [eventually] become a “who is Reinvented and what do they do site” but for now it’s serving mostly as a redirector to this site.

Some welcome to the new place. Make yourself at home.

Comments

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on September 30, 2004 - 02:30 Permalink

Well, that seems to have worked.

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on September 30, 2004 - 02:30 Permalink

I suppose I should test the comments, shouldn’t I!

Dave Hyndman's picture
Dave Hyndman on September 30, 2004 - 02:47 Permalink

Well that was a surprise! I won’t judge it yet. Good for you for making such a bold change, though.

One tip: You should configure your comments page to display te original post.

DAVE

Cody Swanson's picture
Cody Swanson on September 30, 2004 - 04:33 Permalink

Interesting redesign, I was wondering why it was so quiet here for the past couple days.

Jacob Dockendorff's picture
Jacob Dockendorff on September 30, 2004 - 05:29 Permalink

Brilliant and smooth. That’s how I would describe the transition from reinvented.net to ruk.ca. And you’ve gotten it done in plenty of time before the blogmeet.

Johnny's picture
Johnny on September 30, 2004 - 11:47 Permalink

I have to disagree with Dave. I dislike seeing the original post with the comments/discussion. It just seems to lead to a lot of superfluous scrolling.

Kellie Perry's picture
Kellie Perry on September 30, 2004 - 12:33 Permalink

Smooth transistion for sure, although I did enough the colorfulness of the old site. Maybe if you added some color somewhere, or some graphic elements it may jazz it up just enough for the simple minds like myself. That said, my site is just a plain weblog, until I get more involved in blogging. Good job!

Cyn's picture
Cyn on September 30, 2004 - 13:58 Permalink

I’ll try posting again (didn’t work the first time, maybe because I didn’t fill out the form??)

Line over ‘u’ = ?

Daniel's picture
Daniel on September 30, 2004 - 15:47 Permalink

This is pretty cool Peter. Cyn, Peter explains the line over the ‘u’ in his about page.

Peter, are we going to see Reinvented.net come back to life as more of a corporate website sans the weblog portion?

Peter Lux's picture
Peter Lux on September 30, 2004 - 17:56 Permalink

I like the larger font. It creates a unique browsing experience. The macron associated with the ‘u’ serves to add style as well as phonetics. Of course, its real purpose is to drive windows users nuts trying to type it.

Cyn's picture
Cyn on September 30, 2004 - 18:15 Permalink

‘About’ pages are usually so boring, so I didn’t go there. I have now, so thanks for the tip Daniel. And I was right ‘about’ pages are usually boring.

Robert Paterson's picture
Robert Paterson on September 30, 2004 - 19:21 Permalink

I Like it  — Peter is drifting away and ‘the Ruk” is emerging I think

al o'neill's picture
al o'neill on September 30, 2004 - 20:10 Permalink

s/lad/load

al o'neill's picture
al o'neill on September 30, 2004 - 20:10 Permalink

Seems to lad faster, which is nice, I’ll leave the pontificating on design to everyone else.

Chris Corrigan's picture
Chris Corrigan on October 1, 2004 - 01:10 Permalink

Aha. I thought the line over the U, in addition to being a handy phonetic, was also to distinguish what happens on this blog from the common set piece in rugby.

Although the two do, on occasion, bear similarity to one another

Andrea Vail's picture
Andrea Vail on October 2, 2004 - 18:45 Permalink

Looks good, but what’s with the Reader’s Digest Large Print edition type?

Mandy's picture
Mandy on October 2, 2004 - 18:46 Permalink

Yeah, the font is a bit too much Rukkie.

Sasha's picture
Sasha on December 19, 2004 - 21:23 Permalink

What’s wrong with the Reader’s Digest large Print? Not everyone reading this site has 20/20 vision nor are they under 30!

Lou Quillio's picture
Lou Quillio on January 18, 2005 - 02:32 Permalink

12pt body text … yessss. I used to suffer through micro-text awhile before remembering to bump it up and back away from the screen. These days I mash Ctrl+ immediately, at all sites presenting any discomfort. If you’re mouse-y, there’s the Zoomy extension for Mozilla products. Breaks some layouts (though it needn’t), but I’m only there for the text.

You could say this makes a site’s *starting* text size kinda moot. In fact it’s a selling point. Adequate starting text sizes and line lengths are viscerally welcoming and positive. Squint jockeys and pixel hoverers can always make it smaller.

Peter, I see you’re reserving <h1>. Are you considering logo image replacement and, if so, which method? I’m leaning toward negative indents but can’t decide.

LQ