Facebook Falls from Grace: Being increasingly irritated every time I log on, I am seriously considering the advice of (the late) Marc Orchant to leave Facebook.

The revolution will not be televised. It will unfold in the palm of your hand.

Sprint Agrees to Unlock Phones: Reminiscent of the days during the “Ma Bell” breakup, back when you had to rent or buy equipment from your service provider (under the pretense that 3rd party phones would mess up their network).

In spite of receiving a few compliments about the previous theme, I have chosen to switch to a different design. If I am counting correctly, this is the fifth WordPress template to grace Transformatum’s pages (sixth if you include the Blogger years). The motivation (and help) to change came from Shawn and Ben, who have been using Sandbox and Wordpress to style their tumble-blog hybrids. I have barely made any edits to this theme’s PHP files. What you see is all CSS. That might not mean much to you, but perhaps this will: with this latest update I have come to a few conclusions about my personal preferences and feelings for blog design.

1. Content is king; a pretty design does not a blog make.
2. Clutter (i.e., extra stuff) can be cool, but is hard to keep moving.
3. Whitespace is under-appreciated but often misunderstood.
4. Take a cue from car companies and carry throughout a design thread.
5. Unless you are Middle Eastern, entries belong on the left (think language).
6. Minimalism is not synonymous with ‘plain.’
7. You may go single for a while, but you always come back to sidebars.

However, please keep in mind that these opinions are subject to change at a moment’s notice. As Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes once said (emphasis added), “Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.”

For the record books, the current layout started as Simpla and was ported to Sandbox. From there I added special classes that correspond with categories in WordPress in order to create the tumble-hybrid look. I also intensified the colors slightly and tweaked a few features (hid this, added that, etc.). I will continue to make small updates over the coming days, but if you see anything amiss feel free to let me know. Also, if you have any “logo” ideas please pass them along. I think it is time for Transformatum to get a little more brand identity.

Egrips appliqués: Just installed a set and it works great. Their no-slip grip probably would have kept me from dropping my Treo on our driveway.