Showing posts with label website design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website design. Show all posts

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Sierra Rec

I have revisited my hobby website project, "Sierra Recreation." I am rediscovering the wisdom in doing an imperfect something over nothing at all.

I implemented a nice template, but it is not displaying entirely correctly, and its finer features are lost until the right tweaking is done. Needless to say, I don't know how to apply those tweaks, and it has frustrated me to the point of inaction.

Today, I added some menu items (on a menu I was able to tweak into displaying correctly). These little steps rebuild my confidence not only in myself but in the entire idea of trying at all. Adding the odd, incremental bit of content, and the thing will start to look worthwhile again.

Little steps get you there, or at least move you forward. Often, that is enough for now.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Sierra Re-creation

God help me, I think I'm going to resurrect "SierraRecreation.com," or at least its spirit.

It was months ago that I ceased thrashing about in the dark, struggling against a slowly-diminishing ignorance of Content Management Systems, an equally-slowly diminshing ignorance of the Sierra Nevada itself, and the fact that no one but me ever joined a site that I had hoped would engender at least some enthusiasm from, well, enthusiasts. I ceased thrashing, and I gave up.

After I stopped crying, (I take my perceived defeats entirely too seriously) I realized that I still have an interest in the Sierra Nevada. Although I also still don't get out in the rough enough, I still daydream about it, read about it and care about it. And I do occasionally actually get out and kick rocks, and it's fun to write about it or take photos for display. When you've got an interest in something and it just keeps nagging at you, you can either drink until it goes away, or you can stop resisting and do something about it. Me, I'm doin' both.

I also envision doing some sort of videography project about recreation in the Sierra Nevada; the details are always hazy and require that I chase them (which I am currently doing), but the personality of the thing is clear in my mind: something useful, somewhat intelligent, but also approachable, funny and down-to-earth. I'd like to do some sort of a series, even if it's a series of 10-minute webisodes (although I'd rather do more-standard, 30- or 60-minute productions), and an accompanying website just sounds like such a natural place to host such productions (or clips thereof), that I know I've got to do it someday.

Plus, there are so many good resources of different media and perspectives that I am driven by a natural instinct to collect them and display them, and redistribute some of them in more modern or useful ways than I originally found them.

One hang-up is money. "If it cost a nickel to shit, I'd have to go puke somewhere." Thanks to Jeff S. for that handy and unforgettably digusting saying. But it makes my point; I can't afford even one more hosting plan right now, so I'm currently planning on reviving my little monster as a subfolder of my current hosting account. Luckily, it will be full-featured in all other ways, allowing me to build and play and break things. Besides cost, another plus is that a relatively anonymous subfolder homestead will remove any pressure to make it "be" anything other than what it is: a personal work in progress.

Hopefully, it will end up being something worth "re-launching" someday, and showing to the cold, cruel webosphere for somebody to get some use out of it.

Until then, I'll keep the domain name under my thumb for later use. Until then, I'll tinker.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

I keel you

Echh - inadequate sleep (due to too much wine; "too much" being two whole glasses - how frigging old am I??), a slow internet connection and difficulty implementing what is advertised as a 5-second web utility have conspired to put me on the brink socially unacceptable behavior.

What the fuck are you looking at?

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Shoot the elephant

Since I haven't had more than two customers in the past year for LiberatedPachyderm.com's Virtual Tour service, I'm going to pull the plug. If you haven't seen it yet, look quick, because the host has its orders to yank that limping behemoth off the server soon.

I'm no longer troubled at the failure of this service to take off. I learned a few things, and I'm in a different place now (as is the Real Estate market) than I was when this got started. It helps that I have steady income again, and a new rainbow on the horizon to chase.

It's like they say: "when God closes a door, kick out a window or you're fucked." More about the window sometime soon.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

New website design

I almost forgot to mention - I updated my website, TomBickle.com. Slip on by, and let me know what you think of the new design...