June 2004 Archives

ok….now that we are up, it is time to let people know that we are out there. does that mean that we need to let all the blog sites know? no, but i will steadily let the communities i am involved with know about the site, so that some proper conversations can pursue. whether the topic is music, software, hardware, hacks, or whatever, it is certainly welcome.

to begin, there are 3 authors. will this number increase? only a simple maybe will have to suffice for now. this is testing grounds to be honest with you. the authors are toilet johnnies, sal magicpants, and of course myself…icedtrip. both of the above are from my kdx server. they are the 2 admins. anyone is welcome to drop by anytime, but instead of dropping the address and port on the page, i will suggest using “joshuamac.homeip.net” tracker to find me under the macintosh heading.

lastly, before i hit the sack, the column to the left will be used. i am aware of the title with nothing underneath, but it will eventually serve a purpose. ok….i’m out.

ok, work can sometimes get to you. i am ready to go home, but can’t, so i decided to take to writing on the blog that has been so severely neglected. not that it really matters, as no one looks at the site anyway, but nonetheless, i write.

i had been browsing through a few sites the other day and realized that tasteful design has gone away. whether this is through the fact of no actual talent, or simply that most people do not have taste for what they are creating. regardless, something needs to happen. some of the sites i visited included the cult of the dead cow, mac underground, and the new dive site that has been set up by shoe (where dawn’s dive went? i don’t know).

now, one thing that i have come to love in website development is simplistic design. there is no need to have 100 bright colors on a single page, nor is there any reason to have a page that is so busy it takes the reader’s mind off the main topic of the site. now i will give it to cdc and will not pick on them too much as their abilities could make me suffer from what i say, but their site needs a minor face lift. their site is set up as many sites are today (such as this one), in a blog format, but the site itself is simply too busy for words. i do understand that they have been around since ‘84 (recently having celebrated their 20th anniversary at defcon) and that they have just a multitude of t-files and loads of information that has been gathered over the last 20 years, but the site needs help in the area of organization and contrasting colors. sure they have a menu in the top left for navigation, but after visiting their first page, it took me too long to figure out how to navigate. now, shoe’s new site (the gran dive) is one that i like. simple and informative with good design principles. the site is in its infancy, and will develop even more over the next few months, but shoe knows his design.

now i am not saying that i am the design king, as i have far to go, but one thing that i do know is that if a site is kept simple and well organized, without much flash (not flash vs. html, but pizzazz), then it will catch my attention. having said that, i do not like looking at a site that is so simplistic that a 10 year old could have designed it with a set of crayons, but simple does not mean bland. good color contrasts, good use of ‘white’ space, moderate use of page real estate. many of these concepts could be followed to make a pleasant looking website.

to be continued at a later time…gotta go…