Kenneth's CAS Reflections Blog

A New Beginning

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:12:36 +0000

Zixpk.com has been a ton of fun. I feel that it is time to move onto something more profession with content that will blow people away. That is why I am going to be launching a new website called Zixzine.com. With this new website I hope to give my visitors only top notch content with a website layout to match. I want to keep on improving upon the Zixpk forum platform and bring that sense of community to Zixzine.com. Since Zixpk.com paved the way I am hoping that Zixzine will be the next level in my blogging experience. This time around I have acquired many editors which will update zixzine with only amazing posts. All this I owe to my experience on Zixpk.com. Zixzine.com will have the same focus as zixpk.com in that it will bring our visitors high quality content all for free.

My goal for Zixzine.com is make an impact in the design community.

Zixzine.com is still a month or more away from launch. I hope to have it ready by Novemeber 15st the latest. There is still much work that has to be don especially in design, overall layout, and actual content.

A design for the community

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:51:06 +0000

I wanted to go back on one of my previous designs called “Emo Blue,” I wanted to see how much I could improve on the design. This time around I wanted to implement new features and make it more web 2.0. I tried to keep the general color scheme of my previous layout but still make it “new.” I choose to give it a magazine type layout that incorporates a scrolling featured post section on the upper left hand of the page. While I do like what I was able to achieve with the new template “Emo Blue 2.0″ I still feel that it could use something more. I also believe that I was not completely successful in my coding because when this template is viewed through internet explorer the backdrop of the website seems to disappear.

Through this template I was able to learn how even though I feel that I know a whole lot about coding and designing that mistakes will always occur and one must learn from them. Maybe at a later time I will come back yet again to this template and make an “Emo Blue 3.0″

You can view the demo here: http://emoblue2.blogspot.com/ and see the download link here: http://www.zixpk.com/2009/09/emo-blue-20-free-download.html

I have also decided to give away this template for free so that everyone can enjoy it. I estimate that it took me about 8-10 hours to complete.

The Zixpk Community Forum

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:38:38 +0000

You probably wouldn’t think that creating a forum would be that different than creating a standard website, that is what I thought at first also. To my surprise it was ten times harder. To be able to launch the Zixpk forum, I had to call upon the help of many friends that I had made around the blogging community. Each of us were able to contribute in some way in helping form the forum. The main challenge that we encountered was how to make it community driven, and let the users post anything and make it their own. Some examples of challenges that we had to overcome was how to let users upload files, how to let them have their own accounts, and how to do a community forum layout.

This project took us nearly a month to complete and test out. I am the administrator of the forum and I have moderators which look through all the user submitted content and monitor so that no inappropriate content is posted.

I believe that by having a forum it allows people who visit Zixpk.com to be able to ask questions and share cool things that they find around the web. Through a forum a strong community is formed and you are able to talk with like minded individuals. The Zixpk forum is completely free and users are encouraged to register. Through this formed I have been able to interact with some of my visitors at a whole new level.

Workout

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:23:52 +0000

I have recently started to go to the gym. The fitness center that I decided to sign up with was Planet Fitness because I really like their motto of it being a judgment free zone. Nothing is more embarrassing than working out around people who body builders. My goal is not to become all muscular and buff. I simply just want to improve my well being. The excercises that I am focusing at this moment are aimed towards my cardio and upper body strength. I have gone to the gym about three times now and I really like the atmosphere. I feel that by working out at the gym instead of at home, that it gives me greater motivation because I see everyone else doing exercises which make me try even harder also. Now I really have no wait to lose. I find myself skinny at the moment. If anything I would want to gain a few pounds.

I know that people always make commitments that they will go to the gym very often and in the end they end up stop going. My goal is to not quit and make my experience at the gym the most enjoyable that it can possibly be.

On the first day that I walked into the gym I was a little intimidated by all the machines but as I started to understand how they work and which parts of your body they help workout, those intimidating machines became my workout companions. I had always been intimidated by gyms because of the fact that I am really skinny, but since actually stepping inside Planet Fitness with their judgment free motto, I feel much better about myself and my body.

Investing

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:08:08 +0000

Zixpk.com has seen a massive explosion in visitors. This also means that we have increased expenses to compensate for all the server bandwidth, Zixpk.com has started to show ads lately in order to try to be able to pay for itself. The expenses that Zixpk.com carries are the yearly domain registration fees, the server fees for Zixpk.com, the server fees for the Zixpk forum (I will talk about this later), and the photo and file servers.

All the money that Zixpk.com makes through advertisement goes right back to our visitors in new forms of content. Through Zixpk.com I have learned how to make a monthly budget and stick by it. I have also learned to invest in other projects which my visitors like very much and keeping coming because of them. Because of the size that Zixpk.com has now become, it is more important than ever to have a good budget plan in order to be able to have Zixpk.com running for many more years. It is my goal to eventually be able to hire some professional writers to bring some new content to Zixpk.com. Zixpk.com is like my child which I am still constantly raising.

Zixpk Design # 4: Update

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:45:50 +0000

Now I was lying when I said that my last design was perfect When I’m designing something, I feel like there is always room for improvement. That is why I decided to just improve upon my previous design and not do a complete makeover this time. I felt that the previous template had to much going on (By this I mean all the dotted lines). I wanted to simply the template and give it smooth lines this time with a header that wraps your entire screen. I feel that by taking away all the dotted lines and just simply using smooth straight lines, that it gibes it a less chaotic feeling. In this template my main challenge was designing the navigation. I knew that I always wanted mini pictures to represent posts because I believe that it perfectly showcases your recent posts and makes your audience more interested in them. Now while I do like completely new things, sometimes it good to go back and see what you can improve upon.

Update:

My design has been featured yet again http://www.weloveblogger.com/2009/07/zixpk.html

Zixpk Design # 4

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:33:42 +0000

This has to be my biggest accomplishment thus far. I can’t even believe that I was able to make this template a reality. My push for Zixpk.com since the start has been to make it look as modern as possible and extremely easy to navigate. In this template I tried to incorporate all my design/ coding knowledge that I had acquired from my previous design attempts. In total this design took me nearly 30 hours to make a reality. My design/ coding process took nearly a week because this time around I wanted absolutely everything to be perfect. The reason why I love to keep updating the design on Zixpk.com is that I learn so much about coding, which I really love. Also I believe that a great design makes your website stand out from the crowd. Great content on an okay looking website is fine but great content on an outstanding looking website is even better. I also believe that each time that I update the design on Zixpk.com, I make it easier for my visitors to browse through all of the content that we have to offer quicker.

Update:

This design has been updated, you can click on this link to see a dummy website with this design applied.

http://zixpkpro.blogspot.com/

Zixpk.com Design # 3

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:36:40 +0000

It seems like every month I am updating the design of Zixpk.com. I just can’t seem to help myself because every time that I learn something new, I want to implement it on my blog right away.

In this redesign I wanted to bring some color and elegance to Zixpk.com. My shift in design seems to be more towards a modern sleek feeling that doesn’t overpower the user. I really like the results that I had in this template. I believe that it was exactly what I was looking towards achieving. What I really take pride in this design is the header, I love how it came out. The header was also the most difficult part to implement in this design because the coding was immense. It took me hours to finally be able to understand how to make everything work.

Update: My new design on Zixpk.com got featured!!! http://www.weloveblogger.com/2008/12/zixpkcom.html

Zixpk.com Design # 2

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:20:03 +0000

I feel like I am starting to become really picky in what I want in my website. I have taken yet another redesign for Zixpk.com. This time around I wanted to give my website a more modern feel to it and make it so that it wouldn’t overpower the content but at the same time still look nice. This time around I had a little coding experience so it wasn’t like my first time around where I just blindly stepped into something completely unknown. For this template/ design I had to research how to make columns (sidebars) which appear on both sides of the main content area. I also had to take into consideration the monitors resolutions that people have at home. As you can tell, must websites don’t take your entire screen especially when you have a widescreen monitor. The reason for this is that people have many different screen resolutions such as 1024×768 all the way to 2560×1600. In order to accommodate mostly everyone’s screen resolutions most websites are only 960 pixels wide so that when you are looking at a website at home, you wont have to scroll horizontally. No one likes to scroll horizontally especially since we are so used to just scrolling vertically.

This is what I love so much about web design, I get to learn so many new things that I most likely would have never paid attention to.

Update:

I have also decided to give away this template for free. I have named it “Emo Blue.” You can read more about that here: http://www.zixpk.com/2008/12/emo-blue-blogger-template.html

I have also included a written tutorial which I hope will help people understand how to set up the template: You can read their comments here: http://www.zixpk.com/2008/12/emo-blue-blogger-template.html#comments

Update 2:

I love how my work gets noticed. I makes me feel like all of my hard work has gone towards a good cause and that people really appreciate it. My template has been featured on:

http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2009/01/top-20-free-blogger-templates-of-2008.html

http://www.rotorblog.com/2009/07/17/free-blogspot-templates/

Redesigning Zixpk.com: Update!

kennethl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:58:45 +0000

I have decided that Zixpk.com needs yet another redesign. As I’m starting to learn more about web design, my likes are also starting to change. I want to be able to try something new and keep improving my website. I will talk about my new design in my next post.

I don’t want my old design from my previous post to just go to waste. That is why I have decided to give away my current design for free so that people can use it on their own blogs. I have chosen to tittle my website template/ design “Zixpk Blue.” The download link can be found here…

http://www.zixpk.com/2008/08/zixpk-blue-blogger-template.html

Also to help people who do not know much about like web design like when I was just starting out, I have made a for them a tutorial document which goes step by step explaining how to properly set up the template that I have created for them. I have also created two tutorial videos which I hope will make it easier for people to understand what they are supposed to do.

Update: I was not expecting such a big responds from my template. My template even got featured on numerous websites! Here are some…

http://www.bloggerblogtemplates.com/2008/09/zixpk-blue-blogger-template.html

http://www.createblog.com/blogger-layouts/30860-zixpk-blue/

I have also been busy helping people to personally install this template on their own blogs. I am always happy to help because it tells you how much they love your design. Their comments can be found here: http://www.zixpk.com/2008/08/zixpk-blue-blogger-template.html#comments