Feb 05, 1998, 9:35am

Well, here it is, the new look. I have to say sorry though, because it's not entirely complete yet. Oh well. And along with the new look, comes a few new directions, a few old observations, and a few last words.

First off, I'm not the only one these days launching a new look for a site. Lance did his mega GlassDog launch on Feb 1. Pretty, and pretty darned impressive. In fact, I considered putting this launch off for a week or two as to get away from a bit of the frenzy over Glassdog's new look and feel. But after talking it over with a buddy, he said I shouldn't worry about it too much. So here I am!

Lance has geared the new GD toward DHTML capable browsers, and he's using a ton of tricks to exploit the 4.0 and above browsers. In fact, he's totally tricked out, and that's very cool. Everyone knows how I feel about Lance and his work, so I won't extrapolate that.

But I will say this - I considered going the full CSS / DHTML route for this site revision, but I decided against it. In fact, this site was designed with three core goals in mind - one, a completely new look; two, heavy backwards compatibility, including proper ALT statements, a 575 pixel wide conformity, and graphics that can be viewed identically on any color monitor, as long as it's color level is 256 colors or more. (in fact, every new graphic on this site, save the jpegs, is designed and indexed to the 216 browser safe palette - even the drop shadows!); and lastly I had a design style I'd been planning for a while, and I finally figured out the way to present it, while conforming to the above two rules.

The result is what you see here. I'm actually quite proud of it, mainly because, with the exception of a few table tricks and font FACE tags that aren't compatible down to 2.0 of some browsers, these pages will look almost exactly the same on just about any Mac, Unix graphical, or PC computer that visits here. That's the first time I've been able to achieve this goal - especially when it comes to the graphics end.

So why didn't I go for the CSS / DHTML route? It's quite simple actually. While a strong proponent of the "upgrade your browser" camp, I know (from my logs and from friends around town) that a lot of you, about 40% or more, can't display DHTML. Some of you are regular visitors. I don't want to force you to do something you don't want to do. I'll suggest the upgrade, but I won't demand it. Some of you don't upgrade because you don't know how, or because you can't, or simply because you don't want to. A lot of you are still surfing the web at 640x480 resolution, 256 colors. Even my friend Peter, in town here, surfs at that resolution, and the guy's computer is a Pentium 166 with a 15 inch monitor and a 2mb 3D video card. I berated him about switching to at least 800x600 and full color. He was surprised that he could do that, so he did, but next time I visited him, he was back down to 640 again.

"Why did you do that Pete?" I asked. He said he just preferred it that way. 'nuff said

Now before I go on, all you soap opera luvin' types, don't read anything into this - I'm not criticising Lance for going his U3 way - not at all - we need to push the standards from time to time. I am just saying, I could have gone that route as well (and after spending 3 months digesting everything possible on DHTML, it would be easy) but I decided not to.

Now back to this site. There's a very long rant I need to get off my chest before I make my "web persona change" hinted to at the top of this page, but I'll have to save that for the next rant, coming February 5th. In the meantime, let me get you up to speed on what's new around here.

Ok, I mentioned the graphics, right? heheh. Lessee. Oh yeah. There's a brand new quiz now - and it's not even about me anymore! In fact, it's a quiz that just might be given to some Grade 10 History student way off in the future, like in the 24th Century (Star Trek geeks, settle down! :-)). I sort of got the idea from my Saturday paper a month or two ago - when they talked about the best and worst things about the 20th century. Go on, pop over, take the quiz, and soon, I'll have a new page up showing the most popular results.

The Survey is sort of the same, but I'll be revamping it in a week or two, once the dust clears - but it does have a new look.

You may notice some complete sections are gone, most notably the sports section (which barely got any hits) and the Personal and Hobby sections. I pulled the latter two because STINKY SKANKY Lawyers representing Future Shop dissected some stuff and used it against me. I'm still pissed about this - they basically took away my freedom of speech. As you might know, I used to have a factual commentary on my old Future Shop web site, and the process it went through. it was like a history, a narrative, and it was my own words. I had to pull it after threat of a lawsuit from the skanks. I didn't like that much. oh well.

Lemme just say this - Future Shop - the company that seeks to surpress your freedom of speech! If they had their way, word of mouth advertising would be outlawed, I'd wager.

Also, I didn't particularly like how some people on the Net used my very personal information just because they didn't like me. So, as a result, it's gone. And, you may have noticed, the GruntleMeter is on hiatus on this page. Not many people have been voting in the last few months, so I've pulled it for now. If you miss the GruntleMeter, let me know!

In it's place, you'll find an expanded Archives section, the place that can be your one stop area for everything old on this site - rants, stories, and anything else I cram in there. You'll also notice another new section - Coffee Time. Those who know me know I absolutely worship at the alter of Java, and I have my own shrine to the gods. This new section will be all about coffee - coffee-related stories, recipes, pictures, links, and anything else I can think of. I know it sounds mighty boring for tea drinkers (heheh) but pop by - after all, coffee is probably the world's biggest social drink!

And that's about it for today. I invite you to stick around, take a stroll, visit the nooks and crannies. There are still bugs, still "old" pages that need to be updated, but there's also a few surprises and gems here and there to find... that's the best part, but I can't go into that!

See you next time!

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Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

Tools I Use
The tools I use to build websites and lead a tech life.

iPod and iTunes Offline

iMark's iTunes and iPod isn't iPlaying anything right iNow.

Most Recent Songs

Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
It's all new, as of March, 2002. My personal coffee obsession site.

WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D