Switching from '01' to '10'POSTED AUG 21, 2009

Since egrabow.com started on January 1, 2001, it's become a tradition of mine to redesign things every year on that date. Of course, planning is involved, sometimes beginning several months prior, sometimes the week before, but something big has always been altered/implimented/improved on or around New Years' Day. Then the version number goes up. It's always been scheduled that way.

January 1, 2010 will be the last time that happens.

The last real sitewide redesign was version 7, two and a half years ago. Since then, versions 8 (2008) and 27 (2009) have merely ushered in features that were supposed to be in 7 to begin with. When I decided that I didn't like the navigation and thought about what to do this coming January, I realized that I liked version 7's original NAVbar, and that my changing it since had been just the change-for-the-sake-of-change that I despise. Besides that, I decided that I liked the rest of the site pretty well... no changes really necessary.

The early years of egrabow.com were an excercise in playing around and seeing what HTML can do... then it changed to me tweaking things and finding "my style." I've been slow to realize that I may've actually reached that goal, and that every-year updates no longer have any point. Recognizing this, I've decided that version 28 will impliment what's worked so far, and then leave it be, until I'm genuinely inspired to do something else. My time and effort can then go toward making the existing design more standards-compliant, implimenting long-planned features, streamlining, etc.

Several of my website-related policies will change:

• No more January 1st updates. Of course, I can still do them on that date, and I may still prefer to if inspiration hits me late in the year, but some New Years' will go by without new versions. The version numbers will still be attached to my age, though. If version 28's successor comes three years later, it'll be version 31, not 29.
• No more four-year mandate. The HD logo currently in use was set to expire January 1, 2013... no sooner, no later. This policy also has no reason to exist anymore, so look there it goes.
• Sections are baaaaaack. I got rid of them a few years ago and haven't liked the site navigation since. Time to undo that mistake, although the map has changed somewhat since 2006. The Traffic Information System is also going bye-bye.
• Open formats only. A look at the properties of the image above will show that it's a PNG image. PNG will become the image format of choice on egrabow.com. The animated GIF on the Index Page will be grandfathered in, though.
• Open software only. I'm not referring to Wake Up! Pro , although it is open-source. I'm replacing "not-free" programs like Photoshop with free, open-source ones like GIMP. I'm also typing this in KompoZer, rather than FrontPage.
• Limited version branding. The fact that EG is in version 27 is displayed prominently on the Index Page and in the slidebar. "28" will appear only under Website Info . The NAVbar and SLidebar also have public version numbers, which will not exist at all anymore.

Please note the circle behind the "10" in version 28's logo. The fact that EG's start date could be written in binary: "01/01/01" was a big reason for when I registered the domain. Now, we approach another such date, where the last digits are swapped. I decided that this is appropriate, that perhaps my online presence started at "mode zero" (00) back in 1999, then switched to "mode one" (01) when I moved up to my own domain name, which was more reliable, roomy, and customizable. Now, egrabow.com has come into maturity, "mode two" (10 in binary), where I'm beyond experimenting and changing things on whims. We shall see. Of course, now I'm wondering what "mode three" (11) would be... Ah well, one step at a time.

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