Many thanks to Ron Angelo for his excellent “Frontier” theme.
When Facebook starts nagging you to make another post, it’s a sure sign that you’ve been neglecting your social media obligations. I recently discovered an excellent steampunk site called “Airship Ambassador” and decided I need to work harder at getting cross-links from other blogs. First, however, we needed a new look.
My first task was to create a widget to contain links from other blogs. WordPress doesn’t support this feature very well; I would have liked to have site thumbnails but that will have to wait. It took enough fiddling to get the links to display at a decent size without blowing everything else up. The second was to add a widget that links to our new Steampunk Desperado You-Tube channel.
Next was to add some more interesting content. I happened upon some interesting flags (a US 33-start Cavalry banner and a British consular flag) and decided to create a couple of my own. The one on the lower right is Mars, of course. The lower left is derived from the Italian national seal, which features a gear. This became my design for the “Republic of Steampunk” banner.
We also needed some old-timey ads to improve the steampunk experience. I once owned a 1928 International Harvester truck, so I redid one of the company’s ads, which is certainly old enough to be in the our logopublic domain. The wanted poster is of none other than Mrs. Desperado in her earlier role as a saloon girl at an old west tourist trap in Scottsdale. I created her criminal alias which is based on certain childhood nicknames. our logo
My final task was to fix the site’s header so it doesn’t get cut off on mobile phones. I know it’s possible to use different headers for different devices, but I’m a bit of a novice at the arcane web language called PHP. So I ended up redesigning the logo so the text and my photo all fit in the center. Eventually, I’ll figure this out and find a better solution.
Last but not least, I need to acknowledge the creator of my WordPress theme, “Frontier” by the talented Ron Angelo of the Philippines. It’s a totally free theme that works as well as a paid one. Check out his website at Ronangelo.com.
Now that I’ve finished tinkering with the site, I’ll be back to a more normal posting schedule. Tomorrow I plan to have a new steampunk review on the blog and the day after that, a new YouTube video. Watch this site for more news and reviews. Until then, adios, amigos!