New site... very soon
Websites & Projects | at 02:38 AM
On saturday, I started to work again on a project I had put aside when working on my pet project. Let's call this project 'C' otherwise no one is going to understand what I'm talking about (but who's reading anyway ?) with all my different nameless projects.
I had first started to work on project 'C' a year ago I think, it feels much longer actually. Initially, I used it as a training exercise to see what I could do with PHP and MySQL, I was just learning, but then, if the exercise turned successful, I had planned to use it as a add-on for some of my sites. The exercice turned successful indeed, nothing really outstanding or original, but somehow I felt there was some potential in it and I could do better than my original plan.
So I kept the exercise under wrap and started to think of what I wanted to do with it, thus it became project 'C'. But nothing happened to project 'C' for a long time because even though I had a concept in mind, the details were lacking and at the time I did not have enough motivation and knowledge. I was not so confident in the original code either, so in the meanwhile I kept rewriting it and improving it as much as possible because it was the core of the whole project. I achieved a result that I'm really proud of - which is probably ridiculous compared to the huge amounf of time I spent on it and what any real programmer could achieve, but I like the fact it is a compact piece of code.
During summer, I had even less motivation to work on it, even though I consider this project as one of my best chances to make money ( which I really need currently, because next year I will be in big trouble, I might need to move, find another job, and I have nowehere to go, etc, etc. BIG TROUBLE), and then suddenly, last saturday, perhaps because I was tired of working with my pet project and needed some change, inspiration came and I started to work again on project 'C'. Slowly, but smoothly.
After a few hours, I had finished the bigger part of the main page design and for once I think I made a professional looking design. It's simple, almost minimalist, but unlike my other designs, this one looks more professional (which is not so surprising, when working on 1UP and Samurai Nintendo I had very little knowledge of web designs and no good graphics tools, basically I was making my sites with Paintbrush, an old version of Photoshop and no CSS). So this time I might finally have a design which will appeal to visitors, at least I hope so. There are still many things to incoporate and hopefully I'm not going to make the wrong choices. What I learnt from designing websites, from a graphical standpoint, is that a little fault in the design, a wrong color, a wrong font size, even just for one element of lesser importance, can spoil the whole thing and give a bad impression. Design is about unity and this is one very difficult thing to achieve. And perhaps the most important thing to remember is that when you are not entirely satisfied with something in your design, generally it means you should modify it, because what disturbs you when you make it will disturb visitors even more when they see it. Today for instance, I bothered changing a small part of my design and I'm so much happier with the change, no matter how long it took me to get it right.
Anyway, now it's 3am and I'm digressing as usual. The new site will launch very soon. I wish it could be this week, but I have some obligations and still many things to check and add so it probably won't be before next week or even next month depending how I feel about it. I'm really impatient to have it online though, I will finally have a site with some serious attention to the design. And of course, I hope the idea will attract people. It's nothing new per se, I'm using an old concept, but I present it in such a way that hopefully it will feel fresher, better and pleasant enough to draw the visitors I need so badly.
Today's retro game: Mario Paint (can I become a great artist like Mario ?)
Today's recent game: Charinko Hero (Charinko Power !! I'm tired...)
I had first started to work on project 'C' a year ago I think, it feels much longer actually. Initially, I used it as a training exercise to see what I could do with PHP and MySQL, I was just learning, but then, if the exercise turned successful, I had planned to use it as a add-on for some of my sites. The exercice turned successful indeed, nothing really outstanding or original, but somehow I felt there was some potential in it and I could do better than my original plan.
So I kept the exercise under wrap and started to think of what I wanted to do with it, thus it became project 'C'. But nothing happened to project 'C' for a long time because even though I had a concept in mind, the details were lacking and at the time I did not have enough motivation and knowledge. I was not so confident in the original code either, so in the meanwhile I kept rewriting it and improving it as much as possible because it was the core of the whole project. I achieved a result that I'm really proud of - which is probably ridiculous compared to the huge amounf of time I spent on it and what any real programmer could achieve, but I like the fact it is a compact piece of code.
During summer, I had even less motivation to work on it, even though I consider this project as one of my best chances to make money ( which I really need currently, because next year I will be in big trouble, I might need to move, find another job, and I have nowehere to go, etc, etc. BIG TROUBLE), and then suddenly, last saturday, perhaps because I was tired of working with my pet project and needed some change, inspiration came and I started to work again on project 'C'. Slowly, but smoothly.
After a few hours, I had finished the bigger part of the main page design and for once I think I made a professional looking design. It's simple, almost minimalist, but unlike my other designs, this one looks more professional (which is not so surprising, when working on 1UP and Samurai Nintendo I had very little knowledge of web designs and no good graphics tools, basically I was making my sites with Paintbrush, an old version of Photoshop and no CSS). So this time I might finally have a design which will appeal to visitors, at least I hope so. There are still many things to incoporate and hopefully I'm not going to make the wrong choices. What I learnt from designing websites, from a graphical standpoint, is that a little fault in the design, a wrong color, a wrong font size, even just for one element of lesser importance, can spoil the whole thing and give a bad impression. Design is about unity and this is one very difficult thing to achieve. And perhaps the most important thing to remember is that when you are not entirely satisfied with something in your design, generally it means you should modify it, because what disturbs you when you make it will disturb visitors even more when they see it. Today for instance, I bothered changing a small part of my design and I'm so much happier with the change, no matter how long it took me to get it right.
Anyway, now it's 3am and I'm digressing as usual. The new site will launch very soon. I wish it could be this week, but I have some obligations and still many things to check and add so it probably won't be before next week or even next month depending how I feel about it. I'm really impatient to have it online though, I will finally have a site with some serious attention to the design. And of course, I hope the idea will attract people. It's nothing new per se, I'm using an old concept, but I present it in such a way that hopefully it will feel fresher, better and pleasant enough to draw the visitors I need so badly.
Today's retro game: Mario Paint (can I become a great artist like Mario ?)
Today's recent game: Charinko Hero (Charinko Power !! I'm tired...)
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