This year marks the 20th anniversary of NorthPine.com, and it’s time for a new look.
Over the years I’ve learned that I’m primarily a content guy and not a design guy or a tech guy (though those skills are also important). After coming home from my day job at a TV station where we use a modern web platform, I’ve kept plugging broadcasting news into the old HTML code. Though the news kept changing, the website became an unintentional tribute to 90’s web design.
That had some major drawbacks. The site was mostly based on tables within tables within tables, which gets confusing when you try to change something you set up years ago. Any change to the header required an update to every page on the site (meaning it hadn’t been changed in a long time). And, most troublesome, none of the news stories had a unique URL, which made them harder for people to find.
I’m excited about the possibilities of a modern design. The site is now far easier to use from mobile devices, much more searchable/linkable, and is much easier for me to update from the road.
If you don’t have interest in scrolling through the news from the entire region, you can now see the headlines for just one state or the Twin Cities. You can also read recent posts for common topics.
This year’s news and station lists have been converted into the new site design, but you’ll notice that some other pages are still using the old HTML code. Some of these pages will eventually be brought into the new platform, while others may be left as “legacy pages” linked from the new site.
If you notice something isn’t working right, please drop me an email at jonellis@northpine.com. I know not everything is perfect yet, and there will be more tweaking. But the old site was far less than perfect and getting extremely outdated in spots (there was still a link to UPN!)
Thanks for your continued readership.