New layout and a new way of doing things: Welcome. You've either purposefully looked for or accidentally stumbled upon www.skratchworx.com - the primary source of skratch DJ technology information, news and reviews anywhere on the planet.

Regular visitors will immediately notice a facelift. Since it's launch in September 2003, it's been tweaked, fondled and generally messed around with for some time but after equally large amounts of said tweaking, this new image was decided on as a natural progression from the previous style. I had toyed with a single accent colour but simply couldn't decide on one so left it out. Who knows - you may come back one day and find your favourite colour splattered all over the screen.

Along with this facelift is a new logo - well 2 new logos actually. I wanted a logo that would site better on merchandise, came up with 2 and was too weak-willed to pick one over the other:

This one is for most applications. Fits nicely on pretty much any merchandise.

This one however I really liked and decided to keep it for other uses. It looks particularly good at the top of this page and also looks cool on some little stickers I had made.

DISCLAIMER: I've made a conscious decision to make full use of PNG images. Whilst I realise that Internet Explorer for PC has some issues displaying PNG images, I've included some code that seems to allow them to be displayed properly. My advice - use any other browser except IE for PC until Microsoft pull out their fingers and get IE updated for the new millenium. Firefox is a good alternative multi-platform alternative.

But the facelift isn't limited to just the cosmetics - oh no. Following is a quick rundown of what's new and improved:

• Search Engine: There's now a full search facility powered by Google™. Not only does this search the news, but all the comments as well - and the index is updated around every 7-10 days.
• News Access: The last 50 news stories are listed in the right hand column so you can keep track of all the comments to the news stories without having to wonder what happened to your question.
• News Feed: Now you can access the latest news without even visiting the site.
• Downloads: Also new to the site is a downloads section. This will include the obligatory desktop pictures but also links to any media we may have produced or posted exclusively on the site.
• Ads: Inevitably, I've added ads to the site. None of your generic Ads by Google stuff - there are targeted directly to the DJ scene - usually for manufacturers, dealers or other commercial ventures. Initially this will be banner ads on each page but hopefully will expand into "buy from" links on product and review pages. Don't think of it as skratchworx selling out - it's more of a service to make buying this gear that little bit easier. And equally importantly - skratchworx will finally have an income!
• Links: This section has been expanded to include all sorts of DJ related sites. Provided I like what I see, I'm happy to swap links with other websites.
• DJ Basics: Primarliy for the less gear and technique savvy of you out there, members of the skratchworx team will be putting together some wise words on the slightly more intricate details of the things we generally take for granted or can't be bothered to learn about.

And this is just the start. There are many things going on behind the scenes right now - the site will naturally evolve into something even better over the coming 12 months. Thanks for visiting and with your continued help and support, we can turn skratchworx into something way better than it already is.

Peace

Mark Settle aka Gizmo