Well, first things first I suppose, this week's strip is now available for viewing, in which Jason engages in a quest to locate a very elusive treasure.
Some of you may have noticed there are some changes to this page (at last). I've been trying various layouts offline for the last few weeks to incorporate all the things I wanted and I think this is finally the one. There are still some tweaks to be added. Some new graphics, etc, but the layout will remain this way from now on. I have also made updates to the Welcome page, adding some new links and a little extra info to some of the bios. The next step will be to try to update the other pages on the site; work which has already started, but isn't going nearly as well. Despite trying to give a new look to the archive page I just can't get a stable build working. What seems to work for one thing really doesn't for the rest of the layout, which is becoming maddening! I'm sure I'll get it sorted out eventually, but it does mean that the final reveal of those updates won't be happening for a little while yet. For now there are plenty of other pages to work on!

Other good news in the last week was Valve's announcement about the future release of Portal 2, the sequel to one of my favourite games. A game that I still play quite regularly even now, so I have to say I'm really looking forward to this. And with the announcement that it will be a full length game and not the short (but increadibly sweet) experience of the first iteration I have even more to get excited about! The hard part now being avoiding all the spoilers until the game ships.

As some of you may have noticed, Quackers had some downtime in the last week. This was due to accidentally letting the registration on the domain expire, cutting off access to the site. Well, as you can see just from being able to read this, things are back up and running again. At this point I really need to take a moment to thank my friend André who has been sorting out that side of the site since it's inception. If not for you and this site I wouldn't have been keeping this whole art thing going as long as I have!

Would you look at that, another update on time! Hope i've not just jinxed things for next week by saying that...
For those of you who have eagle eyes you may have noticed a new button above this post. Yes, that's right, Quackers is now on Twitter. I'm mostly just trying it out for now and using it to let people know what's going on around here and when I may have posted something arty somewhere. I'll probably find I have more uses for it (and more frivolous tweets on it) as time goes on though :)

Anyway, over the last week I've become unhappy with the way the site looks. It's had the same layout for a few years now and I'm thinking it's time for a nice shiny update to happen. Unfortunately, as I've rediscovered over the last few days it's harder than it looks to impliment change, so any updates will probably be less than shiny and more a case of patching up the rusty bits. I have a smattering of HTML knowledge, but I'm pretty limited to what I can alter here. My webdesign knowledge is also woefully out of date. Peer beneath the simple, but functional exterior and you see a site held up with bits of string, sticky-tape, chewing gum and a lot of hope! (on second thoughts, don't look, it's too horrific!)
Despite my limitations I have started trying out a few layout changes. So far I've come up with a couple of things I like, but nothing radically different. I know it'd be easier - and preferable - to use an 'off the peg' design program so that I can impliment php code and do lots of cool new things. But most of those programs require having access to the server Quackers resides in, and that's something I'm lacking.
The point of all this blathering is that sometime over the next few weeks you may see some layout changes happen as a result. I'd appreciate being alerted to any hiccups or bugs that are apparent on various people's browsers (I only have a couple I can test the site on). But hopefully things should work OK.

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