Another Sunday and I have a moment to reflect on the latest changes at Earthpages.
As you may have noticed, we’ve given the entire site a complete overhaul during the past few days. Not only a new template but new graphics to go along with it.
It’s been a lot of fun but also a lot of work. As a result, updates to Earthpages.ca, especially, haven’t been as frequent as we’d like. But now that the new look is pretty well settled, and the site better organized, we should be able to get back to our usual routine of updating dot.org and dot.ca regularly.
There’s something fascinating about this. The fluttering US flag in the background… all makes me feel like I’m watching some ancient Roman senator who’s disenchanted with the Emperor.
Sorry all you closet fab four fans, I’m not talking about the remastered Beatles collection. Actually my guess on that is that it’s not all that great, if it’s anything like what they did with the remastered Star Trek.
Sometimes it’s better to leave the proverbial edges a little blurry if they were originally intended to be that way.
But before I meander off into a pop-culture critique, I should say that I’m talking about Earthpages.ca – Think Free, my love and passion (well, maybe not my love but certainly a passion).
As you may (or may not) know, Earthpages.ca began as a book that I started to write after graduating from school. One summer I realized that I could spend a whole bunch of time, and probably money, getting it published by some obscure company, or I could just make the content freely available on the web.
The latter choice seemed right. So hence the birth of Think Free.
Why better all the time?
Well, when I first started plugging the book into WordPress, I was mostly concerned with just getting the database online. I didn’t add many if any pictures. And all the cross-referenced links were left dead… meaning it was incumbent on the visitor to copy and paste them into the search box to find related material.
I knew that was pretty lame. But I was under time constraints, as I still am.
So to make a long story short, just the other day I decided to start hyper-linking all those cross-references in Earthpages.ca. It’s going to be more work but the end product should be far more useful.
I’ve been working hard updating Earthpages with some new and necessary changes. Most notably, the old Policy and Disclaimer is now out of date and has been updated and moved to the WordPress site.
Geocities died around the same time as I was making these changes. I had a submission form there which, like the P&D, is now incorporated in the WordPress site.
It’s actually better this way. I’ve been meaning to make these changes but it all takes time…
I guess the next step is to learn how or get some whiz kid to set up a WordPress.org site. The advantage to that would be more customization, a wider appearance, etc. The disadvantage is that I’d be flying solo and no longer in the WordPress.com ‘hive’ which I really like.
Anyhow, the beat goes on as some old punk rocker put it. I guess it was David Byrne (sp?).