I grew tired of the old look so, as they say (whoever ‘they’ are), out with the old and in with the new!

The Fast Lane seemed like a good name at the time I created it, but my thinking has changed — hence this new theme, which is really the antithesis of “the fast lane”. It’s more a reflection of what I’m feeling — that I haven’t taken the time to really ponder some things, and haven’t taken the time to just sit and enjoy.

So this theme is a not-so-subtle reminder to me to stay out of the fast lane, so to speak.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome, as are any bug reports.

Speaking of which, many thanks to Sarah at Blogging Expertise for letting me know that my comment subscription thingy was broken. If any of you are using the Subscribe To Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith, you need to upgrade to the latest version, which makes it work with WordPress 2.1.

One of the things that’s always bothered me about reading PDFs online is that they always seem to be formatted for 8-1/2 x 11 paper, in portrait mode (up and down). By the time I increase the document magnification enough to comfortably read it, I can’t fit the whole page on the monitor. So I have to scroll, and I lose all sense of where I am on the page.

So I’m conducting an experiment. I’m redesigning Napoleon Hill’s classic, Think and Grow Rich, to be more readable onscreen, and enhancing it in areas with pullquotes of passages I find important. This book is in the public domain, and you can find it all over the Internet, but not in any easily readable format.

It is designed to be read in full-screen mode, but can also be easily read with the window at less than full-screen size. In the Adobe Acrobat Reader, ctrl-L (on PCs) or cmd-L (for Macs) toggles between full-screen modes. In full-screen, click anywhere on the page to advance, shift-click to go to the previous page. There are also icons at the bottom to change pages. In the final edition, I will include other functionality such as printing without background colors, bookmarks, highlighting, and possibly indexing.
What I am asking of whoever comes across this post is that you download Chapter 1, evaluate it, and share your thoughts with me. Download the file by right-clicking and choosing “Save As” or “Save Target As” in order to save it to your machine instead of reading inside your browser window.

A few things that you might consider:

• Are the colors and overall ‘feel’ good for screen reading?
• Is the type size and style easily readable?
• Do the pullquotes add to or detract from the overall reading experience?
• What do you think might improve the reading experience?
• Would it irritate you if I forced full-screen mode upon initial opening?
• And finally, if I decide to put the complete book out for public consumption, would you pay a small amount for the complete book (say, in the $5 - $10 neighborhood)?

Thanks in advance to all who take the time to look at this!

This post was originally entitled, “Steve Recommends - DO NOT Upgrade to WP 2.1 - At Least, Not Yet”, but has been revised and updated.

UPDATE 

I have revised my opinion of doing the upgrade; I think most people should get it done. I am still not happy about the inconfigurability of several areas without writing plugins to handle them, but oh well–after all, it IS free software and it IS very good and I AM thankful that it’s available to all of us, and I’m especially thankful to all the people who have contributed so much of their time to make WordPress what it is today.

I spent most of yesterday assisting people who have had problems with the WordPress 2.1 upgrade. Most were resolved relatively quickly, but there are a couple of lingering issues.

Be sure to follow instructions when you perform the upgrade, especially the part about turning off all of your plugins before you upgrade, then turning them on one at a time and testing. Some will break.

TEXT OF ORIGINAL ARTICLE

I am unhappy to report that I am having some issues with the new WordPress 2.1. I know several other bloggers that are having problems also, some major.

I really don’t like to do this, but for now I’m recommending that if you haven’t already done the upgrade, DON’T.

If you’ve already upgraded, rolling back to a previous version is time-consuming and somewhat difficult, so I’d say that for now, you’re stuck.

Stay tuned for further developments…