On the other hand, I haven’t really got anything new to upload yet, either. I submitted a few entries to Worth1000 in the last week or so. One did pretty good but didn’t win, one did okay but didn’t even come close, and one totally bombed. I worked on it a little bit more after the contest ended and I’ll work some more on it later. When I’m happy with it, I’ll upload the new version here.

Also spending some time here and there making menu themes for DVD Architect, Sony Media Software’s app for authoring (wait for it) DVDs. Like most DVD authoring apps, DVD Architect comes with canned menu designs you can apply when you don’t feel like designing your own. I always do. I have no use for generic menus. But I understand a lot of people would rather get a DVD done and watch it rather than spend hours or days making backgrounds / buttons. Anyhow… DVD Architect comes with fewer themes than most authoring apps (about 20 or so) and there aren’t a whole lot available on the web. The subject comes up now and then on Sony’s DVD Architect forum, so I figured I’d take a crack at designing some generic (but compelling?) themes and letting others download them. Or maybe I’ll sell them.

Not much going on in the wallpaper department. (That makes it sound like I work at Home Depot, across the aisle from the paint department…) Haven’t had any ideas for more Boondocks ones.

Have tossed around a few fanvid ideas. One of them, I need to edit (or have edited by someone more capable) the song — it’s entirely too long for a video. Need to shave off at least a minute, if not two. Luckily, there are long stretches of no lyrics or overly-repeated ones. I’ve also got, probably half a dozen shows / movies I want to use as source, but can’t find songs for. I’d take a poll, but I don’t think enough people visit this site yet to get much of a sampling.

So, yeah. I got nothin’. I hope you like it.

I also finally found just the kind of gallery plugin I’ve been looking for. Online gallery software comes in basically two flavors — barebones and bloated. I don’t need slideshows, I don’t need online postcards, I don’t need rating systems and I don’t need 200 configuration options. What I do need is something that lets me easily add new images and (this is real important) something that can simply be integrated with the rest of my site. I believe I’ve found what I need in d13gallery. So, thank you also to its developer. Again, I’ll tweak it a bit, but it’s also very simple and very effective.

So. Yeah. Look for the actual site to be up sometime soon.

So, I’m going to give Coppermine Photo Gallery a shot. I was interested in Gallery, but my web host uses Fantastico to install scripts, and it doesn’t appear to install Gallery properly. I tried a few of the suggestions suggested at their (Gallery’s) website, but eventually gave up and decided to try CPG.

I added the main categories I currently expect to use, added an album for the stuff that’s ready to upload, and then…uploaded said stuff to that album.

I’ll putz around with the PHP and CSS files tomorrow to see how tough it will be to make the image section (controlled by CPG) look like the rest of the site. I’m not thrilled that CPG uses tables to layout pages, so I might hack the files up so that they use CSS for this instead.

And then maybe I’ll scrap the current look of the site and re-do all the CSS… Who knows what this place will look like by the time anyone actually sees it.

Just kidding. If anyone visits here regularly, sorry about the lack of updates. I haven’t really started announcing this site to anyone yet, so you’re trespassers anyhow. ;-) I’ve been going back and forth trying to decide how much of this site is automated by PHP packages off the net, write the HTML by hand, or some combination thereof. Recently I’ve started considering the idea of making it a PHP site that I write by hand. So here I am teaching myself PHP now. I’m really liking this idea, so there probably won’t be any new design changes to this site while I’m working on that, and it will probably get a total facelift. Isn’t that exciting?

In the meantime, I have worked on a few small pieces lately, so perhaps I’ll upload those.

Thus, until I find a better way, all comments will have to approved before they appear. Gr.

I finally had some time to get started on piecing this site together this past week. One thing that didn’t completely suck about having sprained my ankle, I spent a week off of work so I could keep my leg elevated. Actually, I guess a rant about that whole week could’ve been a post here, but do you really want to hear about that? No, of course you don’t.

So. I’m brushing up on my CSS since, although I’ve built a few pages here and there with it, I’ve never built an entire site using it. Wait, I take that back… I did a wedding site for my wife (then-fiancee, obviously) and me, which I think is pretty nice if I do say so myself. As you can see, I like nice, clean HTML. I rarely mess around with scripts, and I try not to make sites too graphics-heavy.

Get with the times, Rob…the web is all about interactive and cool graphics.

– Several anonymous web users reading this

Whatever. When I make a website, it’s in order to distribute information, and I want that information to be available to as many people as possible. Besides, do you know how many times I’ve been to a website with nifty java apps, rollover scripts, animated GIFs, etc, but the site itself was just plain ugly? Yes, of course you do. Because you’ve also been to them. So, other than a logo and the images I’m trying to share, you won’t have to wait for a lot of graphics on this site. I hope you appreciate that.

Well. Going back to work tomorrow, and my eyes are drooping….so the construction will have to wait a bit, and so will another log entry. I’m going to bed.