The Author
My name is Fernando. Fernando A. Coello, to be specific. If you’d like to know more about me, just visit my personal site.
Story
I started blogging back in March, 2008. At first, it was a just-for-fun activity. Later, it became the path to a totally different experience: web programming.
How was Quite Random born?
I remember a friend asked me if there were more templates for Blogger other than the ones Blogger offered, because, well, they were really boring. Until then, my blog was wearing a Minima Blogger Template -basic, though tweaked- and this question hadn’t even crossed my mind.
It took her no time to find this site (Better in Pink!) that offered girly templates for free. She tried uploading the template she had downloaded, with no success. Of course it wouldn’t work: that template was coded for Blogger Classic. In my curiosity and my almost non-existent tech knowledge, I managed to convert it to Blogger Beta (now regular Blogger.)
I posted the template for download on my site -back then called “Randomness”-, and then contacted Maddie (Better in Pink!’s owner.) The template had quite a success and my blog soon started to be visited more than usual. English-speaking readers, especially, came to me asking for Blogger technical help, sometimes with a particular subject or just asking “How did you manage to convert it?”. Others asked for more templates by Better in Pink!, some proposed creations by me, or more conversions from WordPress Themes! People even requested tutorial translations.
My mother language is Spanish, and I love it. But as much as I love Spanish, I like English more. Motivated by this love for it, soon, I was translating tutorials from Spanish to English -and at times, vice versa-, and in my spare time, converting WordPress themes to Blogger templates! Randomness became so popular in a matter of seconds, (well, months) and I just loved being helpful. I remember one of my tutorial translations (the one about Numbering Comments) was featured in Blogger Buster and, God, people just loved it!
Truth is: I don’t know how it really happened (how Quite Random was born) -if it was only one factor or more-, but this whole experience captivated me more and more. “Randomness” -as a journal- had died, but revived as a Blogger help blog and a free-templates provider.
So, what happened next?
Traffic to my site kept increasing, but my free time became shorter and shorter. As much as I wanted to keep Randomness updated, I had other priorities (to make it short: school.) Its popularity didn’t change, but just became stronger, since, despite not updating, I had been in touch with people who liked Blogger, coded for Blogger, and wanted to improve it. It didn’t take long before my templates (and template conversions) were already featured in BTemplates (thanks, Francisco!) and other important sites.
This meant more comments, more e-mails, more offers. One time, when chatting with Maddie (from Better in Pink!), the idea of helping her/working for her as a programmer (for Blogger) emerged. By then, my CSS, HTML and JavaScript skills had matured (not so much, I must admit -at least not as much as I feel they have today,) so we gave it a shot. And it worked! She introduced me to the WordPress world and, in many ways, mentored me.
I’ve since worked with different people from all over the world. Isn’t it just awesome? I migrated to WordPress when I got to know it better. Randomness, with the migration, became Quite Random.
What about today?
Today, I’m more focused on my work as a freelancer, rather than on releasing new templates or writing new tutorials. I’ve been disconnected from the Blogger platform for quite a while, but always keep my templates updated. Quite Random, of course, offers 100% free technical support for all the templates and tutorials here provided. (Please note that some templates have been discontinued.)
And, tomorrow?
Of course I can’t predict what is going to happen to Quite Random with the pass of the months and years, but I plan to keep my free templates here for download and the tutorials I once wrote available for everybody.