A: First of all, it'll look shitty in macroshit browser, not to mention load far slower, have weirdly-sized type, and all the other problems associated with that piece of shit software. If that's what you are using to look at all this, it's a pity.
Admittedly, it's a
little inconsistent, but I think I've got the main parts
into shape. The farther off the mainpage you go, however, the more likely you are to get a very sour grape... I'm not going to point them out, but there are a coupla things still here that still need a lot of work...
I'm just about to get around to standardizing
the type, colors, style sheets, menus, etc on the rest.
The worst thing is that my old Nokia monitor's on it's
last legs, and the colors I see on my screen really
change quite dramatically and often. Thus, if the colors
look really weird, it's only partially my intention.
Sometimes I just go off a color guide book and convert
the RGB or CMYK colors to hex, so that can add even more
latitude. I flex between liking dark colored backgrounds
and finding them oppressive.
The other thing is
missing links... I finally got it all transferred to my
server (rjl.us) from various other "free" (and usually
horrible) locations (university, ad-supported servers,
etc.) and so had to go and fix all the links... If
something's missing you really need, let me know. Anyway,
I think I got the 404 page looking nice (go to this imaginary page to
see).
The site's design
is just made up of various things - some plagiarized from
other websites and changed a bit, some made up. Lately
I'm getting some ideas from Dynamic Drive and other
Java sources, or "deconstructing" them from pages I see
and like. I add things and fix them as I have time,
giving the whole thing a freaky 'tossed salad' feel...
Sometimes I try things that really aren't as practical as
neat - like the slide menu on your left there - or
especially that annoying
clock you've probably been trying to shake off
the mouse since alighting on this page...
Mostly I use a text editor (Note-Tab
professional) to edit the html by hand, again looking
over other people's code as clues as to what to do.
Things like Dreamweaver are handy to a limit, but it
usually goes better for me if I can see what's going on
in the code as I add it. I usually check the pages with
Opera web browser (and some others to make sure it works
ok - and to see if any non compliant proprietary code
slipped into my thief's bag that somebody got using M$
Frontpage or the like [frowny face]. We here at rjl.us
like things to be accessible). Photoshop helps with the
post-scanning photo operations, and the fantastic
Irfanview (free!) does most less-intensive image
manipulations for me. HTML Tidy (also free, but if I try
it on pages with Cyrillic strange things can happen...),
CSE HTML Validator, and Dreamweaver help me find stupid
mistakes in the code
By the way, I used to say that I didn't give a shit which web-surfer you used, but I have to say that Macroshit internet exploder is now just so freaking bad in every way that my website even looks worse on it. On Opera and Firefox, it's fine; maybe the others I haven't tried, too. But cripe, I can't stand how %$#@!! slow that M$ browser is, man! And you won't have to wait until the end of the stone age for tabs, either, if you're using the two I mentioned. I can't wait for the hilarious day when Macroshit 'invents' tabs... If you've no idea what I speak of, take a look at those links there. And if you still use M$ie, you deserve to see the pages all fucked up. If you're on some crippled system you can't change, believe me, it's better.
From the outset I was thinking I'd
like to keep the site real simple and small, too - thus
no flash, images of words instead of text, silly "email"
signs, revolving skulls or flames, etc... HTML tables
make up a lot of the graphic layout, and good old TEXT
still survives here! I was working over a modem from home
a lot, and I know the hassle of using internet in some
other countries, too, so didn't want to contribute to
that problem for myself or others.
Well, Java does give a lot of
possibilities with little bandwidth - so, even though
that annoying clock is the "modern" equivalent of
revolving skulls or flames, it's a lot smaller... (sorry, i have to update the silly clock to work with firefox...) Still,
I'm not using many images as text, anyway... There are
plenty of websites are the antithesis of this idea... try
using one of the websites covered head to foot with
picture elements when you're remote in Russia or on a
modem - or both! The pictures that are on my site are
usually minimal or, when big, have to be specifically
sought, and add something in the way of illustration (see
my photos pages). Also, in the big picture section, I
tell you the image size on the index page. Occasionally,
there's just nice small images as decoration.
Occasionally I put 'subliminal
messages' into the html code, too. Sometimes that tells
about the programs used to do the editing, or even
political or philosophical messages... Can you
find any?