10th April, 2000 A watched pot never
boils.... I'm not sure if that saying quite applies here, but it'll do. Would you believe that as soon as I gave up trying to fix up ozEkoala's Adventures, I got over the 'designer's block' I was having, and changed some things that had been annoying me for MONTHS! I'll try and remember that trick next time! I might need a few cards up my sleeve, now I have two websites in public view. Thinking about it further, I have realised that the real spur to forcing ozEkoala's Adventures to co-operate better with my ideas, was some constructive criticism I received from a trusted friend. Hmm - as I think about it even more, this all started when a newcomer to the site wrote to me and asked what the site was all about. I had to seriously reassess the design of the site after a question like that! It was frustrating because I was aware that the site had become a bit cluttered, but couldn't concentrate well enough to redesign it. That's when I began ozEkoala's mEanderings, hoping to relieve my pent up creativity with a fresh start. It worked well. Too well, some might say! I sent off links to the old and new sites to a friend, thinking he might be interested to see what I do with my time. He wrote back with his suggestions for improvement. There it was again. "Too many options." Something had to be done. Oh, but how? Hadn't I tried a thousand times, and given up in despondency? But what self-respecting web designer, no matter how amateurish, can admit defeat at the hands of her own webpage. There had to be something I could do. The breakthrough came today. I was working on a really tricky bit of code and finally got the hang of it. That inspired me to take another look at the problem page and see if I could tighten up the design a bit. At first it seemed like I was wasting my time. Finally, I got mad, gritted my teeth, backed up the page in case I wrecked it, and then got ruthless! I massacred it! And it worked!
Here are a couple of links to today's handiwork, if you're interested. The pages will open in a new window, so this one will still be there behind... Presenting... So,
what morsel of wisdom can be extracted from all this? What can you get out of the following? Is
a pig who loses his voice 'disgruntled'? That
joke could almost be applied to koalas, you know. Where is all this leading, you ask? Nowhere. I wondered if it might at one stage, but inspiration is lacking tonight. I must have drained my cup dry today, on the other website! Perhaps I should apply the lessons I learned today to this.... Maybe tomorrow.
|
Right now I need a nap!