The Site Idea

I first wanted to make an application that would track who clicks links in my AIM profile. That idea basically got me back into web development in late 2005. Since then, I have taught myself CSS and PHP and x-pose.org is the spot where I can try new things out and have a bit of fun.

Site Versions

There have been three different site versions. The first was launched October or November of 95. Clearly, very shitty, it was the first time I did any type of html since CSS even caught on. The picture that I grabbed of it isn't the very first layout, but it is close enough.

The second version of the site aptly named version 2.0 was out of neccesity. After I created the blogger and AimStats reached 2.0, I needed a spot to put some of the stats that go along with them. I redesigned the banner picture, increased the width to 800px, and revamped the navigation bar. Later on I decided to add the real time shoutbox because ajax is fun stuff. This was probably the first real layout I made and thought to myself, if I actually put some time into it, I could make something decent. So then zeb brought up the idea to finally utilize CSS positioning and make a real website.

Along came version 3.0 that I am just releasing near the end of June 06. I wanted something that would not waste as much space, elegant, clean, and easy to read. The site would be made scaleable for easy additions or subtractions for the future. Something I completely didn't anticipate needing for previous version of the site. Now I wonder how I ever lived without it. Another goal is to use the least amount of graphics possible to create a professional looking page. Even though just about everyone has broadband, it doesn't mean you need loads of art to make a great looking site. If you have noticed, there are only two jpgs on the entire site, unless you count the background which makes 3 :) The basic layout took about 2 days of brainstorming and tinkering to make, while at the same time trying to get accustomed to CSS positioning. As it turns out, I really do love CSS as opposed to tables for layout purposes. I was scared at first, I will admit :) The other parts of the site like navigation bar, right bar, etc took a few more days of work. The rest of the time was spent doing somewhat "busy work" converting the old page to look nice on the new page. As of writing this, I am not quite done with tweaking the layout and will probably be a work in progress throughout the summer. Sometime in the future, expect to see a theme changer for the site. I've been looking for a reason to use cookies for some time now. hehe :)

06/04/07 I have had a little more than a year experience with CSS and photoshop largely due to CelebrityPWN. Last year’s page had some problems with it, especially with IE6 users. So I have decided it was time for yet another redesign of x-pose.org . The design I am going for this time is plain yet unique. Some things I am experimenting with is the absence of a border around the main content, a fixed subtle background of a beach to add effect, dark background with light text, and rounded corners on the right side. I wanted something that would pop out at you because it doesn’t look like any other page. So what about next year? Well, if I don’t redesign x-pose.org next summer that just means I have a job and don’t have time. Lol :)

PHP Projects

The Beach Tracker. I never even intended to use any type of calendar at first. The original idea was to just grab the current weather forecast and mention if its a good beach day or not. I never intended to actually store the data and tally it up. Then I stumbled upon a calendar script and loved it. I did not code the functionality of the calendar. This is normally supposed to be used as a planner, or a tool to go with a blogger. But why the heck do people need to know what day it is to read blog posts? Anyway. What I did code was the ability to automatically insert data into it once a day. The code I created analyzes the weather conditions and decides what type of beach day it is. This sounds easy, but it turned out to be a minor pain in the ass. The author of the script uses Julian Dates to keep track of the day. Never heard of it before? Yeah, me neither until I tried to write this addon for the script. I also coded the other various beach stats to work alongside the calendar. During the second year of the beach tracker I made some tweaks and added a beach widget that people can add to their own page/myspace.

AimStats. This is the first project that I did to learn php. Its the type of project you make as a new programmer and then look at it 3 months later and realize its terrible. So then I would have to go back and change just about everything. lol. Most of the time spent on it was developing the backend with the admin login and various other admin options. This is basically a dead project now because of the new AIM 6.0.

Tracking Spam. I noticed that my blog was getting more and more spam. Then it hit me, spam can be fun! I decided to track all spam attempts and plot them out using the google maps API. I have ALWAYS wanted a reason to use that thing. Then I figured just a google map wasn't enough, so I created the graph to show how many spams I get in a day. Kinda neat, but kinda scary how much spam I get for such a little site.