Astroengine Data Gathering

2001

Astroengine needs a new look

Every few months, I think it’s healthy to reassess the design of Astroengine and develop it where necessary. In response to recent user feedback, I’m finding that the biggest weak spots of the site are firstly its speed and secondly its cross-browser compatibility.

Unfortunately visitors to the site that run Internet Explorer 6 see a mashed-up, messed-up Astroengine. It turns out that many of IE6 users are not using this out-of-date browser out of choice, it appears to be the staple of office computers the world over (system administrators really should think about updating their software once and a while).

In fact, I even had the chance to see Astroengine through IE6’s eyes a week ago, and I felt a little light-headed – It. Was. Nasty! Although I will always test sites that I build with a variety of browsers, I can’t test my site on old browsers (and therein lies the problem). The number of IE6 users are quite small, the numbers are significant according to my stats, so I’ve decided to act…

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Astroengine.com Joins a New Era for Blogging: WordPress 2.7 Locked and Loaded

Wordpress 2.7
Wordpress 2.7

Christmas has come early for WordPress bloggers… WordPress 2.7 has arrived.

Whilst readers will not notice any change in blogging service after the Astroengine upgrade, the changes behind the scenes could not be any more astonishing. The user interface is, quite simply, beautiful. The design, feel and speed are all working in tandem to deliver the best looking blogging experience I have ever seen. Often WordPress has been criticised as lacking in design when compared with other third party platforms, but critics will be silenced once they have a look under the hood of a WordPress 2.7-powered website.

This upgrade is called “Coltrane” after the legendary American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, and 2.7 was built by 150 programmers and designers, who responded to the needs of thousands of WordPress users via numerous polls and surveys. If you want to see open source at its best, read more about “Coltrane” and why the face of blogging has changed forever…