Twenty years ago today, I started my first website.
And although none of my online ventures have “went viral” — not even close, actually! — writing for an Internet audience has offered pleasant distractions and learning experiences.
Best of all, it’s given me a proverbial voice. Even if no one reads every word, just knowing that they could has made me feel as if I’ve been heard.
Many thanks to you, dear reader, for listening. It has meant more than I can say. đ
Despite what I anticipated in my post back in May, the neloo.com layout is finished! As it turns out, the goal for it to “look very much like rusted-crush” was sufficient inspiration for the pieces to fall quickly into place. #HighFive
I’ve started to tinker with redoing Quotations 101. Continuing my theme of recycling, the new design will almost certainly resemble that of fannesite.com. But finalizing the design and applying it will take a while, since that is one of my larger websites.
Having completed the makeover for fannesite.com, the next phase of my âwebsite-unifying strategyâ is well underway.
Since part of the unification is to reduce multiple arrangements of similar content, the FS menu now incorporates the (still-active) features at the portal, formerly known as Quotations 102. The main portal page — echoing the FS table of contents as a placeholder — will be mostly âoff the grid,â as in, unlisted among primary links at my sites, in favor of streamlining navigation to a few key data sets.
The next layout update on my list is for the main page at neloo dot com. My starting point is for it to look very much like rusted-crush. Beyond that, I lack specific direction, so the design will probably not be finished this year.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to post at RainShine⌠and chase after other projects, as inspiration strikes. đ
In carpentry, they say to “measure twice, cut once.”
When I’m reworking a website’s content and layout, I “brainstorm for a week, decide one thing.”
Nevertheless! Last week I finished and posted my latest project: updating rusted-crush.com.
If youâre thinking, âHey, that looks like eclectic,â fret not! The similarity is by design, part of a strategy to give my website collection a more unified format.
Next up, neloo.com and fannesite.com will get âunifyingâ makeovers.
The primary objective for this streamlining effort is efficiency, for visitors in navigating between features and for me in maintenance. Building from a template will certainly save time in forthcoming layout designs.
Website work will resume in 2020(??). Until then, Iâll largely be occupied with the annual review plus real-life gotta-dos (chores, organizing) and wanna-dos (Christmas!).
Last weekend, I clicked over to make the usual check of my forums… and they weren’t there. As I recapped to a friend, “Apparently my host sent an email [in March] that they were changing, and I’d have to upgrade. I didn’t have time, then I guess I forgot, because they kept working…”
I could install a new message board, but I wonât. I am in the process of weighing my website endeavors against my current — and foreseeable — level of interest, minimal free time, etc. My assessment of the forums is that, with 99% of the posting done by me, their absence will simplify my life.
My small photo gallery, a.k.a. âvisualâ is gone as well, unlikely to return.
For the last few years, my primary reason for keeping the forums open has been to avoid a slew of broken links. Presently, I am making a pass at removing them, but, my apologies, with the links so widespread, some breakage is unavoidable. I am anxious to finish this final bit of clean-up and return to work on this year’s priority project: an overhaul of my signature site, www.rusted-crush.com.
Many thanks to those of you who supported the forums through its 15(!) years on-line. What I would’ve posted there, I will now share here, so feel free to follow this blog — and respond in the comments, whenever you are so inclined. đ
Back in late February, I outlined some points for a state-of-my-projects post:
Lingering health woes have let me
depleted of both energy and motivation
So, I’m setting the bar low for projects for this year
But I do need to do something
my unoccupied mind wanders nowhere good
and it doesn’t help that aimlessly scrolling through FB and twitter
Although I’m setting the bar very low, I’m daring to list a few plans for this year.
THE NEXT DAY, after a FEW MINUTES of concentrated thought, I had several GOOD STARTS toward an AMBITIOUS PROJECT that’s been on the backburner.
Through the years, I’ve often repeated that “the more I *have* to do, the more I get done.” As hinted at above, my claim proved true yet again. Both energy and motivation returned with a vengeance because last month, I wrote the following to a friend:
I don’t know about you guys, but if I expected a slow down to catch my breath after the “holiday rush,” wow, was I sadly mistaken. Mom’s sudden downtime derailed not only my schedule but my emotions as well. Also in January, one of my two doctor visits spurred two other trips to obtain my new glasses. Plus, my car came due for an oil change, and then I returned to the auto place one week later because it was past time for the transmission service. Doing [my sister’s] and my income taxes took longer than any year in recent memory because [our state] added a new form that I had to research/learn. Since early April, my regular grocery store is out of commission for two months due to remodeling, so I’m going out of my way to another in that chain (Aldi). And on and on…
Lately, when Iâm pouting over the burden of my never-ending plans, I remind myself that I could honestly skip quite a lot of those To Do’s⌠but then I admit that I *want* to do them. When I reframe from have to to want to I feel better. Iâm prioritizing, and after I get those priorities done, I have such a sense of accomplishment.
Following up on my website plans from the previous post (February of last year), I accomplished all of the numbered items… at least to some degree. đ In a week or two, I plan to watch the next episode of The Young Riders and type up my comments, but most of my website work for the near future will be focused on a certain layout redo.
For the Real-Life items, I continue to work on this:
* assessing my belongings, decluttering, and rearranging to optimize storage options
…and it seems like I do this every two months:
* restructuring my computer files to better outline upcoming projects
On some level, I must believe that if I can put my computer files in order, organizing my thoughts will surely follow. XD
Alas, between — frequently unexpected! — new undertakings and my so-called recurring To Do’s (described on the page below), my thoughts rarely remain “in order” for very long!
http://www.rusted-crush.com/eclectic/todo.html
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Another February, another so-called maintenance weekend!
Actually, since I accomplished the re-do of the eclectic website layout last year, I’ve already been doing a bit of “maintenance,” such as:
* assessing my real-life belongings, decluttering, and rearranging to optimize storage options
* restructuring my computer files to better outline upcoming projects
* going through the contents of my work computer, purging my personal items in anticipation of finding another job đ
As part of the aforementioned restructuring, I tried to realistically plan and prioritize my ever-growing list of to do’s, including defining my website goals for this year:
1) Add photos from missing years (2014 thru 2016) to the photolog.
http://www.neloo.com/chezanne/index.html
2) Write and then add information for the next episode (“Gunz ‘N Boyz”) to the MacGyver episode guide.
http://www.rusted-crush.com/macgyver/maceps.html
3) Continue to watch and then type my comments about season two of The Young Riders episodes. Although I generally keep these write-ups simple (a list of points instead of working my thoughts into whole paragraphs), I’m still not specifying a number of episodes to complete this year. I don’t need that kind of pressure. đ
http://www.neloo.com/fannesite/yr1s2.html
4) Do links checks at the fan websites. Usually I do this as part of changing the layout, but since each layout is now years in the making, with many links checks long overdue, my aim is to put a dent in that this year.
That may seem like a short list for a year’s worth of projects, but as I said, I’m being realistic. My free time is very limited, plus there are always other distractions, as I’ve described here:
http://www.rusted-crush.com/eclectic/todos.html
P.S. As of this year, my on-going maintenance has been made slightly easier, because I no longer run the “official” Jack Bristow fanlisting. In late 2016, while I was involved in finishing the eclectic redo, I neglected to update the JB fl, and TheFanlistings.org happened to check and found “inactivity.” I’m sure they emailed to warn me, but the address they have for me is one I no longer use (whoopsie!), and so I never got the message. Ah, well. :shrug: The last fan joined in July of 2012; for that reason, I did not reapply to be reinstated. Plus, while I have been glad for it to be the Jack Bristow fanlisting … for the last 15(!) years…Â it will *awesome* to not have to update that site every two months to keep some “signs of life.”
The website re-do that I mentioned way back in April is – finally – done!
I have accomplished much on the new eclectic layout, but applying it to the site will not be finished (or, um, started) by April 18, as I ambitiously planned. However, if I am correctly estimating the amount of work left to be done, I believe a more realistic goal is to finalize and post the layout by the end of this year.
Barring any sudden need/inspiration to redesign, the layout is 95% complete. Below is a sneak peek, with the banner I started with plus the final (?) result.
I recently took some time to evaluate my website project to do lists. And I realized that nearly every week I was putting effort into tasks such as logging into free accounts, posting to free photo galleries, and checking my fan website polls and recording the results âjust in caseâ that free service suddenly shut down. I was doing all of this to avoid having my account(s) cancelled for inactivity and/or to keep some signs of life at my websites, so visitors would know they havenât been abandoned.
However, it occurred to me that a large portion of my *very* limited free time was being spent on chores I now deem âmaintenance,â and this has been keeping me from the projects I enjoy, such as working on some of the new layout ideas Iâve been compiling for years.
So, in order to correct this and focus on higher priorities, I am relegating most maintenance-type activities to one day three times a year, with the current plan being the second Saturday in October, February, and June. Not every site/account will be updated at that time, and some updates will occur at other times, but with this “schedule,” visitors can have a general idea of when to check for new material at my websites.
Iâll reply here if my so-called maintenance plans change.
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