Whoa! 3rd anniversary of arubabeaches.net

Really? That’s right. Three years and counting. I must admit that I’m baffled about this feat. The internet is a weird animal where many sites come and go, yet this one chugs along. I guess this accomplishment is possible due to my stubbornness. I simply won’t let go. As much I’d like to toot my own horn, however, I’ve got you to thank, especially some hard core readers I have here. Not big commenters – which I respect – but certainly passionate. Thank you very much.

As I’ve said in the past, the internet is measured like dog years. How else would you explain the fact that it took a company like Google about a decade to reach the same market cap other companies took more than 50 years to reach. In this logic it means that age of this website is 21 and not 3.

Anniversary Number 3 for arubabeaches.net

Early beginnings

On May 20, 2007 this website started and hasn’t looked back since. Sometimes it’s challenging, as it’s not always easy to come up with interesting topics and yet somehow I managed [not always interesting or funny, but still]. This project is a big commitment for sure and when I’m not writing I feel awkward. A good example was when I took a half year break recently when there wasn’t a day that went by without me thinking about writing. However, that break was necessary.

Writing and Speaking

Speaking of writing there’s been a transformation in the tone and vocabulary if comparing the early days with now. I write from a more personal angle, express my likes/dislikes and don’t mind calling things out when the situation needs it. I’ve switched from mostly informational website to giving my opinion. I still give information but with a twist. Despite all the transformation I’ve tried to maintain a positive tone. I was tempted several times to write politics but refrained from doing so, despite my strong convictions. This is not the platform for that.

In terms of writing, reading and speaking in a foreign language it’s been nothing but good to me. At the end of the day I’m taking things away from this that I couldn’t have imagined. I couldn’t have learned this anywhere else. It truly is amazing really. My writing  and speaking skills have improved considerably, but both still needs a lot of work. I can tell you that all this learning is paying off and it’s paving the way for videos. Join me for Season 4 for videos. I need to keep renewing and evolving, so I will.

New design

When I made my return to writing back in February I did so with a new design. I think this was the third design this website had in its history. The first was short lived. The second lasted the longest but the problem with it was that it wasn’t unique, thus used on many websites. The third (previous) released in February was OK but I was never really satisfied. It did what I wanted by calming things down and let the content excel. Nothing more. The user interface needed some thought. It needed to be even cleaner, the content needed to pop out even more.

User Interface Explained

Current theme (design) is called “Swimming”. It’s a refresh from previous theme, with use of a similar color scheme. Now I’m satisfied with it. A run-down:

In the upper left corner there is a brief explanation about the topic of this website. It used to be in the right corner. The navigation menu was moved to the upper right corner. This website is not about the pages, rather about the up-to-date articles.

The second row is the most colorful part of the website. It has the color of the sky and the reflection commonly seen in Aruba’s clear sea. The logo introduced in February was kept, but was made a bit smaller to fit the now centralized position. Expanding the so called brand presence.

twitter.com/arubabeaches‘ feed was added to the site, scrolling through my last 5 tweets. This way readers can see up-to-date information from me, on the go sent from my phone. I like that I don’t have to be sitting behind my computer to update the website. I haven’t done a great job in engaging via Twitter yet, but it will come. The search box was kept on the right side also important.

The content area features some changes, too. The background is completely white, making sure nothing takes away from the content. All lines and stripes were removed and the font size made larger. Much more white space was added giving the readers the feel of space and calmness. Certain items were removed from the sidebar as well, making it even cleaner.

On the article pages, the sidebar was removed altogether, this way putting the focus solely on the content, without distractions. Below the title an information bar was added with the publishing date of the article with a link to the comment section. I also made sure to add a word count, this way telling you the size of the article you’re about to read.

Pictures and videos are now larger or smaller than the content column, with the caption removed from the content as well, this way breaking away from the typical “boxed” content area commonly seen on most websites (look how the image in this article flows outside the column on the right).

Below the article a new section was added with “Now what” giving you options going forward. By the way, I would like to thank everyone who subscribed to the e-mail list, this way anyone can receive fresh content in their e-mail boxes automatically every time new content is added. If you haven’t done so, I would like to invite you to join the e-mail subscription below. It’s free. You can also choose to subscribe to the RSS feed if that’s your thing.

Perhaps one of my favorite things added to content area was revamping of the “related content” section with pictures. I think it looks amazing. Lastly, all the way to the bottom the comment section was refreshed.

IE6

As you can see, a lot of thought has been given on the end-user experience and added improvements. I like clear and simple webs designs and I think the new theme nailed it. Going forward small glitches are inevitable and will be sorted, this way trying to accommodated all users and (most) browsers. By the way this design does not support Internet Explorer 6.0 (IE6) browser or older. If you still use IE6 I strongly suggest you upgrade to a newer version (browsers are free), in order for you to enjoy this website to the fullest. A word of warning about IE6: it’s not safe and is very outdated.

Finally

After requests I’ve decided to allow advertising on this site. I’ve been testing it for the last few days and am very pleased with the results thus far. It will be implemented in such a way that it won’t take anything away from the content. I also tried to make sure it blends into the design and stand out at the same time. Naturally it needs to be relevant to the topic of this website but more importantly I have to like it. I’ll try to find advertisers who have something offer to the readers, such as awesome products and/or wicked discounts.

I’ve searched and researched advertising networks but options for non-US websites are very almost non-existent, plus I didn’t like any of them. What’s the alternative? Do it myself. I wanted to unveil arubabeaches.net/ads now, but there wan’t enough time. Fixing minor bugs, details and tweaks of the new design is taking longer than I hoped. The ads-section should be live somewhere next week.

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