When I started this site in late 2006, I focussed on content. It matters little what a site looks like if the site is empty. There is little sense in drumming up attention for an near-empty site. I did not list the site in Google, but I told just a few people to slowly spread the news. The site was not secret, it just wasn’t in the search engines.
After more than a year, there was quite some content. and This year, I decided the transform the existing mess into a proper site, complete with about page, contact page, and so on - even a text about the makeover.
The look and the extras are not the only difference. To me, the major difference is that all articles are now based on a template, so that site-wide changes can be made for all pages at once.
I also decided to finally list the site in search engines, but before I did so, I had to deal to with a problem I had been postponing all along; the Internet Explorer problem. New visitors were emailing me to complain about it.
I decided to go standards-based from the start. That does not just fit my admittedly incredibly shocking idea that a web site should conform to web standards, so that readers can use any web browser they like. It also meant standards only; standards, and nothing but standards. That is a problem for visitors that still use Internet Explorer instead of a web browser.
Some five years ago, I made a web site That’s not just standards-based, but also full of tricks to make sure that what works in real browsers, works in Internet Explorer too. The problem is the exorbitant amount of time spent on fiddling with the design just because Internet Explorer does not know how to render a web site. Making a web site work in Internet Explorer is an incredible drain on your time. I just did not want to deal with any of Internet Explorer’s shortcomings anymore.
Although this is a fairly simple site, nothing too fancy, Internet Explorer still cannot handle it. The site works in any web browser, and even Internet Explorer can kind-of handle it, if you are using version 7 or later on Windows XP. It won’t look as good as in a real browser, for example, Internet Explorer does not display quotation marks as it should, it is a suboptimal experience, but it will work. The bigger problem is Internet Explorer 6 and earlier.
My earliest visitors were using web browsers already, but as the group expanded, I got some emails from Internet Explorer users complaining that "the site does not work" or other words to that effect. isn’t funny how Internet Explorer users often to assume your site is the problem, and hardly ever consider that Internet Explorer might the problem?
Those "your site does not work" emails are kind of funny, especially when you can answer the PR guy for a big company that he just revealed that their company is still using Internet Explorer 6 or older, and thus exposed a serious security risk. However, having to deal with a continual stream of such messages is not funny at all.
Somehow, the site needs to automatically inform Internet Explorer users that they should use a web browser to visit a web site. The site should do that without bothering visitors that are using a web browser already, and without including any Internet Explorer-specific stuff in the site proper.
The site does does not include any browser-specific stuff, so I certainly do not want to include any Internet Explorer-specific stuff.
The solution is the Internet Explorer Mini Site.
This site is constructed such that browsers will shows the main home page, while Internet Explorer will show the Internet Explorer Mini Site. It is a small site that uses older standards and very simple layout, so that even Internet Explorer 5 and 6 can handle it.
It informs the visitor that they need to use a web browser to visit the web proper, that Internet Explorer does not qualify as such because it does not support web standards, and then provides several upgrades options. It even explains how the Internet Explorer-detection works, and how you can avoid landing on the mini site if you want to keep visiting the site using Internet Explorer.
The site did not have a name yet. It just said "Tamura Jones". A personal domain name is a great domain name, but a lousy title. A self-titled site is uninspired to say the least.
Coming up with possibly names is easy, coming up with a good one is hard. Some of the names I considered are, in no particular order, Bit Bucket, Meandering Meme, The Pilgrim’s Digress, flabbergasterisk, Extensible Language, Ring Zero, Recycled Overflow Bits, Below Sea Level, Little Endian, Software Reflections, World-Wide Writing, Octal Forty, Trigressions and Zigamorph. Trigressions is a word play on digressions. Flabbergasterisk and zigamorph are uncommon but existing words, and if I mention flabbergasterisk, I should probably mention stupendapoint. If you fancy any of those names, feel free to take it before someone else does.
I settled on the somewhat boring Modern Software Experience, because it is both sufficiently vague to allow a wide range of subjects and sufficiently specific to give some idea what this site is about.
There now is a menu that works not unlike the tagging system of a blog. If this actually were a blog, I’d probably be using many more tags. As this is done manually, I try to make do with a small set of main subjects.
Because all was done manually, so there are sure to be some omissions and errors. I still need to convert some articles to the template, and I hope to use a few more "tags" soon to improve the navigation.
It would be convenient to use a blogging tool, and I did spend time looking around for one. For now, let’s just say that a blogging tool that creates a static site compliant with modern web standards seems to be a rare beast.
The front page list the most recent stuff, and additionally highlights some interesting or popular articles.
Another thing that had been lacking was a graphic to go with the awards. I’ve now created graphic designs for the Random Awards and the GeneAwards. I additionally created another one, and this time, the graphic design has been done in time for the awards.
The site uses some jargon, and not all if it is general hard or software jargon. I’ve added a page with Jones Jargon to help you make sense of it. Links to the various helpful pages can now be found along the bottom of each page.
There are many pages with information about the site now, including an About page, a Copyright page, a FAQ page and a Link Buttons page.
There are little layout things, such as pull-quotes that actually look like pull-quotes, and a score board that actually looks like score board.
Links now have icons that shows whether they are internal or external links, as well as icons that alert to Adobe PDF files and ZIP archives.
No promises. I am thinking about ways to really take advantage of XHTML, and I would like to switch to a blogging tool that is geared towards creating fully standard-complaint static pages. That would make it easier to use more tags.
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