mathieutozer.com

In case you haven't been counting (I know you haven't) this web page is in 4th generation. It's evolved over the past year and a bit.

In the beginning


Generation 1.

I forged my own html with dreamweaver. I wielded my tools as a novice to tap out this basic text page, which was originally in black and white.

I had no real idea of what I was going to put on there, but photos seemed to be the most popular. Then came gymnastics videos and study related material, then personal projects.
But I found that as content grew, making each new page and formatting it was laborious. I knew there was something called CSS out there but...

Finishing a course in web design, I had a few more tools at my disposal. I worked over the mid semester break and forged new templates. I released Generation 2 of my site.


Generation 2.

I battled CSS and templates for the main page, and for my uni notes. I started looking at web sites and picking them apart to see what made them tick.

How did they make their pages so beautiful. I used to wonder.

Remember this photo page?


I got used to updating the index page of G2 with something that interested me. Like other people did on their 'web sites'.

I'd had a blogger account for a while, but it was not in use. I had an angelfire photoblog too (wha? I know only me I think) Then it hit me one day. Actually it didn't hit me - I'd just been supressing it for a while (It's a common programmer ailment that attachment to ones code causes them not to see the truth that it's crap) The blog thing was exactly what I was doing manually anyway, so I decided to jump the fence and factored all my hard work over to blogger. A flurry of posts and everything was neatly in blogger. Now all I had to do was choose a style I liked and write content for it.

A long time, the black on white page reigned. People said they liked it. But I felt a little ashamed because I didn't make it. This was Generation 3.


Generation 3.

I liked it for a long while too. I added and removed things from the right column. I started many other blogs, and put uni notes on them, and I made some private blogs too for other projects. I found that because I didn't need to worry about getting my frames to display properly, I could just think about what to write. So I wrote more often. And I photoshopped too. And it was liberating that it didn't matter where I was anymore. I became more comfortable with the 'pie in the sky' concept.

I pretty much got basic CSS at some point (the concept of it in the blog framework), and changed some fonts around. I've always admired Wordpres's default blog style 'Kubrik' So I googled and found a copy/paste template for the blogger platform which is this theme you see before you, a similar theme called K2. Clearly I'm comfortable with cheating now.


Generation 4.

The ball had started. A flickr pro account set it off when I realised I didn't need to even chug up my server account with photos, I could have them offsite, forever, and just link them in.

I got addicted to RSS feeds on NetNewsWire and the amount I read really jumped.

Now I've discovered a real use for del.icio.us - as a link manager, it allows me to keep my links on the right of my site updated automatically.



All this (cringe) Web 2.0 stuff - mashing things together to make what you want. It's beautiful. And it's everywhere there's a networked computer. I'm utilising various large scale, powerful technologies and weaving them together into this site.

Part of me feels like a wuss for copping out of getting my hands dirty with the nitty gritty, but really, the end result is a lot more better than I could have done single handed, and besides it lets me get my hands dirty elsewhere.

Update I found an even older relic still online last updated June 22 04.