I told you I would be updating my theme, and I did! Do you like it?
When I was trying to script my WordPress blog posts into my old archives design, I quickly realized the excerpt pages would not work with the new posts. I used tiny images back in the day, so they align nicely to the right on modern devices. The bigger images I use now do not look nice in that configuration, so I needed a different solution. I decided a magazine layout would be the best. Also, I decided I hated the theme I was using for WordPress. Since it was a freemium theme, the customizations I wanted to make were locked behind a paywall. So, I looked for a new theme.
I’ve tried my hand at making custom themes. It is a lot of work. Creating one that is flexible enough to be used by hundreds of people is even harder. Finding a theme that is 100% free and flexible to fit my weird tweaks is impossible. Anders Norén makes 100% free themes, so I browsed his selections. A few had potential. I ended up spinning up an offline version of my website, just so I could see what things I could customize. Norrsken is so very close to what I wanted, but I could not make it work.
I could not find anymore 100% free themes I liked, so I checked out the most popular freemium themes again. I expected to be disappointed. To my gleeful surprise I found one I really like: Astra. I was shocked to see I could fully customize everything I wanted to and more. I felt chained with my old theme, but I hardly notice the locked-out premium features in Astra. I can customize pretty much any color, typography, size, etc. It’s also very easy to do so.
There was one thing I was having trouble with. I needed to get the time with the date posted, and it wasn’t showing up. In the WordPress settings, there are separate formatting rules for date and time. I was really mad that I could not get the time to show up! This happened with my old theme, but I went into the code of the theme files, and changed it; I had to manual change it every time the theme updated. It was annoying, but I cannot even do that with Astra. Finally, I realized I am a complete idiot. I changed the WordPress date format to custom, and added the time to the custom format. Crisis adverted. I love my new look.
In other news I bought a PlayStation Vita. It is the only PlayStation console I had never owned, and there are a handful of games I want to play on it. I purchased it on eBay, and it came about two weeks later. I spent an extra $10 on one that was advertised as having a 128 GB memory card. I wanted a memory card anyways, and $10 is cheap for one. To my absolute surprise, the console came pre-hacked. Which is cool, because I thought about hacking it myself, so I could play some fan-translated Japanese games. Like my 3DS, it also allows me to take screenshots.
The warning signs were there. First, a 128GB memory card does not exist for the Vita. It turns out that this is a 3G model, and the SIM slot can be hacked to take an SD card. The console was also advertised as having a certain firmware version; this version is very easy to hack. I am actually very happy it came pre-hacked.
As for the Vita itself, it is basically a higher powered PSP with a second joystick and an OLED screen. It looks really cool. I downloaded a couple of custom themes, and they look nice and are really responsive. It took a bit to get used to the bubble layout, but it is snappy. Even though it is hacked, I am able to log into PSN. It is a difficult process to buy games on the official store, but I am looking forward to getting some used physical copies of the games I want, and playing them.
Now you are up to date on my current events. The next few weeks are hectic for me, so don’t expect anything until April.
Peace out.