Welcome to the New Sharpened.net!

August 14, 2000 — by Per Christensson

The new site design is finally complete! As many of you know, I have been making a number of other changes to the site as well. Below is a list of the improvements I've made to Sharpened.net.

1. A more simple, more efficient page design
The navigation bar is now on top, with some fancy JavaScript rollover buttons. I've also added a light gray background to make the pages a little easier on the eyes.

2. New graphics
With a new design comes new graphics. I hope you like the simple 3D-ish look. These graphics won't be around forever. I'll make them a little more fancy when I get a chance.

3. Less advertisements!
This means less page clutter and faster loading time. Cool!

4. PHP pages
As you might have noticed, the pages now end in ".php" instead of ".html". This is because most of the pages have some kind of dynamic content, which is programmed in PHP, my new favorite language.

5. MySQL database integration
This goes hand in hand with the PHP pages. I use PHP code to grab data from a MySQL database. The Glossary terms, daily quotes, editor updates, jokes (on the Search Page) are all now in a database.

6. Easier updates
Now the majority of my updates can be made by simply entering information in the database. This will make updating Sharpened.net much easier, but it will also make it harder for me to find excuses for not updating the site. Doh.

So those are the main changes I've made to the site. The updating process is not fully complete however. There are some pages I still have to update with the new design and some pestering PHP programming problems I still have to work out. (What is it with me an alliteration anyway?) I should be adding a site-specific search engine too in the near future. Stay tuned.

As always, I am anxious to hear your comments on the new design or anything else you feel like blabbing about. Send your comments to me using the cool new Contact Page. Thanks!