Jim Barraud, Manifest’s creator, describes the theme thus:

A clean and streamlined theme that focused on the content and not the distractions. It utilizes a single column, 500 pixel wide layout. No sidebars. No widgets.

There’s so much to love about that quote. Single column. Focus on content. No sidebars. No widgets. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

I’ve always loved websites and blogs which are pared right back to the bone — nearly too simple — for the simple reason that I spend so much time on the web! After surfing through websites which bash me round the head with flashy graphics, it’s such a relief when I come to rest at a site designed by someone who knows the meaning of negative space and subdued (if any) graphics.

And aspiring writers: this is the kind of presentation that you should be wrapping around your lovingly crafted blog posts: let your language speak for itself.

So: a beautiful, simple, elegant theme: download Manifest here.

I’ve been wanting for a while to get Derek Powazek’s Depo-Skinny theme (which I love, and have modified quite a bit) to show excerpts instead of full posts on the home page. This was inspired by John Nunemaker’s railstips.org, which does a nice job of showing an overview of posts on the home page.

I’ve always thought that full posts on my home page is too much, because I tend to write a lot (long, boring, geeky stuff mainly — that’s boring unless you’re a Ruby or Rails developer!). Up to now, I’ve been avoiding digging into Depo-Skinny’s PHP code because, well, I don’t like PHP :)

This morning though I jumped in and spent some time writing excerpts for recent blog posts, and fixing the theme to show them on the home page (I used WordPress’s the_excerpt()). I think this is a big improvement: you can scan the home page and easily see what I’ve been writing about recently.

I’ve also replaced the old header photo with a Wordle, which is another idea I’ve stolen from elsewhere :) This time, it’s from wordpressfoundation.org which, by the way, uses a new theme called “2010″. Looks nice.

So, a little bit of redesign work and I’m much happier! Check out my home page — what do you think?

Who cares if you have ten thousand followers on Twitter? How many of them do you think really read what you write? The whole ‘Social Media’ thing should be about real communication, not posturing.

When I read your blog, or follow you on Twitter, or subscribe to your RSS feed, I don’t want to read stuff that you think will impress me. I want to read about you: what you think, what you feel, what gets your attention. That’s what matters — that’s what makes my life more interesting and broadens my horizons. Everything else is just fluff.