I updated the site last night!
I spent the last few days creating a retro page. This page is designed very much in the style of late 1990's and early 2000's geocities. Adorned with a plethora of animated gifs and flashing graphics, It took a while to find stuff, but I got there in the end. Check it out if you're feeling brave enough.

The site is very unmobile-friendly. I think some PC resolutions will also struggle with it, but at least it's authentic!

I used Micosoft FrontPage 98 on Windows XP to create the page, which was a lot of fun. I then cut and pasted the code into Neocities to do some further editing in HTML5. It was surprisingly less painful than I thought it was going to be.

In other news, I haven't started learning Javascript; that's on the list; I just need to find the time.

Date: Mar 5, 2024

So I have undertaken some little behind the scenes fine-tuning. Changed some images that appeared a little low resolution with some higher resolution ones. I also changed the font sizes to make things a little easier on the eyes.
I have also tested the site on different platforms and browsers. It appears to work fairly nicely on both mobile and at 4K. I am probably not carrying out the most scientific testing but from cursory checks, it seems to work well.
I also updated the background a little to try and make it more interesting without being too distracting.

To update the site, I have decided to have a copy on the computer first and then copy and paste the code into the Neocities website. It's a bit of an inefficient process, but so be it.

This week, I am going to start learning some JavaScript. It feels a little daunting, but I felt the same way about HTML. Learning HTML went fairly smoothly, so it will be interesting if JavaScript goes the same way. Time will tell. Don't expect to see anything implemented on the website for a little while yet, though.

Date: Feb 26, 2024

Site is LIVE!! ...Kind of...Dealing with the site offline and online is a bit of a headache...

Will investigate more and update the blog later with my findings.

Date: Feb 22, 2024

So I have completed almost all the pages and I think the website will soon be ready to deploy to the neocities website. There's still little things that I want to clean up before that point, but it is well on its way.

I seem to have run into a problem with my clips page. I am unable to embed my twitch clips into the website. YouTube works, but Twitch doesn't seem to want to connect to the server.

I am particularly pleased with how the 'Friends' section has turned out. I have also written a couple of reviews for two of my favourite games in the 'Games' section. Writing those and collecting the screenshots was a lot of fun, especially as they are my two favourite games. I need to decide which game to do next.

I wonder if I am being too personal in my writing though, even the website as a whole. Does it matter? Is anyone actually going to read any of it!?

I will update again in a couple of days.

Date: Feb 20, 2024

Just a quick update on the progress I have made on the website.

I decided that I would try and work on each of the sub-pages(?) of the site per day. Concentrate on one before moving on to the next. I have the blog page working how I wanted envisaged it. It would be nice to have some kind of spell checker within the Brackets software that I am using. I am not sure if that is possible?

It would also be nice if there was some kind of way to stream-line the process of updating the blog instead of copying and pasting the last blog update, deleting the contents and writing directly to the page then formatting it how I want it. Something where I could write in a word document and then automatically have it added to the blog somehow...
Maybe there is and I just haven't found it yet. This will be yet another quetion for Shaw. The poor guy must be getting fed up of all my questions!

Last night, I managed to get the photos page how I liked it. Two columns of thumbnails with a little description below them, which can then be clicked and the photos can be seen in full screen.
To keep the picture sizes small though, I have limited them to 720p .jpg. The only other problem I can see is what exactly am I going to put in there and is it of any value to anyone other than myself, seeing if I can do it. Who knows.. maybe it will evolve into something else.

My next task is to decide what to do with the 'Games' page. I was thinking maybe turn it into a page of mini reviews and news with some game shots sprinkled in between?

Regardless of how the site turns out, I am finding the process quite cathartic. I will have sudden flashes of inspiration or work out something that I didn't think I was capable of doing which feels like a great achievement. For example, and I am probably slow on the uptake... I worked out you could have a class and then specify the text (p) or image (img) in the CSS and it would just adjust that element of the class. I was probably told this or read it but it didn't sink in.So for each page element class, I have started to partly name it after the page it is on so they are easy to manipulate as I build the website.

Anyway, it's all going well and I am enjoying creating the site. It's actually pretty fun and scratches a creative itch.

I wonder what this blog will become after I have completed the site and will I abandon it or just update it with my random thoughts of the day; to be scattered into the ether. Time will tell.

Date: Feb 17,2024

So, I think things are progressing along nicely on the website.

I have the front page pretty much finished and the overall design of the site set up and where I want it. I am sure things will switch up going forward, but I am fairly happy with the overall design of the site so far.

I mostly need to populate the site with content and ensure it is something worth visiting. This is of course open to debate! I can't help but feel the code in both the HTML and the CSS is somewhat messy and that I haven't really got to grips with how to properly use the headings. I suspect this is probably something that will come in time and more I build the site.

Oh, I also saw another site had embedded their twitch live stream into their front page. That's a neat idea! Not sure I will implement that on this site as I would rather people watch on twitch and interact with me in chat. Food for thought though.

Onwards and upwards!

Date: Feb 14, 2024

"A friend in need is a friend indeed.."

Well it didn't take long to realise that this is a bit more complicated than using word and Microsoft paint!!!

As Neocities suggested, I decided to build the site from scratch and not use a template. I think this is the right way to go, so to learn HTML5 and CSS properly. I have been using the inspect tool in my browser to look at other sites to see how they work but there's only so far I can go without someone far more talented than myself to help explain things to me..

There was one person I knew that could help me and that was my friend Shaw from the amazing twitch channel 'ItsAMeShaw'.

With his help I was able to progress the site further and got a much better understanding of headings, div & span and CSS... all the basic stuff. The learning documentation has been useful but there's nothing quite being able to ask questions and have someone talk you through how things work. His advice was incredibly useful and the website has taken another step towards my initial vision. Thanks Shaw!!

Note to self: always remember to use ';' at the end of a line in CSS!!!!

Date: Feb 11, 2024

"Great things have small beginnings.."

Today, I decided it would be fun to start a website. Having never created one before, I have probably bitten off more than I can chew...

As with most things in 2024, it started off with a google search which is where I discovered neocities. Geocities I suppose, being its ancient ancestor from the 90's. This instantly sparked memories of a web long ago lost and I was sold and where I was going to start my journey.

I don't know where this will lead or how far I can go with updating it once the framework is all in place. It should hopefully lead to a fun little project that can tie in with my other online presences. It's also something that I can come back to at regular intervals or look back on in the future and say "I made that".

Date: Feb 09, 2024