Here’s the top reasons you should consider adopting IntenseDebate for your blog’s comments:

• Threaded commenting
• Easy to install to your WordPress blog using their provided plug-in. The plug-in imports all old comments from your blog into the IntenseDebate system. When the plug-in renders the comments on the page, it uses JavaScript; however, the comments still exist on your page in HTML, which is useful for SEO purposes.
• From their site: “Look, we know that we’re not your first and we may not be your last comment system, and we’re ok with that. Our comment importers and exporters make bringing your comments with you a piece of cake, so you don’t need to worry about losing a single one.” I’ve worried about this with other 3rd party providers. What happens when you decide you’d like to switch? No worries with IntenseDebate.
• Using IntenseDebate gives site visitors an incentive to comment as it’s low friction and their comments across all IntenseDebate enabled blogs are available via their profile.
• The service supports platforms other than WordPress

I have always had solid design sense and can navigate my way around Photoshop in a very competent fashion; however, I have had my nose buried in nothing but code for the past couple of years with very little opportunity to do any graphic design.  So, I had to knock the dust off.

As I was working on a design for this site, I wanted to created something slightly edgy with lots of potential for change down the road.  Since my goal with SeanASullivan.com is to write and share a variety of things related to my life, I felt it best to take that into account.  I, myself, am a very dynamic person so I needed some colors and design sense to help convey that.

After going through a few ideas, a lot of which seemed like the standard Web 2.0 schemes (yes at one point I even had my name reflected at the top) I decided that the “grungy” look would suffice.  I grabbed a picture of myself from playing at Furrier Farms this past August and did some cool vector drawing effects on it.  I used some inspiration from Adobe’s Kuler site to help me ultimately decide on some colors.  The starting point for these colors was in part from my love for beer and Irish culture— thus searching the site with the keyword “guinness” for some ideas.  I had to add in my favorite guitar in the world, the Gibson ES-335 and what fuels me, coffee.

The luggage tag was a cool effect and gave me a little canvas to outline the three categories I plan on focusing on with SeanASullivan.com— development, music, and life.  Maybe I’ll make those useful and clickable in the future when I have a free moment.

So stick around.  I realize a lot of you will be reading my posts through your favorite RSS reader in the future, but make sure to stop back every now and again.

Anyways, the purpose of this site is to serve as a centralized point on the web to find out all about me and the various projects I’m working on at any given time.  In other words, it will be an aggregate site all about Sean A Sullivan.  Here, I will pull content from other sites and various social networks so you can get the complete picture as you desire.

It may take some time before I get moving on this project as I’m really busy with work and other things, but stay tuned and we’ll get there in time.  Also, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed so you know when things are happening.

Until next time!

P.S. You can also get here by typing seansulli.com (wanted to stick with my full name for the formal domain).