As I described in my previous post, I’m experimenting with a number of new technologies. I have started to build this framework for a WordPress theme which will showcase the power of CSS3 @media queries. So, while you’re here, scale your browser to see the different @media queries in action, and why not take a peek using your smartphone, or if you have one, your iPad. When you’re there, give it a twist and see what it looks like in portrait and landscape.

Funky EH! Right, I’m off to do a little more coding before going to visit my nephew, who’s celebrating his first birthday.

Using a raft of the latest tech plenty of testing and experimentation has been creeping it’s way into my daily routine. Armed with a laptop with two external screens, a couple of ‘standard (single screen)’ laptops and PCs accompanied with a small handful of smartphones and a tablet:

• Lenovo T500 – 1680×1050 – Windows 7
  • Dell P2210H 1080×1920 (portrait)
  • Dell P2210H 1920×1080 (landscape)
• Toshiba Tecra – 1024×768 – Ubuntu 10.04
• Dell Optiplex GX520 – 1280×1024 – Windows XP
• Apple iPad – 1024×768 – iOS 3.2.2
• Apple iPhone 3G – 320×480 – iOS 3.1.3
• HTC Desire HD – 480×800 – Andriod 2.2

These tools of the trade allow me to see my projects on many different devices, so, as a result I’m going to be using this blog as a testing area for a ground-up build of a wordpress blog incorporating a bunch of ideas. Many of which may fail, so if it’s spannered at any time you’ll know why.

So, first up is Elliot Jay Stocks‘ Starkers WordPress theme, this awesome bad-boy of a theme is right up my street as a web designer, it provides me with the bare-bones ‘naked’ theme for me to apply a bespoke design from scratch.

Couple that with the baddass HTML5 Boilerplate code, giving me access to the most top-notch tricks to get a full-on HTML5 website started off on the right foot.

Then….. An even awesomer revelation!! Aaron T. Grogg has got his shizzle out and performed an amalgamation of Starkers and Boilerplate in the form of a WordPress theme called Boilerplate: Starkers WordPress theme!.

I can hardly believe my eyes.. So much help and assistance out there on the interweb these days.. – love you guys -

THEN…. (Yup, it’s not over yet…) I scoot on over to Less Framework 3 and shave the CSS from here with all it’s @media queries. Providing me with a foundation for tailoring the theme to a number of different width layouts. I strip out the reset stuff as that exists in the Boilerplate theme by default. Rock on over to WordPress.org Child Themes and use this info to create myself a child theme of Boilerplate.

As a result, I end up with this wonderful baseline of a theme, all ready and waiting for me to apply my limited knowledge to. I’m certain that I’ll learn plenty from this process and expect to be able to apply this new found wealth to my lucky customers.

So, far, so good.. I’ll now evolve this theme steadily as I learn how to utilise all this wonderment.

I took the idea of “transform” and thought of a new butterfly emerging from it’s chrysalis, seeing as my mum is the Publicity Officer of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Butterfly Conservation the idea sprung to mind. Having seen the bathCamp logo on the bathCamp Blog

bathCamp Logo

I thought it fitting to use some of the logo’s elements and colours, it fitted perfectly so now let’s hope that Stu likes it!

Both Stu and I are going to bathCamp this weekend to enjoy the company of the cool geeks in the south-west. It’s our first time doing this kid of thing, so it’s with open eyes and an open mind that we take with us to this event. We’re both looking forward to it and hope that our talk is going to be of use to some.