hotwired.com/webmonkey - October 1999
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hotwired.com/webmonkey - October 1999

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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The Very First Website Returns to the Web
If youād like to see the very first webpage Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW team ever put online, point your browser to http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.
For years now that URL has simply redirected to the root info.cern.ch site. But, because we all know cool URIs donāt change, CERN has brought it back to life. Well, sort of anyway. The site has been reconstructed from an archive hosted on the W3C site, so what youāre seeing is a 1992 copy of the first website. Sadly this is, thus far, the earliest copy anyone can find, though the team at CERN is hoping to turn up an older copy.
First Firefox OS Developer Phones Sell Out
The first Firefox OS-powered mobile devices, manufactured by the Spanish company Geeksphone, went on sale today. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to get their hands on some hardware explicitly designed for Firefox OS, the phones have apparently already sold out.
These devices are intended for developers looking to build and test applications for Firefox OS. And clearly thereās a lot of interested developers. Thatās not terribly surprising given that apps for Firefox OS are built using web basics, like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which means anyone who can build a website can build a Firefox OS app.
Efficiency still matters
Scott Gilbertson offers helpful instructionsĀ in a recent article for Webmonkey, on new services browsers to configure browsing through mobile-optimizing proxies. A gem:Ā
Google and Opera are doing what web developers ought to be doing but arenāt. Just likeĀ developers should have been making reader-friendly pages, but werenāt, so āreaderā modes were born.
It's a problem that we tend to bloat our software along with the advancing capabilities of the hardware on which it's used. It's an interesting aspect of our physiology and psychology.
We "see" through a composite picture built of series of quick eye movements, because most of our color vision capability is located in a small, central part of the retina.Ā Further biology of the eye makes us really good at seeing changes in contrast, much more than differences in color. This leads our model for perception to be based around identifying and noticing changes in shapes within our mental map of the world.Ā
I'll take the leap, then, and suggest that the process of constantly adjusting our perception of edges and contrast in that mental image, translates to a broader approach to higher-order mental constructs. We normalize our expectations of an object so that we might notice small changes with more acuity.
4-wheel drive was a major safety feature when drivers treat 4WD cars like 2WD cars. When they normalize their perception, however, and drive 4WD cars to the limit of their capabilities (as happens often in 2WD), the driver negates the safety afforded to them. There are many further examples; take it as homework to find one or two in your daily life.Ā
Anyways... if I continue down this obviouslyĀ infallibleĀ road, by treating the world with such a constant re-normalizing process, we end up building toward a moving target. It allows us to make significant strides, definitely. But it also leads to bloat, in our languages, designs and expectations of the abilities of the end host. Especially with the trend toward running websites like applications in the browser, sending 10's of megabytes to sit on local storage and eat up memory.Ā
If I may suggest, let's please take a step back now and again, and determine if we really need to send the kitchen sink to the client, too.Ā
I'll leave you with something to chew on:
In other words, if your site isnāt svelte and fast, itās not well designed no matter how pretty it might look.

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Blog Builders Series -- Interior Design 1
Letās talk interior design features FOR YOUR BLOG!!Ā Okay, so maybe IĀ shouldn'tĀ have type-shouted that, but Iām really excited about this particular āepisodeā of Blog Builders!Ā Iām excited because (Iām hyper) this is probably the one area that Iām the most passionate (hyper) about when it comes to putting a blog together (no, seriously, Iām hyper).
Earlier in the series, I referred to a blog as a āhomeā.Ā Your blog truly is your home.Ā Itās the one place on the entire web where you can be completely yourself in almost any type of media imaginable.Ā Ā Isn'tĀ technology great (when itās not thinking for itself)?!
Before we jump in and discuss this, I want to take a moment and say (for any new bloggers) that it is OKAY to go ahead and make posts while youāre building your blog.Ā If you feel a little uncomfortable about it at first, let your readers know your place is under construction.Ā Iām sure theyāll understand.
Now⦠your interior design, your ID. It needs to:
Have an air of āyou-nessā.Ā Matter of fact, just take your name and add ā-nessā to the end of it, and thatās what you need.Ā What makes you who you are?
The colors need to go together to some extent.Ā I personally believe that the louder a pageās colors are, the less interest readers show in the actual subject matter.Ā I love you, but no one wants the āMY EYES!!!ā effect.
Donāt shy away from color just because of the last bullet.Ā I promise.Ā Color is your friend and crayons are not food.
Donāt make things too busy.Ā Sometimes it can be easy to become overwhelmed in all of the wonderful things that make up whoever you are.Ā Imagine your readers are taking you on a date.Ā You donāt want to ātake it all offā.Ā Leave something of a mystery for them to discover.
HAVE FUN!
Okay, after all of those bulleted tips, Iām sure youāre eyes are spinning and youāre praying for more guidance than this, right?Ā Okay.Ā
Donāt panic!! Ā
When deciding on color and design choices, I go through a series of steps (I apparently LOVE LISTS):
Imagine thatĀ you'veĀ moved into a studio apartment and are ready to decorate.Ā Take a moment and visualize how you want the blog to look ā donāt get too attached, though.Ā Just keep this visualization as a place to return to for more inspiration later on.
Now, when you visualized, was there a place or a āsceneā you can picture which may have inspired the colors in your blog?Ā Perhaps the beach, or maybe the mountains.Ā Maybe yours is an indoor scene ā a cafĆ©, or Parisian jewelry shop ā ooh, maybe even an Italian bakery (IāM HUNGRY)!Ā Pick a scene; any scene.Ā Focus on it.
Pull colors from your scene. Ā Maybe your favorite color is in there somewhere. Ā Pick 4-6 colors to put into your blog. Ā If you need to get more 'hands-on' with this, visit your local paint store and look through a few color swatches. Ā Another way is to do a search for HTML color codes. Ā I like using Webmonkey for these codes. Ā Not only does this make using the codes simpler in the design process, but it insures you get the exact color chosen as opposed to something slightly off.
Now it's time to put it all together!
Pick what colors will be what. Ā You have background, text, title, navigation, links, link hovers...
Dark colors - Be very careful. Ā Too much dark can look "loud". Ā "MY EYES!!"
Light colors - Use freely, but don't let it conflict too harshly with other parts. Ā You wouldn't want forest green background with electric blue text or vice-versa.
Problematic colorations - When you have colors you really LOVE but they're not working, consider finding a shade or two lighter / darker to make it work.
Embellishment - don't be afraid to use color in any embellishments you may have, but don't be too liberal with them. Ā I particularly encourage people to create their own headers and logos.
Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions, thoughts, comments, or just want to say hello, Iād love to read something from you!
On the web, retiring a number would mean the website is permanently registered, and the content is preserved so it lasts as long as the web does. That means the contents of aaronsw.com will be there forever. It will never become a porn site, or a landing page, or whatever.