Splendid-looking next-generation blog bursts onto the scene
Nope, this weblog I am talking about is not using Word Press or any of those PHP or Perl-based blogs that you have seen everywhere for the past couple years.
This blog is based on something new: Django, a free database/web application framework written in the Python programming language. The same Python programming language that has often been used to create huge parts of the Google and Yahoo web sites.
The home page for this cool blog is at www2.jeffcroft.com and it looks very cool.
Not only does it look cool - but it smells pretty good too. Not one of those weird sites that causes your browser to crash every tenth time you visit it, or looks okay in some browsers but not others, or forces you to upgrade to a beta version of your existing browser just to see it.
Rather, it is an amazing looking web site that just happens to be a blog. We are talking full-blown Web 2.0 features on this weblog. It is more advanced than tons of high traffic sites put up by some pretty big organizations. If I read the site description Jeff put up for his blog, he grabbed Django and maybe some other software and just went to town. This looks like a highly original design for a very personalized site.
On the About page Jeff wrote, it says he really does back web standards and his site works best with the most standards-compliant browsers: Firefox and Safari. It is nice that Apple and Mozilla are seeing noticeable rewards come back from basically not sitting on their butts the past three years.
He is really firm - and enthusiastic - in his support for strictly following the XHTML and CSS standards.
Glancing at the source for his web page, Jeff is using some of the most popular Ajax libraries around nowadays. Namely, Prototype and Scriptaculous. These are written in the Javascript programming language, which is what he has used to write a few of his own little personal embellishments used on the site.
His web site is highly responsive and updates very smoothly, thanks to his Ajax support.
He is supporting RSS feeds all over the place. He is publishing his site using 2 RSS feeds. He is also consuming photos from Flickr and offering feeds from some of these third-party sites too.
Here is a full cooks tour of all the cool blog features on the website. If you like weblogs or you are into seeing the latest things people have accomplished by following the Web 2.0 standards, you will find it an interesting read.
The only reason I was lucky enough to find this weblog so quickly after it came up with its nice, new design is because I read about it in the weblog of CSS guru web designer Mike Davidson, in his posting Croftie Does The Django:
Normally a blog redesign is not something I’d write an entire post on, but the new jeffcroft.com is pretty special. I don’t mean special only in the visual sense, but rather in the paradigm-breaking sense.
I, for one, am glad he did dedicate a whole post to it!
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programming, blogging, python, css, web2.0, rss, ajax, flickr, photos, firefox, web, javascript, safari, django
