Empty Cage

This entry has nothing to do with reading, I’m almost done number four, but I don’t want my blog to be all book reviews (especially since I haven’t really gotten the hang of how to write a good review).

Does anyone remember MySpace? (Ha ha, internet snob joke). I have one, I’m serious, I don’t really “use it” (because very few honestly claim they still use their myspace) I do find it interesting that I have 41 friends on myspace and 281 on Facebook, which do YOU think is closer to the truth. But as I recall my myspace always had the default layout because I couldn’t be arsed to write a whole entire style sheet for one. (Oh, the horror, I know).

Anyways, my wonderful friend Sean, who is a brilliant guitarist has asked me to redesign his HisSpace… MySpace ish (http://myspace.com/hucksfin). And I’m just now trying to learn how to work this system. I mean it used to be retina scalding blue with a MS Paint banner, so I can’t do worse than that… but there are slight differences that are holding up the creative process. And I feel terrible because I really want this to look great for Sean. I’ve been thinking something in warm colours like brown and taupe, but I’m kind of just making this up. At any rate, I’d advice you to listen to his tunes, they’re great — not so much my style, but Sean and I have agreed to disagree on our music tastes. Like myself and Andrew, we like all the same bands but all opposite tracks.

In other news, I’m almost ready go face redesigning Empty Cage, and stop hiding behind Amber and the nice people at skindownloadland. Amber’s layout was way nicer than this one, but I’ve suddenly fallen in love with lighter layouts, and wanted EC to be bright for a bit. I’ve been reading a lot about webdesign the past little while because I’ve been wanting to evolve how all my websites look. I mean, comparing In Flames to Valour pretty much says it all for my web transformation.

The plan is that Empty Cage will become almost exclusively blog, hub, and personal details (with maybe some writing and stuff — but I have a fiction press account and a deviant art account that I can use for that…).  Let’s face it, what more was EC ever, really? My guides are entirely too smarmy to be much worth anything. And really, the blog is the only part I ever feel like updating. I hope to have http://27.empty-cage.net up soon for a small portfolio to show the people mum throws at me when they want a website designed. I want the root of the domain to be for me, but showing off the whining in my blog might be bad for business. Plus I’d feel like a twit sticking prices on here, given I am asses at webdesign compared to most of my friends — the only advantage I have is a good manager.

I hope to add more character Fansites to Empty Cage, and I think my next major project is Loyalties (the Regulus Black Fanlisting) while I polish off the Inuyasha manga at One Manga so Cursed can be properly done, and finish the Sailor Moon SNES game so I can finish that page for In Flames. Reducing EC to minimums gives me the time to focus on all my other pages that need some loving. I think one day I’d love to create a ‘full domain manager thing’ where the premise would be like wordpress but it can also create and manage all your subdomains. So, one log in panel and I can tweak a page on any site. Something like this probably already exists, but I’ve never seen it.

I’m getting back into my C++ again (which isn’t helpful for websites, but I enjoy it) because I was a master of things that never got out of the console, but, what I want to learn is programming in windows. I’m told PHP is a lot like C++ so maybe I can translate some of my skills into script writing. I’m not confident writing for the web though I’d fail and my script would get hacked and the interwebz would hate me. Seriously.

I’m also reading Calculus for Dummies, I’ve never taken Calculus before but for my Computer Science minor I have this phobia of everyone else being a calculus genius, and the best I can pull out of my arse being 1+1=5. Calculus I is not a required course, but I’m thinking about taking it anyways. Calculus, C++, 75 books, doesn’t my summer look fun? And I haven’t even found a job yet.

I think for once I’m going to finish a blog entry in its own time, I’m not distracted or just bored of writing, so yay me! Dad got a new monitor while I was at school and its one of those massively huge flat panel ones. Love it as I do it makes everything look small, and when I design on it I feel like I should fill it, which is such a bad idea. But it is very pretty, and I can see everything.

Anyways, I’m going to go read, and then maybe play some guitar!