December 1999
+ Thursday - December 30, 1999
Everything that's old is new again.
+ Wednesday - December 29, 1999
eToys has said they won't press their suit againt etoy.com. This does not mean that the suit has been dropped however. Either way, it's a step in the right direction.
The most interresting quote from Mr. Cutler, Public Relations Manager at eToys: "Our intent was never to silence free artistic expression". Perhaps not, but you sure did a damn good job of it! (greedy bastards)
Artistica has released issue #4 for Dec/Jan, which among other things includes some experiments by this month's cover designer, Mike Young of Design Graphik.
+ Tuesday - December 28, 1999
The hardest part to doing web design has got to be looking at the same design you've done, day in, day out. I'm pretty bored of vitaflo thus far, and am ready for something new, even though v6 has only been out for two whole weeks. Which got me thinking...
I've got a few things in mind for what I should do with this site. That means cutting back in a few areas, and adding a few others. Making it more focused, and less "one size fits all". Whether or not that will actually happen is another thing, but one must push themselves to get where they want to be (or think they want to be) sometimes. Design on.
+ Monday - December 27, 1999
James over at Three.Oh is one sneaky guy. Vitaflo has similar stealth ninja abilities that you probably are unaware of. See if you can figure out what I'm talking about. All I can say is that I have a new desktop image because I'm a snoop.
Normally, I'm against most things Microsoft for obvious reasons. The one exception is IE 5, which I find incredibly useful. For Christmas I found out another reason: The IntelliMouse Explorer. This thing is a designers dream. Four programmable buttons, a wheel, and no mouse ball. It has an optical "eye" that senses movement and let me tell you it is very accurate. I even can use it on my pants leg and it works like magic. It even lights up and looks cool to boot. Highly recommended.
+ Saturday - December 25, 1999
Merry Christmas!
+ Thursday - December 23, 1999
Module8, Reanimated. Be sure to check out "Kubism". Mucho sweetness.
Sometime between Christmas and New Years, look for the documented source for the Magic Ghetto 8-Ball. A lot of people have been asking for it, so I decided to put it up a little earlier than I was going to. I'll probably also include a document as to the thought process behind making it all work, rather than just source comments. I've done a few similar projects off of the general idea used in the 8-Ball (some can be found on this site if you look hard enough), so I'll be anxious to see what other people come up with.
+ Tuesday - December 21, 1999
Well, well, well, looks like Mr. Schroeder has been working on a new cover page over at DFORM1. Normally, this isn't a big deal, but this one introduces his new logo to the fray.
It's been a while since I've been to Sountain, so I was pleasently surprised when I found the latest project over there called "Woodenmen". Makes me wanna whip out my copy of Drunken Master II!
Seems to me like everyone is redesigning now days (I can't wait until after New Years, when most people say they're going to "relaunch"), Holodeck73 just confirms this fact. They even redesigned the URL!
+ Monday - December 20, 1999
Mmmm, potatoland. Who says you need funky graphics to rip it up on the web? This is one of the coolest d/html experiences I've had since jodi.
Oh yeah, Computer Arts Magazine is going to be published in America. Aparently it's going to do a "one-shot" issue to see if it'll take off. I hope it does, then I won't have to shell out $15 to buy an imported issue from the UK every month.
+ Sunday - December 19, 1999
Hmmm...every once and a while, I like to not only look at people's websites, but their source code as well. Perhaps that's because my background stems from CompSci more than design, but recently as I've been looking around, I've noticed something. People aren't writing their own code anymore.
Now I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but more and more it seems people are opening up [insert WYSIWYG editor here] and plugging away. Call me old fashioned, but that's something I could never do. Opening up a text editor and "programming to the metal" is the only way for me to go. Then again, about 50% of vitaflo is generated with an RCM, so who am I kidding?
After receiving a few HREF submissions, I'm thinking of splitting up the HREF section into two distict areas: "vita links" and "user links". This way, people can get to know the sites of those that are reading this one, while at the same time visitng sites that this website recommends. I won't be adding this new section until I get a few more good submissions, so if you have any sites to pass on, please do so.
+ Saturday - December 18, 1999
Pixeljunkie has redesigned, and I'm really liking the direction it's going. It's something fresh and new for the holidays. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
There's a great article over at A List Apart about designing with a written contract. This an especially good read for any of you doing freelance work, as it can really save your ass in the long run.
I've been preaching for a while (at least to the people around me) that .com addresses have lost their meaning. It seems that Wired agrees with me. This is the reason I say, if a website wants to succeed right now, they should get .net, as dumb as that sounds. However, what we really need is a reorganization of top level domain names. That way I can get vitaflo.art. How sweet would that be?
+ Friday - December 17, 1999
Vitaflo v6 has finally launched, and ahead of schedule. Think of it as an early Christmas present. Of course, now the cover will be up for a month and a half since it's January's cover, but why not, I'm in the giving mood. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out. Are you?
With that said, the site is still a bit lite on content. Expect that to change in the coming weeks and months as I add more Projects, Docs, and new sections to the site.
I see that Netscape has redesigned their front page. There's something to be said about websites with 500 unrelated links on one page, and that something is "unusability".
Uploading keeps redesigning. Is co-op design not working, or do they have something big in the works? Hmmm...I can tell you one thing, they could fill a museum with all the "coming soon" splashes they've put up. Not that that's a bad thing.
+ Thursday - December 16, 1999
Rather surprisingly I got an article posted to Slashdot about the eToys vs etoy debate.
Now NSI has stepped into the fold and taken away etoy.com's email as well. This just keeps getting worse and worse.
What you can do: Email eToys, email NSI, and most importantly, email those you know telling them about this and that you disaprove. Please be constructive in your criticism. Nothing kills a protest like "you suck!" messages. Also there has been talk of starting "electronic warfare" on eToys. Please do NOT participate in such activities. Besides being illegal, you open up the doors to this potentially backfiring on etoy.com during trial, which is who we (or at least I'm) trying to protect in all of this.
In lighter news, it seems that Adobe is finally going to start supporting Linux. No word on when (of if) Photoshop will be ported over, but my guess is that if the inital programs take off, the big apps like Photoshop and Illustrator will be soon to follow. My fingers are crossed.
+ Wednesday - December 15, 1999
I was reminded of an interesting website today when I did a search on Google for "vitaflo". About 2 years after I started vitaflo I did a similar search and found out about "Vitaflo Dual Purpose by Gustafson".
Now, lets think about this for a minute. I hack together the name "vitaflo" from some things from my past, start a website w/ the same name, and then 2 years later find out there's some company with the same name as my last name selling fungicide with the same name as this website. Eerie to say the least.
Last night I stayed up until 2am working on CERN, my latest project. Now it's finished. I must say, it is totally a 180 from where I was going with it. I was so dead tired last night that I just mindlessly was adding all sorts of crazy stuff, and plopping on effect after effect. The result is a mixed bag. One minute I like it, the next I hate it. Perhaps in that sense it's sort of like the web, which was invented at CERN and which this project was about.
As for v6 progress, well, I'm pretty much complete with the inital site (at least with the way it'll be for launch). It's so nice to have something done ahead of when you wanted it done for a change. Now I have time to relax and take in the holidays without too much fuss. Ahhh...
+ Sunday - December 12, 1999
"Hyperbola", which is basically my first tinkering with Flash (I know, I've been stuck on Javascript too long) is starting to come along. Flash isn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The problem now stems from coming up with ideas. However, I think I have a good start.
A few Plan posts ago I was complaining about my Javascript navigation and how it didn't function the way I wanted it to. Well, while at work one day I suddenly came up with a solution, and it worked. Now, regardless of where you are in the site, the navigation should be correct. "Intelligent Navigation" is back.
version 6 progress:
*Nav JS improved.
*Project RCM done.
*Backend now offers previews.
*Index layout done.
+ Tuesday - December 7, 1999
Late last night I got the relaunch cover design, done by Mike Young. Since it was done mostly in yellows, I had to then go ahead and change the color scheme. Because of the way I implimented the site, it took me about 20 minutes to change the entire sites scheme. Overall I'm happy, especially now that I know what this thing will actually look like when it's all said and done.
Screwed around doing another cover design for the current site announcing its arival. A lot of people have told me that the image on the cover is fantastic, but don't be fooled. Those who have KPT 5 know its just the FraxFlame filter. Sometimes a designers "secrets" are actually just smoke and mirrors.
Well, vitaflo has taken the plunge and finally been trademarked (™). I mainly did this because of the recent happening between etoy and etoys, and because two other companies exist with the name vitaflo in Sweden and England. Luckly, I was able to grab trademark rights first.
version 6 progress:
*cover page done.
*new color scheme implimented.
*vitaflo name trademarked.
*new project started "hyperbola".
+ Friday - December 3, 1999
Yet another example of the little guy being hurt (in this case killed off) by Mr. Big-Rich-Online-Bully. In this case, eToys.com has decided to take etoy.com to court and got them to take down their website or face a fine of $10,000 per day. Normally this is a clash of business to business, but in this instance, etoy.com is simply an experimental design site, and eToys thought that they "dimished their brand" since the names were similar, even though etoy.com was around over 2 years before eToys.com. I've already sent my email of disgust to Jonathan Cutler, Public Relations Manager at eToys.
I've went ahead and made one of those nifty IE 5 icons that will appear next to your URL if you bookmark it. Try it out and let me know what you think. For those who want to find out more, and make one for their own site, Favicon has great info, along with a snazzy Java applet that will make one for you.
version 6 progress:
*starting new project, "CERN".
*favicon.ico file created.
*perl pre bug tag workaround made.
+ Thursday - December 2, 1999
I had a real problem today with setting up the subscription scripts. Now, the actual subscribing part was easy, but then I wanted to write a script that would send out all the emails through a form on the web. Well that ended up not working, because if any of the emails bounced, I wouldn't get them, the server admin would.
So I spent the last 4 hours figuring out a workaround.
Turns out that because Sendmail doesn't know who's sending email if you use it through the web, it will just send it back to root. So in order to fix it I had to make my Perl script into an actual application, and run it from the command line. Not as simple, but it gets the job done.
version 6 progress:
*href page and scripts completed.
*covers template almost done.
*subscription scripts done.
*alias via telnet needs fixing.