Right now my plan is to make patrickgillespie.com a depot for random projects and ideas. I was thinking that it might make sense to move some of my more random content (the miscellaneous section and Javascript games) this new site. That’d allow me to narrow the focus here to tools and programming.

For this new site’s interface, the main idea I was throwing around in my head was for the user to see a bunch of images floating through space. Each image would represent a piece of content and none of the content would be related. The idea would be that this was just a bunch of random stuff floating through cyberspace.

I whipped up a quick prototype using Van Halen album covers, which you can see by clicking the above link, and was unimpressed with the outcome. The movement ended up being pretty jumpy, and I’m not sure I like how the images just disappear when they “hit the screen” (when they do that they’re reset to way back in the distance). I’m starting to think that this kind of stuff is best left to Flash. There’s also some other issues, but since this is just a prototype I didn’t bother with certain details.

Right now I’m thinking of stealing my slider puzzle’s interface for patrickgillespie.com since I liked how that came out and nobody ever uses that thing anyway.

I’ve had a hectic past few weeks. Not the normal kind of “oh man I’m stressed”, but the “holy shit I’m stressed” kind of weeks. Things appear to be calming down now though. I’ve been thinking about new things I can do for this site, but all I’ve got so far are a bunch of half finished ideas and projects. Things coming in the near future (next month or so): A new version of the Image Color Palette Generator, the source code to that project, and a rough draft of patrickgillespie.com. The patrickgillespie.com project is the most fun, so that may be out first.

Web App URLs

I’ve decided to change the URLs to my web apps so that they are one level down. Basically, I think having someone type “patorjk.com/software/taag” is a little much. It’s easier to remember “patorjk.com/taag”. The “software” text doesn’t really add much value. I haven’t moved them all yet, and when I do I’ll 301 redirect the old links, but I figured I’d let people know my reasoning for doing this.

Exits

Months ago I removed my links page. I did this because I was replacing it with the links you see in the left panel under the headings “Interesting Blog Links” and “Programming/Hacking Links”. I’ve now decided that it was a mistake to do this. I’m going to keep the links in the left hand panel, but I’m also going to add the links page back in. It will now be called “Exits“. I haven’t had time to fully populate this page, but you can expect the Exits page to grow over the next few weeks. In the mean time, if you’re bored, here are some amusing sites to waste your time with:

Where is Bob? Tales of an Absentee Manager – A really funny blog about a manager named Bob who terrorizes his IT employees. I get the feeling this is fiction, but it’s still a fun read.

The Trolls Among Us – One of the most fascinating articles I’ve read in recent memory. A reporter dives down into the world of internet trolls.