So let’s run down the line with as much as we can in the next 15 minutes.
To start with, today’s wednesday. It will be my first night back at church for wednesday nights. I need to remember that I want to bring my digital camera as well as Derek’s cable if I get home in time. I don’t know if I will be doing anything with Amber before hand, but it would be relatively nice. I’m a tad on the excited side, however, I’m also a tad skiddish… There’s a part of me that really wants to be one of those distant but cool people in the youth group this year. The one that stays in contact, but has little to no commitment to anything because of time constraints. I’ll consider it after tonight and seeing how it works out.
I want to clean my room. Right now. I want to go home, pick everything up, do my laundry, change my sheets, steam vac my floor, and clean off my computer desk. Why? Good question. Maybe it has something to do with a sane adult like attitude. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that I might be able to get more done. Who knows.
I have a quiz for CSCI in like 30 minutes. I’m thinking I should have studied… Oh Lord, Please don’t let me fail this quiz. I should be ok.. It’s CSCI right?
I’ve been putzing around with JR Corps for the last few hours. There seems to be a random surge in the amount of diskspace usage, such that, I would like to know where it came from. I’ll worry about it later. I’ve also been messing around with trying to get the SSL to work, but yes.. I don’t know.. Hmmm…
That reminds me I need to call Denise about a business meeting for a website. Blah.. Later…
Let’s see, what else, oh to talk back on the site to what’s currently going on in the ISMS. Yes, Ian, I do most if not all of my own design. It generally is an adapation of something I saw somewhere first, but not always. I should note here that Richard made the logo your currently seeing on the top of the site. Ok, but yes, let’s take for example the design of this site. Alex had a version of his site awhile ago that had some code that I really liked. It was the code for the black box you see around each segment of this page. The code works in every browser I know of, and does a fine good job of making a 1 px border. That’s a lot harder said then done when you’ve got the CSS issues between Netscape and IE. So… With that said, the idea was to create a site that was extremely modular, such that, a module could be inserted anywhere. Hence we have the logo module, we have the navigation module, and we have the module that contains the data. You may recall a time when there was a poll module, and I think I even had an image module once, but I didn’t like it so it disappeared. The ISMS could even be considered a module, but it’s not, because it’s kinda just floating… For those of you who can’t open the ISMS, well… Your not of the majority who view this site… But still, I’ll see if I can’t tri-code the javascript for your needs. To jump back to the topic of design. the general rules that Alex and I have tended to agree on:
Nagivation should be simple and intuitive.. By far and away, this is the most important thing for ANY site, except those maze sites where your trying to find the right link.
You should try to pick a color scheme of no more than say 4 colors with white and black not being counted. If you can remember the SMRC before it’s current design, you can see where the flaw was… Each page was a different color… very distracting.
I’ve become a fan of white backgrounds. Why? In my opinion, anything else is distracting. Black backgrounds seem to make anything look nice in my mind.. but I guess I find a challenge working in the white. Trying to make white look good can be… hard… I should note, I believe off white colors work well too.
Don’t try to get overly fancy with any technologies, IE: Javascript, Flash, etc. Odds are you are only bound to isolate the people who can’t see them. For example, the people that can’t see my ISMS.. There’s a reason the whole site isn’t run by javascript (or flash as the front page seems to have a problem with right now)
Try to get everything you want your user to see on the opening screen. Don’t make something they might want to see go off the screen. For example, you’ll notice the navigation module for my site is on the top of the page, not the bottom. The day section used to have that problem. Now navigation is on the top and bottom… Problem solved.
Oh, there is one more note about navigation: it shouldn’t move, unless the user moves it.
Let’s see, anything else? I’m sure… Maybe at a later date though…
The Mac/PC debate has managed to work it’s way into the ISMS, and I’m still not sure where the Spanish debate came from. To make what I was originally talking about a little more useful… JR Corps Inc. is the hopeful name of the company… So far the only one I’ve heard so far that I kinda like is JR WebCorps Inc. Why? Because it says what we do. That helps in the long run…. We’ll see though, keep throwing out ideas, and by far and away, keep the ISMS full of stuff.. people seem to be enjoying the debates.
Well, I have to go take a quiz now… Wish me luck everyone.. Oh god.. did I bring my book? Yes… Thank you lord…
Peace