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Sye

Partying – despite the weather

By Friends & Family, Happiness & Joy2 Comments

Despite the cold, icy, snowy weather bringing the country to a stand still (well according to the papers, like we believe what we read!), I’ve been out partying.

I was kindly invited by Sye’s mum to her birthday. A good time was had by all. I had fun dancing, badly, with the subtly of an elephant. Yes, I am ashamed to say that I stepped on Sye’s toes once or twice.

So now the photos, taken on my iPhone4 (Click on photos for full size image):


(Me & Jenny)


(Sye & Jenny)


(Me & Sye)


(Another me, keeping in the blogs theme ‘It’s all about me’)

Write soon,

Antony

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Geeky Post: Website Development

By Technology, The Web3 Comments

This is a Geeky post and in it I’m going to show you how my website has developed over the years.

Version 1
My first version was created in HTML and looked like this:

It had sections to it: Personal, Carrer and Occult. It had Quick Links News on the home page.

The Navigation was simplistic as was the site as a whole. This first version of the site was online when I was 16 years old and at that time I didn’t have the domain antonysimpson.com.

Version 2

Version 2 was designed with sidebar Navigation in order to allow me to populate the site with much more content. It again was designed in HTML using tables. It contained much more photos than Version 1 including a photo’s section.


New features included a News page that had paragraphs of my news including Site Updates to let the visitors know what had been developed and updated. The Occult section of Version 1 became religion as I accepted Paganism as part of my religion. This version of the site was online around the time when I was 18 years old.

Version 3

Most significantly in Version 3 was the new blue design. I kept the sidebar navigation as I liked that it allowed me to populate the rest of the site with more content. The site used a combination of HTML and PHP, using Iframes. Removed the Site Updates but added on a Last Updated sentence on the home page so that people know when it was last updated.


The news section (above) had a page per news entry and an archive like a blog.

Version 4

Kept the same blue colours design. Kept the last updated sentence on the home page. Moved the Navigation to the top of the page. The main feature of this site was a wordpress blog which unfortunately I deleted being unable to pull off the posts and saving them. This was probably the shortest version of the site ever online, really I only focused on the blog.

Version 5

Again I kept the blue design (look above). It was the most advanced coding I had done so far. I liked the photos and had more of them to use as technology developed. I kept the Last Updated sentence and added a hit counter.


I created a windows-style little windows for the content. For the first time I had a guestbook.

Version 6

The major change in this design was the colours, using oranges and reds. The site design was the same, but I uploaded much more content.

Version 7

Easier on the eye colours were used. Advanced PHP coding used. Meta tags added so that I would appear in search results. For the first time I used an RSS feed. This was probably one of the longest sites online.

Navigation returned the sidebar with little yellow star bullet points! I discovered photoshop and used it to make my own banners. Put news on the home page. Kept expanding the site adding new sections and pages.

Also added Coming Soon – so that visitors would know what new content was to be added and Site Updates makes a return so visitors know what’s been recently updated.

Version 8

My friend Sye designed this site for me. I asked him to design it after seeing his cartoon artwork (see Funny cartoons from a friend and More funny cartoons from a friend). The idea was to create a noticeboard with a piece of paper pinned on to it. The Navigation was cartoon images that changed on mouse over at the top of the page.

The site was designed in dreamweaver using tables in a blog style. I also had a cartoon logo designed by Sye. I decided to have a wordpress blog for the home page and made some minor changes to the design to accommodate this to the version you see today:

So that’s how my sites developed over the years. Do you think I should make some changes to the current version or create a new version? Post a comment.

Antony

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More funny cartoons from a friend

By The Web6 Comments

Sometime ago I blogged Funny cartoons from a friend. Then Sye lost his website and the link to his cartoon didn’t work. I’ve updated the image file so it now works and in addition to this here are two more cartoons he’s done:

All cartoon images are Copyright (C) Sye Watts, 2009. Reproduced with kind permission from the author.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Two Hundred

By Life, The Web8 Comments

Can you believe that this is my two hundredth blog post? In celebration here are some questions answered. Hopefully you’ll learn more about me and what makes me tick, expect references to some of the posts I’ve written:

1. Why do you blog?
Blogging for me fulfils my creative urges and is also theraputic. It allows self expression on how I view myself, the world around me and how I experience it. It is also a great way for family and friends to keep up to date with my antics.

2. When do you blog?
I usually blog during the weekday evenings. Occasionally I do have a full day blogging on a weekend. On a weekend day, I can bash out several blog posts and schedule them to publish at a date and time of my choosing in the future. So don’t assume that the date of publish is the time I’ve written them.

3. What do you blog about?
Anything and everything. My blog is abstract really. I tend to blog about my own life experiences, what’s going on in my life and other things that I’m passionate about. My main two passions I’ve noticed I blog about a lot are gay rights (including homophobia) and my religion, paganism.

4. Is there anything you don’t share on your blog?
Although I may appear open and that I share everything on my blog, I actually don’t. I only blog about things I would say to a member of the public (as anyone can access this blog on the World Wide Web). There are many things I consider to be private that I never blog.

5. Where do you live?
I’ve never revealed this on my blog and don’t intend too. I live in an apartment I’ve recently bought. You can see photos on my blog post The Move.

6. Whose important in your life?
My family and friends. You can read more on my blog post People that inspire me.

7. What have you achieved in your life?
A many number of things, like I’m sure you all have. I’ve bought an apartment, completed a HE Diploma in Children’s Nursing, learn’t to drive, a many number of spiritual achievements. I guess it depends what you call an achievement? And anyway, how is an achievement measured?

8. What would you like to achieve in the future?
Well I have a grand plan, you can read more on my blog post A Magickal Grand Plan. It includes things I wish to achieve in all areas of my life, health, family and friends, love, education, creativity, career, paganism and spirituality, experiences, home life, finances and travel.

9. Are you religious?
Yes, I’m a pagan. You can read more about what being a pagan means for me on my paganism page of my website.

10. What is your religion? What does it involve?
My religion is paganism. It involves following the cycle of the year, you can read more on my blog post entitled Pagan Festivals.

11. I’ve noticed your adventures page hasn’t been updated in a while. Do you ever plan on updating it?
Yes, I plan to do some more adventuring in the next year. I hope to travel a bit more next year. I had intended too this year but travel got delayed due to buying my apartment,

12. Are you on any of the popular social networking sites?
I’m on facebook, for friends only. I am also on twitter @antonysimpson. It mainly contains tweets from when I update this blog and replys to other people’s tweets.

13. What’s your websites design? And how did you come up with it?
The idea is that it’s a cork notice board with a piece of paper pinned to it. It was designed by my good friend Sye. I am especially proud and love the cartoon style naviagation icons that change on mouse over at the top of the site that Sye did the art work for.

14. What do you like to do for leisure?
Write blog posts, obiously. Surf the web, read, TV, socialising, meals out, see friends, cinemas and films, allsorts really.

15. I’ve noticed you write a lot about gay rights. Why’s this so important for you?
I think it’s important to me as I know friends who have experienced homophobia. People I love and care about being isolated and mistreated because of their sexuality. I have experienced homophobia, but not to this degree. I also have read up on my history and know what it used to be like for gay people. No role models in society (on the TV, media, etc.), no rights (no recognition of gay relationships by the mainstream hetrosexual world), being mistreated by institutions (police raiding gay pubs, courts prosecuting gay people, homosexuality being treated as a mental health condition, etc.) and I never, ever want it to go back to how it has historically been. Right I’ll get off my soap box.

16. What’s your faviourate film?
Any Disney film. I was brought up on Disney. Probably the reason I’m single though, as I often want the ideal and can’t settle for less. I love rom-coms. The typical love story were boy meets girl, falls in love with girl and ends up with her in the end.

17. What’s your faviourate artist or band?
I’m werid. I like a whole mix of different music from cheesy pop, soft rock, a bit of r n b, opera, indie, everything really. I tend to like songs rather than artists. If that makes sense?

18. What’s your faviourate colour?
Yellow. The colour of the sun (am sooo a sun worshiper!), colour of intelect and creativity.

19. Who are you idols? Who inspires you?
My family and friends inspire me, you can read more on my blog post People that inspire me. But if your talking in the famous world you can find out on my blog posts Inspirational Icons and Inspired by Stephen Fry.

20. Is it true you have diabetes?
Yes. Type 1. Insulin dependant.

21. What’s your diabetes diagnosis story?
That’s a blog post that’s already written. It’s scheduled to publish January 2010 which will mark 3 years since my diagnosis of diabetes.

22. How’s the elearning going? (see Back to University)
I’m ok on one of the modules and the other one I’m slightly behind. I intend to play catch up this weekend. I couldn’t find the resources I needed to do the work. I’m still new to this style of learning and it’s taking some getting use too. But I have bought some new uni books.

23. You seem to post a lot about comedy. Why is comedy so important to you?
I think as Dame Edna would say “we all need to laugh, especially in this world…more than ever”. Comedy enables you to see things from a different perspective and not take things too seriously. I think we need that with all the negativity we are peddled by the media.

24. You seem to love books, what are you currently reading?
Several university text books.
Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend by Jenny Colgan
Wannabe a Writer? by Jane Wenham-jones
How to Create a Magical Home by Marie Bruce
Book by Whoopi Goldberg
So yeah a quite diverse selection of literature.

25.What star sign are you?
I’m a taurus (a bull). You can read more on my blog post As a Taurus….

Take care,

Antony

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