I'm happy to announce that the new and improved SlideSix is now live. This new look and feel is a complete overhaul compared to the original design of the site. The new design uses a lot of gray, blue and black in order to make the site more closely resemble the Flex pieces that were already in place. There are also a lot of rounded corners to take the edge off of the deep colors so they hopefully don't overwhelm. Thanks to some feedback there is also a shiny new logo. Here's the new home page:

More after the jump:

I've spent a bit of time lately trying to figure out how to enable GZip compression on IIS7. I don't have much experience with GZip, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a smaller file results in a faster page download which always ends in a happier user.

What do you think? Not 100% yet, but I'm really liking this new style so far.

*Update* - Of course it's broken in IE.

I've recently rolled out some enhancements to the InstantSpot Design Exchange (http://www.isdx.net) and thought I'd blog them both here and over at the ISDX blog (http://isdx.instantspot.com) to get the word out. If you're not familiar with InstantSpot or ISDX, where have you been? Just kidding! Read the bottom paragraph if you're not familiar with them ;)

So on to the changes. First and foremost, the layout has been completely tweaked, fixed, overhauled and perfected to look 100x better. Take another look if you've already checked it out, I think you'll find the new look more appealing. Secondly, a commenting system has been implemented for each design in The Exchange. Now anyone can easily drop in a comment for a particular design. Having problems getting a design to look just right? Drop a comment - the original author is automatically copied on all comments added to the design so maybe they can help you out if you're having issues. The other major upgrade is the ability to preview your design before uploading it. This is a really cool feature for those CSS gurus out there. When uploading a design just edit the CSS within the upload form and click the Preview button before saving. Your changes are temporarily saved and a new window launches with your InstantSpot immediately reflecting the current CSS code in the upload form. How cool is that? Don't like what you've done? No problem, just exit the upload and all changes/edits are discarded. A future enhancement will give users the ability to load a default skin into the CSS editor as a starting point.

That sums up the latest changes. As Dave Shuck mentioned there are many more cool ideas in the works. Thanks again to Dave and Aaron for working with me on this project.

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InstantSpot is a next generation Social Blogging/Networking site - but it's not just a profile page or a blog - it's much more. InstantSpot is a completely free entire website for you and your family/friends. You can blog, interact with your friends via messaging, post photo galleries, manage an online calendar, even customize the look and feel of your Spot via the Style Manager. Don't know CSS? No problem! Head over to the InstantSpot Design Exchange at http://www.isdx.net and check out some of the cool custom CSS templates that our users have uploaded. There's a growing library of templates to choose from, and if you sign up at ISDX you can even preview any of the designs live on your Spot before taking the plunge and installing it.

I just stumbled upon this via del.icio.us - it's the ultimate list of all the different techniques for achieving the often sought after 'rounded corner' look using CSS. It is very comprehensive list, including whether or not the technique employs JavaScript to achieve the look. I believe it is continually updated when new techniques are found.