“After months in the thinking, and two weeks in the making, here it is!”
Yes, I’ve been thinking about the annual overhaul since about March, and now, midway through June 2001, after two weeks of work on this thing (I had NO social life during that time), it’s finished. Totally finished, and ready to roll out. And as you can see, things have changed. Let me tell you about some of the changes that have come about with this most recent renovation, which brought us all of what you see now, and swept away what you see at left. First of all, the site is now completely “logo coded”, so to speak, as now you can always tell what part of the site you’re looking at by referring to the large circle at the top of every page. Main Event is my picture, Archives is now a file cabinet, etc. Secondly, there have been changes afoot throughout. In Main Event, “About Me” and “Cars” were completely rewritten, and a “Childhood Days” page has been added, featuring pictures of me from ages 2-6. In the Archives, the Fan Art section has been worked on to be better designed, now making use of thumbnails and links to the full images. In College Life, since the nature of that section is historical, little has changed aside from the design, except that the menu has been streamlined, and accommodation has been created for Junior Year events. Major Areas is still as it was, a bridge to my “subsidiary” sites, though it has been updated to make sure it’s a little more worldly-sounding. The Online Store section is new. Many of you are familiar with The Schumin Web’s online store, which has existed as part of Main Event since its original opening date in October. Now the online store is its own section, and is tightly wound in with CafePress.com’s system to make for a flawless store, complete with a shopping cart system that cleanly takes you to and from my site and theirs. Plus there’s new merchandise in the store in the form of mugs, and so there are more options as well. The Photo Essays section of the site is also new, formerly being part of Main Event. All photo essays from before were retained, and two new ones have been added, entitled “The Great American Road Revisited” and “Sounding the Fire Alarm Collection”. The Web Cam section has been enhanced by the transition from frameset to pop-up. While the Web Cam still looks at the same things, the image is now in a pop-up window, turning the primary browser window (that you’re reading this from) into “supporting cast”, so to speak, describing the camera, what it sees, and other fun stuff like that. But now you can leave these Web Cam pages to continue surfing and leave the pop-up window open, in order to see life in Schumin-land as it happens. Plus for people with old browsers that don’t support pop-ups, the image is also available in the regular window. Finally, Writings has had one piece added to a new “Fun Stuff” category. We all know darn well that Old MacDonald had a farm, but what about his telephone directory listing? If Old MacDonald had a phone, he’d be listed in the phone directory, and you can learn all about his listing there, and what it would have in it. Besides these new features, your old favorites have been retained and are still ready for action, though they may be in a slightly different place or look a little different. But welcome to The Schumin Web for the 2001-2002 “season”, and I hope you like it!
Date posted: June 17, 2001
Notes: This quote introduced the "Circles" design as showcased on the Historical Site Designs page. The two then-new photo sets that are discussed in this article have since been retired from the site.