A Fresh Coat of… Code

You’ve probably noticed the new look-and-feel here at the House of Rapp. What do you think?

There are still a few kinks to be worked out here and there, but hopefully you’ll find it a refreshing improvement and not a step backward. It’s surprisingly difficult finding a design which is suggesting of flying or even remotely aviation-themed.

Re-doing the joint took some time — and that’s not something I have in abundance these days, so despite the fact that I was getting tired of looking at the old design, I was going to just let it slide. But then suddenly I didn’t. My thought process boiled down to the idea that perhaps if the site looked better, it would inspire me to write more often.

Also, a good friend and former college roommate of mine, Rich Manning, recently launched a site of his own, Foodie-A-Go-Go, and looking at it made me think it was time to put a fresh coat of paint (or should that be “code”?) on the walls. I’m certainly not in his league when it comes to writing, but at least I can look the part in my attempt to keep up with the Jonses.

Speaking of Foodie-A-Go-Go, be sure to check it out if you’re a Southern California-based lover of vittles and vino. I remember when Rich’s idea of fine dining — and mine, for that matter — was a midnight Del Taco run to pick up a ninety-nine cent bean burrito… or three. Hey, it was college for Pete’s sake! Anyway, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve all come from those simpler times.

Another reason for a redesign is that I was already knee deep in code anyway. I’d received an email from a reader who said viewing the site with Internet Explorer would occasionally bring up one of those fake virus pages where they offer to “scan” your computer for you and eradicate it. I can assure you I’ve put nothing like that on the site, and have no idea where it’s came from. In fact, I was convinced it must be something on his computer, not my web site. But sure enough, when I looked at the site using IE, the same thing happened. Not repeatedly. Just once.

It was a bear to figure out where the malicious code was hiding. I finally found it in some of the WordPress system files. They’d been modified through a hole somewhere in a plug-in or a remnant of code from a previous version of the WP software. Things should be secured now, but if you encounter any issues, would you drop me a line about it? Thanks!

  2 comments for “A Fresh Coat of… Code

  1. Shamir
    June 26, 2011 at 12:06 am

    The site is lovely except for one thing: the contrast between the text and the background is so low that I can hardly read it. I’ll stick to reading the site in my reader. I came here as I was curious as to what you’d done with the site.

    If the color of the text or background were changed to make the contrast higher, it would be very pleasant to be on this site.

    • Ron
      June 26, 2011 at 2:54 am

      Thanks for the input — I’ll check into darkening the body font a bit. Always a tight rope to walk between design and functionality…

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