The first South African blogger to run WordPress 2.5!
18 March 2008 Design, Wordpress
Yes, that’s right. I am officially the first South African blogger to be running Wordpress 2.5 live. Oh, and while I’m at it, might as well throw in a redesign.

After one twitter message, some time back, I accidentally also created a personal brand for myself - The Bagley - which is something I am going to try and build over the next few months. We have Adii, Zoopedup, Foxinni and Fariq to name a few, so add to that list my friends - The Bagley.
Wordpress 2.5
This blog is officially running WordPress 2.5 and all I can say is swheeeeeet! I found out that happy cog are the okes behind the redesigned admin panel and they did one stellar job. There are improvements to the layout and UI all over the place, and its going to take a few weeks to actually find all of them. The only problem WP 2.5 created for me is that it broke the popularity plugin by Alex King. So for the time being I have disabled it. Below is a screenshot of my new 2.5 dashboard:

Redesign
I’m not entirely sure how long it actually took for me to whip out this re-design, but it felt like a long time. The main aim of the redesign was to allow me some flexibility in the blog and sidebar, which I have now achieved. The previous design was very rigid and fixed - whereas now I can drag and drop widgets onto my sidebar at will. One thing I still have to add are all those blog buttons - amatomu, afrigator, Nike+ runs etc.
Buying and Giving
I have also included a personal buying and giving sidebar widget. What I’m trying to do with it is, 1. Buy myself some gadgets and neat gear and 2. give some money to a few good causes. So, all the money I make on this blog - whether it is paid advertising, or even *gasp!* an (honest) paid review - will go towards Buying and Giving. What do you think of the idea?
And… with buying cool gear, comes cool pics and reviews! These will be posted on my soon-to-be-rebranded I.T. Week.
Link Love
Calling all you link whores A-listers. It’s time to stop pretending to be my friend on twitter and actually add me onto your blog roll. For those that have, you’ll be the envy of all your friends when I add you to my Link Love list WITH a favicon. Pop me a comment or tweet and I’ll get it up. ;-) This blog ain’t PR4 for nothing yo.
So that’s about it for now. So what do you think? If you were looking for a someone to redesign your blog, would you consider me as a WP designer? (honestly?)
Tagged: Design, screenshot, twitter, Wordpress










15 comments so far...
Nice one dude! I guess I am not sleeping for the next few nights. I need to churn out me re-design on WP 2.5 just to keep up now. ;)
10:54 pm
Dear The Bagley,
I think 3rd person personal brands sux0rs real bad.
Yours faithfully,
The Henk
11:10 pm
Good one! I dig the redesign :)
I’ve blog rolled you :)
11:12 pm
I quite like the new look.
Design is one skill I am VERY envious of…
So, I have to get other people to do the design, and I have to modify it to work how I’d like it to :D
11:31 pm
Hi Jason,
Great job! Nice and clean, I like..
Cheers,
Gary.
11:49 pm
Thanks everyone for the kind words.
@Henk - In some context its not third person, and others it is. I can’t please them all. But I’ll think about what you saying…
12:25 am
Well done mate! Thing about blogrolls are they’re just so totally useless… Added you nevertheless!
8:36 am
Nice one (The) Bagley :)
Link love has been added to me blog…
8:37 am
Very cool J.. I like! :)
10:54 am
Thanks @Marc, @Lesley!
@Stii - ya, they are pretty pointless, but hey backlinks are backlinks and I don’t want to not have any friends listed here on my blog! Added!
1:07 pm
Noticed & noted
regards,
fariq
1:57 pm
Nice one The Bagley. Definitely time I have a play with the new Wordpress.
4:35 pm
@Mark - haha! Sounds like you have a speech impediment! (Must be hanging with the Brits) But ya, you must get into 2.5 - its awesome.
4:49 pm
Brave man Jason, how have you found the performance so far since you posted this? I must say I’m a little nervous seeign they’ve been taking so long to release 2.5, which must not be without a good reason. Any buginess you’ve encountered yet?
7:47 am
@nomand-one - 2.5 is pretty stable hey and I haven’t really picked up any bugs or unstableness. The only thing that didn’t work was the popularity plugin - so my Popular tab in the sidebar is empty. ;(
4:44 pm
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