Funky Homepage Re-Designed!

Following inital feedback on the look and feel of Funky Homepage, we've made some changes that we hope you'll like. Here's a short list of some of those changes...

• The header has been redesigned and the silver frame and beige background surrounding the search engine box have been completely removed. The search engine box is now surrounded by nothing but white space, which we hope makes the page look cleaner, crisper and less cluttered, reducing anxiety and improving your morale! I guess our Google search box on its own in the middle of all that white space is somewhat reminiscent of Google itself now. Hopefully this will appeal to Google users.

• The Popular Links menu on the left hand side of the page has been redesigned. The silver frame has gone and so has the beige background. It has been replaced with a calming gradient of colour that matches your colour scheme of choice (default is royal blue). Changing the colour scheme will change the background colour here. This left hand links menu and its colour scheme now closely resembles the one on Yahoo's homepage, and this will hopefully make Funky Homepage more familiar to Yahoo users.

• The "search the stores" box has also changed. The silver frame and beige background is gone and the design of the box has been incorporated into the main part of the page.

• The footer has also been redesigned. Again, the silver frame and beige colour scheme has been dropped in favour of a simple bar that matches the colour scheme of your choice. As a result, the footer is now half the size it was before, which is nice. The slave pixie who designed these original boxes with their silver frames and beige backgrounds thought that beige was a nice homely colour that people would warm to. He was wrong. So last night we carved him into a hundred pieces and fed him to one of our hobgoblins. He won't make that mistake again.

• The Google search box is now regional. This means that if you live in the UK, your search will be directed through Google.co.uk; if you live in the US, it will be directed through Google.com; if you live in Canada, it will be directed through Google.ca; and so on. Not every country is supported, but many are, and more will follow. Previously, all searches were directed through Google.com. What this means for you is more targeted search results for your region. If you'd like to change the Google search box that's used on your page for some reason, then you'll need to change your default country setting by clicking on the "Change Country" link in the newly designed footer bar at the bottom of the page.

• The borders around the front page boxes now all take the colour of the colour scheme of your choice and the crappy 3D effect on these boxes when viewed in Internet Explorer has been removed. Previously these borders were all in black.

That's it! We hope you prefer the new design of Funky Homepage. Feel free to comment on it in this blog!