hathix 3.0 “Cake” – a new look, just in time

hathix.com’s first birthday is tomorrow, so to celebrate I’ve gotten it a gift – a whole new look! hathix 3.0, codename Cake, retains the color scheme of the old version (appropriately named hathix 2.1 “Dewdrop”) but sports an airy new look that’s clean and elegant. Take a look (or try it out):

How DO you pronounce “hathix”?

His name's hathix.
An elephant in a box.

You’d think I get that question a lot, but actually I don’t – most people pronounce it a certain way and are absolutely, positively, sure they’re right. There are so many pronunciations it’s incredible, so who am I to choose the “proper” one? Let ’em pronounce it however they like, I say.

That being said, the number of pronunciations I hear is borderline ridiculous. Here are the most common ones I’ve heard.

A whole new look

Well, the host switch went nearly seamlessly (so seamlessly, in fact, that I have no idea if the switch actually happened.) As promised, here’s something big for you.

If you’ve ever viewed the hathix.com home page, you’ll notice how horrible it looks. Or used to look.

The old hathix.com
hathix.com circa April 2011

Not very pretty, right? Well, it wasn’t supposed to be. I just threw together some code to make the site work; the look wasn’t at all important.

Well I soon realized that a) this horribly ugly look was probably hurting the site and b) I had some spare time on my hands. So I wrote some new code for the site and here’s what I got:

Switching hosts, expect some downtime

Just a quick notice. I’m in the process of switching hosts for hathix.com, so starting tomorrow expect some downtime.

I have no idea how long the site will be down; some people have said only a few hours but I’ve read on some forums that it can take up to a week. Not exactly what I’d call helpful.

And after I switch hosts it’ll take me a little while to import some databases and other fun web management stuff, which might take another day.

To make it up to you there will be some goodies heading your way once the site’s back up.

Follow hathix.com on Twitter

Good news, news hounds, tech junkies, and lovers of the elephant: you can now follow hathix.com on Twitter – @hathix. Or just click on the button above the post.

Here’s what I’ll be tweeting on:

  • New blog posts
  • hathix.com news
  • Small tech news that doesn’t make it into a blog post
  • Minor reviews that don’t make it into blog posts
  • Random musings about developing software

Sound interesting? You can follow me to get all the updates, or if you don’t have a Twitter account you can just bookmark my page and view my tweets from there.

Buy hathix.com shirts, mugs, and other stuff

Foreword: I’m allowed a shameless plug every so often, aren’t I?

Good news: I’ve created an official hathix.com store on CafePress where you can buy

The official hathix.com shop sells shirts, gifts, and more
Some of the stuff you can buy from the hathix.com store (hathix.com/store)

official hathix.com gear:

  • T-shirts for men, women, and kids
  • Hoodies for men, women, and kids
  • Caps
  • Tote bags
  • Mugs
  • Clocks
  • Water bottles

So far I only have 6 designs, but more are coming soon. A design works on any item in the store.

Love the elephant? Grab yourself something from the store today (it’s at hathix.com/store).

The quest for a decent home page

I’m not sure why home pages were even invented in the first place. I mean, sure, you need a page to open when you boot up your browser, but they just make things, well, awkward. Plus they’re not very useful: most of them just serve as a landing page; you don’t really use them except to read news about how kids can’t bring bagged lunch to school (*cough* Yahoo *cough*.) And when you do that kind of stuff, you just get distracted from what you were originally meaning to do all along.

I want to know why that is and how I can help fix it.