Let’s See What’s Out There
It seems lately all I have been doing is spending the majority of my time with this log and its server working on the underlining code, but none of it is due to errors on my part. It is just because I wanted to, and that is a good a reason as any. However, there is more to it than that this time, and as ever I’ll elaborate as I do have a bit to tell.
I work in what many would refer to as a shithole or a dunghill; even if one term is concave and the other convex they both describe my working environment successfully. Because of personal reasons I’m having to live somewhere which is neither the center of the universe nor is it a bustling center of commerce with ample opportunities for gainful employment. My choices of employment here won’t and cannot reflect the level of education and skill I possess.
For just little over eight years I have worked as a “graphic artist” for a local screen printer. The work I am forced to produce is demeaning and insulting to me, and the timeframe for completion of any given job is near-instantaneous — usually within a 12-24 hour period. I’m usually having to work many hours to get all of the work done, and in doing so I have very little time to devote to myself and my health. I cannot say I haven’t learned anything from my experiences where I work. I’ve certainly learned how not to handle a business as there’s little to no real organization, but I’ve also learned things that are applicable to my profession even if I’m incapable of applying them at my place of work at present. There’s not much I can do about the situation I’m in, and my employer knows it. Hopefully with the advent of the internet — and specifically the World Wide Web — I’ll actually be able to do something about it.
I’ve tried for the better part of a year to acquire gainful employment working remotely, and given most people’s attitudes toward it and the current economic climate it doesn’t appear as if it will be possible. I only came close once to employment at somewhere I badly wanted a job at, and the rest mostly resulted in insults toward my character from potential employers. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise as I’ve never been a person to take insults lightly. The only option left to my mind is to provide a portfolio, and offer myself and my skills to the public for freelance work. I’ve done just that.
The Portfolio
I mulled around many different ideas, including just attaching a portfolio to this website and none would have worked. My solution ended up being a complicated one, but it would work out for the best in the end. My solution was to move this log to a subdomain and place my portfolio at the domain’s root at http://dustinwilson.com. This would cause problems if people linked to my log elsewhere, so any page with the exception of the home page would redirect to applicable locations here. This log is now located at log.dustinwilson.com.
The portfolio is separate in design as well. I thought since this log was primarily in the blue range I’d use oranges in the portfolio’s design, making the two sites complement each other both in content and color. The primary intent of a portfolio is to show off, so I think I’ve accomplished that. I’m able with one design to show off both the skills I’m willing to sell. The website is my first experience with jQuery, and I can say I absolutely love working with it. It makes using JavaScript that requires cross-browser support an effortless process. I programmed all of the effects myself, not using any ready-made jQuery plugins for them as many were too generalized and not at all accessible for people with disabilities. I will most definitely use it again.
The Log
I’ve made some additional changes to the log while I was at it, almost doing a complete rewrite. I’m unsure what to call it really as I saved quite a bit of code, just changing it up a bit to fit within my new framework. The largest change under the hood is my caching system which works without executing a single bit of PHP code when a page is cached. I started it using Apache’s mod_cache, but it doesn’t provide the kind of cache I was looking for. My cache is designed to deliver static pages for people to peruse, only executing php code if a page is not cached. Mod_cache works like your browser’s cache, caching the page properly until you want to refresh it. I’m glad I took the time to learn mod_cache as it might help me in the future. It seems to be a very good solution for dynamic websites. I might write about my cache system in more detail in another post.
The design is the same as ever, except with a notable change in header graphic to tie this log in with my portfolio even more. Additionally, I’ve greatly simplified my archive pages and have made them more usable in the process. They utilize a timeline appearance. You get the added benefit of getting to peruse my past ramblings, but you also get to see how frequently I post within a second’s glance. I originally got the idea from Kyle Meyer, although I’ve implemented it differently and more efficiently than he describes, mainly due to the fact I don’t have a complicated CMS to hack into doing what I wish of it.