Motivated and inspired by several things, including the redesign of several friends' websites, I know that I need to overhaul my own site very soon. I don't know if I want to do a total redesign to every piece of it, but a different front page, maybe some updated navigation, a better stylesheet that doesn't look busted in modern browsers, better photo galleries, etc. I'm still trying to sort out how I want to accomplish all of this, typing out loud here:
Hosting
First off, I'm definitely switching hosts, probably to Dreamhost. I'll get about six times as much server space and bandwidth for about a third as much money; should've done this a long time ago. I've exceeded my bandwidth a few times already and am usually pretty dangerously close around the end of the month, and I have lots of plans to add thousands more photos to the site in the future, so something's got to give.
Content Management
Everything now is in GoLive 5-generated HTML for the most part, save the MovableType 2.64 weblog bit, which is sort of a bastard stepchild. I fear doing too much with MT after the way the database crashed a couple years ago, now I'm gunshy. Besides, I think with the volume of photos I'd like to publish on the web, it would be far too difficult to manage with something like that; I don't want to have to touch each photo to resize it and code it manually, that's why I've used WebPics and Jalbum as gallery-generators, both with less-than stellar results. They write pretty sloppy code and have kind of weird and inferior stylesheet control, maybe I need to experiment more to streamline them? I'm not really interested in hosting photos offsite on a site like Flickr, I think it's distracting. Anyone know another good customizable photo gallery generator for Mac?
Portfolio
It's time to update the old portfolio, there is nothing on my site from the last three years that I've worked for Scooterworks/Genuine. This is ridiculous, especially given the higher-profile and real-world commercial nature of it; most of it is quite different than anything that's currently on there.
Retooling and Forward-Thinking
Some sections of the site never really developed into anything, like the weak attempt at bilingual English/Japanese graphics on the main page, the "Study" section (which never got done and was eventually made to link to the Vegan food photo section on some pages for lack of a link to that key content), half the photos are still missing from the "Places" section and most other sections are pathetically thin on content (when I have dozens or sometimes hundreds more photos that would fit perfectly there). The Movie Reviews and Featured Images never really amounted to anything. Meanwhile, I've got a digital camera and have built a library of thousands of images that I'd love to share, documenting signs, vegan food, Chicago, my travels, cats, etc. I'd like to be able to dump these into categories in nice-looking templates and update them every so often as I add new ones, similar to what I've seen people do with Gallery for the PC platform. I don't necessarily need to see how many people have looked at each photo (although that is kind of interesting) and the Gallery interface seems pretty ugly, I just like the idea. Hell, ideally people could find the same image in different galleries via keyword. Maybe this is too much to ask, I don't know.
In non-website-related news, I went to Amerivespa in Cleveland a couple weekends ago and that was fun. I took a long ride down Western Avenue (longest city street in the world) to 127th Street, then west and north on Harlem Avenue. Need to do more exploring of the south side and south suburbs.
Saw Richmond Fontaine in concert last week, they were absolutely fucking amazing, same as last time. Vanessa enjoyed the show so much she was moved to tears several times. Those guys are so humble, so kind and put on an amazing show. They sound even better live than mastered in the studio. So glad to see them back in town, I encourage you all to sign up for their e-mail updates and go see them if they're ever in your town.
Finished two good books, Streetwise and How to Talk Minnesotan. Almost through with City Lives, a brief but great photographic and interview portrait of the urban condition of NYC in the mid-70s. Still working on Joe's Book, it's damn good. Looking forward to starting Working by Studs Terkel soon after. Lots of interest in Sociology and urban stuff lately.
Posted by pj at June 15, 2005 10:30 PMFor the galleries you might want to look into slideshowpro: http://www.slideshowpro.net. I've been using for various things, excellent.
Flickr is great and if you wanted to use it on you site in your own template without the hassle you can: oberkampf - http://www.entrauge.com/tools/oberkampf/index.php
Also, Dreamhost is the roxors! They have a promo code (777) whcih gives you half off I believe. If that doesn't work, do a search, there's always some sort of promo going on. When a few of us got together and decided go in on one of the larger plans to save money, we did and a month later they tripled the space and bandwidth. They always do stuff like that. Good peeps.
Also, I offer up any MT tweaking or PHP slinging if you need it.
Posted by: Naz at June 17, 2005 08:28 AMI've used Photostack http://www.photostack.org/ but you might want something more sophisticated. I fully integrated it into my site: http://www.me-go.net/rtw/gallery/
Posted by: mEgan at June 17, 2005 08:58 PMDreamhost looks like a good deal, but if for some reason that doesn't work out for ya check out Lunarpages.com; I've been using them for over 3 years now, mostly for clients until, infact, I switched over to use it for my own personal website last year. They have top notch customer service and support, though if you're more focused on the bandwidth & server space then Dreamhost looks like the way to go.
Regarding the blog data, your webhosting service should be able to provide you a way to backup all of your SQL data free of charge, usually from an admin interface or a simple email request. I'm still pretty new to all this blogging stuff but I'm using WordPress and it literally took only 5 minutes to install & setup after downloading the files to my site and I'm 95% certain it can transfer blogger and MT blog data/content over to it pretty painlessly. But whether you're looking to switch to a new blog system or continue with your current one, your webhost should be able to provide you the means to backup your SQL data and you're going to have to do this beforehand anyway if you intend to switch hosting service providers.
(sorry if you know all of that already....SMILE)
As for reading lists, I would recommend the following books for you when you get a chance:
1) Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
2) Citizen Designer by Steven Heller
3) Life and Def by Russell Simmons (of Def Jam records)
And I will most certainly check out "How to talk Minnesotan" very soon as that should undoubtly shed some light on prior converstaions during my time living out there :-D
Posted by: Jamie at June 18, 2005 07:33 PMHi, I just stumbled onto your website and I really like it and your work. Lots of personality. Especially like the style of your business cards. Not sure what use my opinion is to you but I think it's always nice if someone likes what you're doing...!
Posted by: edwina at June 22, 2005 01:56 PM