Some new changes to the site...

Please accept my sincerest apologies on how long it's taking me to revamp the site's looks. Once it is halfway decent looking, I will be adding new content. Or maybe not. I'm not sure. Please bear with me. Some changes I've accomplished so far:

Sidebar Looks Misaligned in Internet Explorer

I'm using Firefox at home and the site looks ok. I checked this site using Internet Explorer and *gasp*, the sidebar is below the main body. Regardless, this current template is temporary, until I have time to really learn and mess with CSS and design the way I want the site to look. Yet more steps in my sojourn. So my apologies to any readers checking this site on via Internet Explorer.

Compact Header

Probably the first noticeable change is a smaller header. Moved the items around to make the header a little more compact. That reminds me, I need to make a banner of it in case there may be link exchange requests.

Added a Search Box

This temporary template had no search box, I added one to my sidebar. Was easy enough.

No More Blogger Navbar

Got rid of the blogger navbar on top. That too was easy fix.

Added an Animated Favicon

Added a "favicon" which is animated. For those that don't know what a favicon is, look at any webpage in the URL section of your browser. For example, if you are on Google's page, you will see a "G" right next to "http://www.google.com". If you were in any webpage in Internet Explorer that didn't change their favicon, you would see the blue "e". For Blogger, it's an orange rounded square with a white "B" in it. This was a tad harder, but also easy enough. I used http://www.html-kit.com which was easy to use.

Upcoming Changes

Want to Add the Blogumus Flash Cloud for Labels

Added Blogumus instead of the Labels listed straight down the sidebar. The preview worked. When I saved the change and went to view the site, it didn't work. Need to figure out the glitch. It will take up less space, but may be a nuisance to click on the right label you want. We will see... I may keep it or not, it will depend on the feedback. Also, I may have way too many labels and need to tighten up on them. Again we will see.

Navbar

Also working on populating my navbar below the header, which starts with "Home". Possible and probable categories will be:

1. About (something about me, the site, and a FAQ)
2. Contact (how to contact me via email or contact form)
3. Subscribe (subscribe by email or RSS when new posts are published)
4. Articles (martial arts and self-defense articles written by me or others)
5. Reviews (instructional, movies, books, etc -- some by me, some by others)
6. Links (i have a lot of links I want to put up, but i need to think up a way to make it presentable and not one looooong page of links

Last But Not Least

I will be trying my hand at writing some self-defense related articles. I will be archiving great articles I've come across. Also, lots of reviews to put up, both mine and reviews written by others. And I will be moving my original archives over to this site. It's been a long time coming.

My apologies to you all. Please bear with me. Thank you.

Very truly yours in the martial arts and self-defense,

~sg