Nathan W. Ho

Hey everyone - it’s been a long and silent period on my blog. Last year (2006) was a painful year for me in a lot of ways….too many funerals, for one. The loss of my friend, Po, was the start of it all - one full year ago. I certainly cannot give a full accounting of why God has allowed my life (and the lives of my friends) to take the directions that they have - but I do trust Him and His handling of each situation - even when I don’t understand.

However, the long quiet is over - and I am re-launching both my blog (Expostulation & Reply), as well as a new look and feel for my website! I hope to blog more often about whatever strikes my mind, as well as to keep the design fresh (and more in tune with myself, rather than just as a rough attempt website identity).

What do I mean about the design? Well, let’s start with the logo. The old logo was simply a stylized “TL”, the basic inspiration for the layout being two-fold: (1) The web icon used in the movie “The Net”, starring Sandra Bullock - which was a styled Pi symbol. (2) The two warring sides of human nature (good vs. evil). This captured much of the idea I had planned for the identity of my first site. A sort of techno-repository of my offerings, thoughts and concerns - where I explored the concepts of good and evil. However, I got a little too involved in the functionality of the site (writing the old personal “MyPTh” blogging software, etc).

The new logo is actually based on what has been my personal “crest” for many years (think emblems on the shields of ye olde Knights). You can read more about my logo elsewhere on my site, so I won’t go into the explanation of that here. My reason for going this route is that I want the site to be more about “me” rather than any specific portion of ideology that I might hold (and I, of course, have plenty of strong opinions on a wide variety of topics….as do most people *heh*).

There will still be a variety of things in flux on this website - but I plan to use more pre-built software packages (like WordPress, Gallery, etc), rather than writing my own software from scratch. The new software that I will be writing will aim to fill personal needs that cannot be filled by pre-packaged software that is freely available (CSS-based family tree software, personal secure information storage software, etc).

I really need to thank my friend Lynn for help with various graphical elements of my site - both with feedback as well as direct help. Girl got skillz

Anyway, only time will tell how well this new layout and system will work. I’m getting into working with a new CMS package called “MODx” - and while I won’t be using it for my primary website, I plan to turn some of my development skills towards the direction of extending and improving that package.

So - this is my great “hello again” to the blogging world.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.