Bock Reborn — Now 20% More Offensive
May 13th, 2009 | By Bock | Category: internet
Here’s the new-look Bock.
Welcome.
It might take a bit of time to settle down and I know things will be flaky for a while, but still, have a look and see what you make of it.
The Geek and myself will have a lot of fiddling around to do behind the scenes and I have no doubt at all that things will go wrong.
Still, this is all aimed at bringing you a better site as we go along, with more features, and more contributors.
With any luck, and with your support, the thing will continue to grow, pissing off more and more people as it does.
On the face of it, this new layout might seem like just another way to present things, but it forced a new discipline on me which I’m still working at. I had to completely restructure the categories of posts – or to be more specific, I had to create a structure for them rather than the random labels I was working with up to now.
Consequently, there are about 250 posts with no category at all as I write, and I’ll have to sort that out. I hope to have that fixed in the coming week or two, but meanwhile it might cause some unexpected flakiness, for which I beg your forbearance.
In the end, I hope this will produce a better site for you, the reader, and for me, as well as the other people who contribute posts from time to time. Not to mention my long-suffering Geek, who puts up with my technical stupidity without a single moan. (Although, I notice he has begun to talk to me in baby-language lately).
When I started this thing back in March 2006, on Blogger, it was supposed to be a personal rant about anything that came into my head, and it still is, but it’s also grown into something more, and I have the sense that it has the potential to be much better.
This is the first step in a strategy to move the site on to something beyond blogging and I hope you’ll stay with us as we try to do that. I don’t want to move away from the readers but maybe it might be possible to nudge us all along together.
What do you think?
If you want your site redesigned, the Geek is taking orders. You can contact him here:
thegeek@bocktherobber.com
wow – so shiny!!!!
I suppose the price is going up too?
Yes. It now costs 20% more.
Ya bastard! Don’t ya know there is a recession on? I demand a recessionary price of 50% off.
All right. Since you’re a regular customer.
20% more offensive than what though?
The government’s child protection provisions?
The bailing out of AIB while Crumlin closes children’s wards?
The packages for those standing down from senior banking positions?
Whatever, it’s an excellent layout,
(and don’t give Grandad discount, he has a car that is three years newer than mine).
Suppose it’ll do. I’m not mad gone on Internet stuff anyway.
Bock – You have the heart and empathy of a Christian Brother.
Ian – go take a runner.
wow – it works… I couldn’t access your site from my local pub. it’s filter blocked the site for some reason. I’ll be having words with the owner (I get beaten by him in chess regularly (I drink, he doesn’t))
Nice reboot.
‘Twill do
You’re bringing Sexy Bock!
Tellin’ ya!
You have my imprematur, blessings and best wishes for your sexed up new look!
As Father Ted would say – all you need are a few nuns – nice to have about the place
Congrat’s it looks great.
lovely, sugar, absolutely lovely. xoxox seriously, i like the format – very crisp and clean.
I love black and white movies. Congratulations. Clean and crisp. Brings a sort of subtle dignity to offensiveness. The +20% is in the aftershock and is only experienced by the thinking classes.
Sit semper.
I like it, the picture is lovely, you look like someone with intelligence!!!
It;s amazing what you can do with Photoshop these days.
Now that you’ve upgraded to real web stuff, by 20% no less, I now suppose that like Ryan Air customers we’ll all have to check in on-line from now on!
Needs a dash of colour, some shiny things here and there that serve absolutely no purpose, t’would be as right as rain then.
Nice work Bock! Liking the new look, but would have to agree with Benny above – “Brings a sort of subtle dignity to offensiveness”
Gosh!!! I’m speechless.
Sancti Apostoli Petrus et Paulus: de quorum potestate et auctoritate confidimus ipsi intercedant pro nobis ad Dominum. Am blessing the site before it is taken over by the God-less ones tomorrow.
Is everyones surname May in here by the way ??????
Well wear.
Nice site, the yellow scoury shite colour used to give me a pain in me head – but I battled through. Now its blinging and me headache is gone! Yay you!
very swish, even dignified, like brand new egyptian cotton, very cool.
can you be offensive with so much cool going on ?
I can’t find the way out.
I don’t even know which floor I’m on.
Bock this gets better by the hour. Well done
Very flash indeed. I feel as if I should have a wash and put the best duds on before I get too far into it.
It even smells like a new car, however you do it…
(Do we have to stop swearing when we visit?)
I wouldn’t throw it out of the bed for eating Taytos like.
I draw the line at taking my shoes off before coming in though.
I love the new design, it really brings the blog to a new level. Perhaps consider changing the title on the front page to mention news and current affairs instead of just Bock he Robber. You’d probably pull in more people via Google that way. Seriously impressed though.
Nice. Very professional looking but you should be careful though. Much in the same way people will believe almost anything that’s said to them by a man in a white coat holding a clip board, you run the risk of being taken seriously with Armani suit-esque new site..
A fine renovation, very smart and stylish.
The only thing that occurs to me in the light of yesterdays events – the old background was that yucky eggy colour – if this trend continues at least you wouldnt have to wash the background as often!
I really like the new crisp, clean look. C’est has a point. I feel a wee bit like I’m reading The Times, but we’ll probably get used to that.
One small thing: the pic in this post is brilliant, but I don’t like the “pen and ink” version in the masthead. He looks like he’s choking and he’s too close to the name. Otherwise, it’s all great.
Hi Bock, site looks great. My only complaint is that I have to click through to read the full post from Google Reader – the RSS feed is just the first couple of lines. If this is intentional and you want us to visit the site fair enough, but if you didn’t mean to do it any chance you could put it back to the way it was? Cheers.
I didn’t realise that. The Geek must have changed it, but look: you’ve visited the actual site, possibly for the first time in ages. Maybe I’ll leave it alone for a while.
Not wanting to sound like a grumpy old bastard or anything, but preferred it when it was more linear, rather than spit up into all the different categories.
The linear sequential format suited me until recently, but now I want to do other things with the site.
Could even a short list of the latest posts in chronological order not be added somewhere on the front page?
It’s already there under the Recent Posts tab.
Squid,
it is already there, it’s one of the tabs beside the Lead article, recent comments are there as well.
(OOOOOps the chief got there afore me.)
It is clean and crisp, but I liked the old style better. Maybe if you used the old font, or another distinctive one, so that it doesn’t look almost like another blogspot blog, or the Times. I also agree with Nora (36) about not liking the pen & ink drawing. And, a few graphics or pics in the sidebar would liven it up more. Another suggestion – make people’s names bigger like I think it was in the old version. And lastly, the whole post index on the right could be a smaller and/or different font (or color) – just to add more variety.
But the blog is great. (I hate when people just complain…)
Another thing, especially if you’re trying to attract new readers – write a post explaining why your name is “Bock the Robber”. I’d like to know, anyway…
Blogspot? Fucking Blogspot? Please.
As regards your other ideas , we’re at the early stage of the change. This new design allows us to do things we’d never have been able to imagine with the old sequential arrangement and we will be including many of the things you suggest.
I’m still working on the category structure and the Geek is still working on the coding. When that’s done, we’ll be coming back to the readers for suggestions and more ideas.
Have faith. This is all in the interests of providing a better Bock experience.
OK – maybe I exaggerated a little about blogspot – sorry. Happy you like my ideas, though.
Must take you a lot of time to keep up on all of the comments…
Not really. This is a commentbot. It’s comes with the new designdesigndesigndesigndesign
“Blogspot? Fucking Blogspot? Please.”
Thanks a bunch, you insensitive … thing. I customised mine to within an inch of its life but it’s still blogspot.
Nora — Blogspot is shite. You know it. Everyone knows it.
I lasted about a year on it before deciding that it was complete crap. Even if you didn’t want to pay for hosting, you could still use wordpress.com and have a credible website, absolutely free.
Blogspot? Bah.
Bock,
I have my own domain name and paid-for website which you know nothing about.
I’m perfectly happy with the layout and functionality of my blogspot blog, and I can amend the css and html myself any time I like.
Anyway, I’m not here to argue the merits of wordpress v blogspot. Or typepad. I’ve worked on them all, and blogspot suits me fine for my purposes. Goodnight.
Really didn’t mean to cause such a ruckus. Use what works for you.
Remember, Nora – he’s trying to live up to his 20%-more-offensive promise…
That’s women for you.
Careful – that’s half of your potential readership out there – that’s a lot of offense in one shot.
Potential readership? Potential? Most of my readers are women, bless ‘em. That’s when they’re not busy tidying up.
I thought you’d have something to say about “potential”. Women (and those few of us men) who already read you know what to expect; new readers might need to be exposed gradually. Immunity to offense is an acquired skill.
You know your picture – is that a real person? Christ, if it is, that’s some face! (if it’s yours I apologize!)
Just wondering if this is part of a “strategy to move the site on to something beyond blogging” whether that includes more content from other contributors? And if so any comments on what you would like? I’m sure there are a lot of people who could provide suitably offensive content but don’t want the hassle of having their own blog/website. “Bock Idol” perhaps?