About These Pages
Introduction
In this, my first attempt at HTML authoring, a number of different
factors are involved. There is some consideration given to my aims
and objectives in publishing a web page. This involves bringing together
some aspects that might be called design with a decision
about content for the page. And after that it's
all process, using the hardware and software resources
at my disposal.
Aims and Objectives
Well, first and most simply, I have enjoyed doing this, at least most
of the time. I have found it a generally pleasurable experience working
to produce this. Some things have been a hassle, like trying to produce
it using a mixed bag of odd software (like HTML authoring in Notepad).
But overall, I just like having a webpage.
Secondly, as someone who works professionally in things that are closely
related to design, I have this page as an advertisement. It displays some
of my current capabilities in information technology. I'm not a "web-page
designer", and have no intention of becoming one, so I'm not touting for
business, but it is a useful reference for potential employers.
Thirdly, it allows a bit of self-indulgence. There are really no other
media where your potential audience includes people in almost every country.
Of course, the expense of technology is a severe restriction on this
potential audience, and the number of actual visitors may be pretty limited.
Still, having a web page is a certain contribution to one's vanity.
Design
I have tried to create, above all, a design that is consistent and
effective. Therefore, I have organised information categorically and hierarchically,
and have tried to facilitate navigation by cross-links. However, this does
not limit what can be done. Visually, areas that are predominantly textual
or photographic are presented on pale backgrounds, whereas for less textual
areas, a more bold use of light lettering on a dark red background is used.
As for style ... well, each to their own. I suppose my taste in design
is for something that is clean, spacious and perhaps a little bit serious.
I have to disappoint some by the absence of jokey animations of "men at
work". If it's "under construction", then, to my mind, it's obvious.
Content
For many people, there will be nothing of interest in this page. For
others, there will be certain sections that are relevant. And it
will be only a few people who are interested in the whole thing. I don't
have a problem with that. I have yet to find a web page that is interesting
for everyone. At the same time, you have to have some content worth reading.
So, I offer a variety of areas that are not totally idiosyncratic and personal,
that are open to discussion, in a way that pictures of my pets would not
be. At the same time, I have tried to be honest, because my own views make
this a homepage, whilst not being too self-indulgent or telling people
things I don't want them to know.
Process
Well, the development of this page has been fairly slow and erratic.
My original design was far too slow, with the graphics way too big. An
appreciation of how the page would look when loaded up onto other people's
system also caused some modifications. I suppose I started out with a concept
that was too based on the principles of publishing paper documents. So,
some of the major modifications that I undertook were to reduce the amount
of up-front text, introduce Javascripts to make the page more varied, and
to improve navigation among different areas. It's still far from perfect,
but there's a lot of other stuff to be doing in life than making the perfect
web page.
Resources
The original HTML was produced in Composer within the Netscape Communicator
suite. I quickly found this too limiting, so started directly editing HTML
and Javascripts within Notepad and Word - not ideal, but it works. A couple
of sites have been helpful in learning more about HTML and Javascript:
[links].
The silver animation was produced using POV-ray, GifMation and Paint
Shop Pro Animation Shop. Other graphics were produced in Paint Shop Pro
5..
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