6:06 PM:
I'm pretty happy with the Daily Kermix design, as simple as it is right now. I should take a poll on whether to replace this template with it.

Oh, and horizontal display of the UL element would be great if IE4 displayed it properly... (#)

3:43 AM:
And no, it's not done yet. >:P (#)

6:29 PM:
Come to think of it, why don't I make my personal journal look good? Oh, right. Because I hate delving into its proprietary system when it may not translate well, oh, anywhere else. That wouldn't have been an issue if LJ exported anywhere near decent. (#)

3:31 PM:

Initial notes on personal site

• Borrowed CSS before it was really understood. Not a good idea.
• Nonstandard location of navigation. Not a problem per se, but ties into the CSS issue above, and the redesign should reflect a change for the better.
• The customized color, tagline and icon are a neat idea, but could easily be arranged differently. Maybe a smaller font size as well.
• Too little information, too many pages?

What goes on the first page, aside from navigation?... (#)

1:40 AM:

My hero

Duh. PHP! Thanks a few mil, E. (#)

5:19 PM:

Tentative lesson plan.

Lesson One. Basic. Redesign of the oft-forgotten personal site. Nothing really fancy, but taking the time to make it look good in a few different browsers.

Lesson Two. Intermediate. New site, possibly based on one of my old site ideas. New Detective, or perhaps a Robots Are Supreme site...? A little more attention to detail, and a little mixing of technologies to get the desired result: Flash, javascript, whatever else I might be able to figure out.

Lesson Three. Advanced. The big one. The Story Web. You know, that thing I've been going on about all day? Slick design. Original content (not necessarily my original content). Experimental navigation. Possibly a database connection to keep the story web straight. (DB and connection will probably require a different web host.) (#)

12:06 PM:

First lesson learned:

Backups of templates? Oh, so good. Trying to document.write is more pain than I'm ready for, because it means using backward apostrophes (`) in all my sidebar text. Maybe when I have a server with some manner of database connectivity I can take the extra step. But for now, forget it. (#)

1:31 AM:

There goes her hero

Ms. A has proclaimed me her ShorDurPerSav (more or less, she would if she'd thought of it in a SubGenius light) for helping her deal with some networking issue on her broadband. In return, she pointed me at L.A. Blogs and, after looking at my progress on the frames version, said "they could use this".

I'd say flattery will get you nowhere, but hell, I already got her network routing.

Further thought and conversation on the site I've been pondering how to make: consider, as another example, a play which has been written to take place entirely within the confines of an actual house. This has been done. The "audience" can go wherever they please, and in any given room, parts of the story are taking place between the actors. They can opt to wander aimlessly throughout this house if they desire, or they can follow a specific character's storyline by literally following them around, or they can simply watch all the events that are transpiring in one single room for the entirety of the presentation. Similar to the Smart Patrol, but without the allusion of interactivity with the setting.

Now, assuming that I had a story to tell, I could present the viewers of this website with two options. They could view the entire site freely, starting in one time and place, and wander about through space or time, or both, forwards or backwards, to get the whole story as they please. The other option is to do what I described earlier: start at the beginning of the timeline, in a specified place, and either move somewhere or stay put... but time would move forward, whether they moved or not, until they reached the end of the story. Less flexible, but with more "replay value".

I would be inclined to offer both options, and a decent interface for navigating the X, Y, and Z of the story. It's probably the most intriguing idea I've had for an "artsy" site yet. I wonder if E has any stories of such a magnitude to tell. (#)

9:41 PM:
An experimental jackassed template. Also known as a "quick" solution. I know I can do better; just give it time, okay? (#)

8:20 PM:
I wonder how much pain it would take to add a third column to this layout, containing another mini-blog. Probably a lot, for me. But I bet I would learn something.

I guess one fairly easy way would be to just shove both into a frameset, but I'm pretty sure there's a javascript way to "write" it into the page.

I suppose the nature of the template would dictate which method I use. (#)

6:00 PM:
Presenting my ideas to RevXaos prompted him to hit me with The Visual Thesaurus: Nifty power-intensive toy.
Thought continuing to form. Adventures of the Smart Patrol, DEVO and Inscape's foray into "interactive" fiction, contained a series of locations and times, weaved together into a clunky matrix of XY and Z, where you could only view and participate in the events in one place for each time, and the majority of the "game" was figuring out where the right place for each time was. Not following that path, though, allowed you to get a bigger picture by playing through the story several times and visiting different locations each time to see what you missed.
Like many games, an inventive concept... poorly executed.
With this in mind, one way to add Z would be to add it to the interface, but not the navigation. In other words, when you have the option to move, you move in space... but you also involuntarily move in time. I could liken it to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but without the witty banter. (#)

4:29 PM:
Idea forming. Not sure how to implement it yet, because I just had the idea just now.
I'd like to experiment with a site that combines the traditional hierarchial web site with the chronological form of the web journal, but without falling into the standard "top and side nav" trap that journals lock their navigation into. In other words, it isn't a "blog", and it isn't necessarily a traditional hierarchy.
I imagine it's been tried before, with the annoying side effect of becoming a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Anything that is difficult to graph on an X-Y plane becomes more difficult to organize into a web site.
My first thought was to somehow add Z, which would represent time. I'll have to mull it over some more. (#)

2:49 PM:
I have a regular day off, which (oddly enough) I didn't expect, so I'm idling and working on the background collage.
I always wanted to find a definitive technique for "looping" a background; that is, to make a background that wraps around properly. I think I'll sit on this background for a while or until someone says it's horrible. (#)

2:19 AM:
*ahem*
Hello, world.
I am Jack's pre-fab template.
Time to set up an itinerary for re-learning all of this stuff. It looks like Step One will be to refamiliarize myself with not only HTML basics (a quickie), but the workings (and non-workings) of styles, and perhaps a very short foray into relevant javascript.
Step Two will be re-immersing myself in the research of others, particularly E's. As I start posting the lessons learned, this page may morph occasionally. Welcome to the DMZ, baby.
I'm not sure what Step Three is at the moment, but considering how long Step Two could be, I'm pretty sure that Step Three involves "phat cash". (#)

12:53 AM:
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