Todd Stadler's blog

pardon my dust

Good heavens, what's happened to Cock-a-hoop?

The short answer is that I've gone and bungled everything. The long answer is that, as with all such bunglings these days, it's all for your good and it will ultimately make things better and easier and all that.

In between picking my nose and not doing much on this Web site, I've been kicking myself to stop picking my nose so much and start making the changes on Cock-a-hoop I've been meaning to make for a long time.

One small change you'll notice I've made is that the page now calls itself Cockahoop, not Cock-a-hoop. This will hopefully ward off creepy search engine users for whom hyphens look like spaces.

Of course, it's called the Cockahoop Times right now because I thought it kind of looked like a newspaper. Fortunately, this look is temporary.

Temporary like our little outing in Iraq? Maybe. But a temporary look nonetheless, the result of far too little thought and even less design.

So what's different, besides a crappy redesign?

Well namely, everything on the site is now being driven by my favorite database, MySQL. Which will ultimately make things much nicer for me, and hopefully for you as well.

However, in an effort to make myself move forward at a slightly less glacial pace on this redesign, I've published it before it's completely done. Nothing like (perceived) public embarrasment to get me working.

Anyhow, most things should work, but not all. For instance, any reference you may find to an image in an article will not be accompanied by, well, an image. I'm working on that.

But feel safe knowing that even the image information is stored in a database. Which the code is not looking up right now. How nice.

Let's see, what else? Well, I've gone and changed the URL scheme again. I think it's even more clever than the last time I changed it. I'm almost certain it will win an award.

I've even gone one more step clever by setting up a file that catches incoming references to the old URL scheme and translates them to the new scheme. More or less accurately. Still working on that.

The biggest news for the redesign is what's yet to come. Not just a graphic overhaul, nor an even more fanatical devotion to the latest standards (which pretty much leave Netscape 4 lovers in the dust, where they should stay).

No, I'm rethinking the content I'm gonna put up here. Someday.

I'm kind of tired of the blog thing, as such. It makes me write for the sake of writing sometimes, and there's nothing worse than content written out of guilt from a perceived lateness.

I like having a Web page, and the impetus it gives me to write, as well as the forum. But I don't want the extreme time pressure that blogs create. This usually leads to unnecessary rants on my part. Sorry about that.

I'm not saying everything I've written so far is junk. Some of it I like. That stuff will still be featured on the upcoming Cockahoop. The other stuff, the filler, will probably be hidden a bit.

I also plan on adding other stuff, like all the images I've been saving up, and so on and so on. Blah. Blahg. Blog.

This really wasn't written to anyone except myself, of course. But feel free to comment on it if you need to (and also notice that you can now comment on the thoughts, currently on the right side of the front page).

I'm sure you're gonna find all sorts of problems here and there. You can let me know about them however you see fit.

And as for me, I need some sleep.