I finally made the move over to WordPress. I was previously using Blogger, but due to the fact that it wouldn’t validate, it had to go. Web standards and valid HTML/XHTML/CSS are heavily stressed by the web design community. I make it a point to validate every single bit of code I type. Unfortunately, not all web designers/developers feel this same way. Sometimes when I am working with a developer or using a program (or even a plugin) that already exists, I can’t always validate “that” code as I have limited control over the final product. However, I felt that as a web designer that promotes valid code, it would look pretty awful if my website or blog didn’t validate. So I moved my blog over to WordPress, which does validate. [I am a little surprised that Blogger doesn't validate. I have actually found quite a few sites/widgets/plugins that surprisingly don't validate.]

However, now that I am becoming more aware of what does & doesn’t validate [thanks to the HTML Validator add-on for Firefox], I am becoming a lot more appreciative of what does validate. One of the projects that I’m working on at the moment is a customized theme for WordPress. And not just any theme, but a customization of the Thesis theme.

At first I was hesitant about using Thesis. I had done a Thesis customization earlier this year as a subcontractor for a fellow web designer. The project had a super small budge & only required minor customizations, so I didn’t get into the meaty part of how Thesis worked. And as recently as a week ago, I heard from another web designer about how she tried Thesis once [a long time ago - that should have been a clue], it didn’t work out for her & she ended up building a completely custom WordPress theme from scratch. So, a couple days later, when my client approached me wanting to use her Thesis theme, I hesitated. But I thought, hey, if it doesn’t work out, then I’ll just make her a theme from scratch.

Well, the first thing I noticed upon installation was that Thesis validated straight out of the box. This pleased me so much! Now that I am almost finished with the project, I am happy to report that I did get into the meaty part of Thesis this time & it has been so easy to use. [Thesis and I have been getting along great!] I will have a full review on Thesis later. In the meantime, don’t be surprised if I end up using it for this blog!