Fixpert Needs an Overhaul
I think most creative folks have this desire to redesign their own web site about once every five seconds. I’ve managed to move to the other end of the spectrum and actually really neglect some core features and enhancements that this site has been needing for umm, a couple years now. For example, when you’re a new visitor and you post a comment, you get no confirmation message, so lots of people post the same comment multiple times. Easy fix, I know I need to do it, just…haven’t.
This site is a little…ghettoey. I’m a poor landlord. The faucet leaks, there’s mice, it smells musty. I wish I could make promises to you that it will improve some time soon, but I can’t. Fact is, I’m just too damn busy and this neglected place quickly falls to the bottom of the priority list when times get hectic.
But! I think a really good indicator that it’s actually time to do a full overhaul is when you’ve stopped posting with any frequency — as is the case with me. I visit Fixpert every so often, look at it, feel a lack of connection with it’s current look and feel, sigh feeling a bit overwhelmed, and quickly alt-tab my way over to something else more immediately actionable.
It doesn’t help that I usually have about 2 dozen ideas for extra projects that I’d like to tackle when I have the time. My idea firehose just gets pointed straight into my stack o’ sketchbooks where 1 of 20 ideas will see the light of day. The rest remain in the sketchbook, only to become…musty.
But check this out. Playing around on The Wayback Machine:
Fixpert circa 2004
Fixpert circa 2005
February 4th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Remember when you told me that story about your apartment where the dude had died in the middle of the living room and then a wicked awesome dead-body-stain showed up like a week after you moved in? (perhaps I’m misremembering some of this?) I was imagining that the whole time I was reading this post. Except there’s no obvious dead-body-stain on the ‘Spert. That’s a feature you should definitely add though. Adds character. And it draws attention away from the musty smell and the mice.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Yes indeed. There was a giant smelly dead body blood stain on the wood floors of my very first apartment. This was in Richmond, Virginia. I was 17 or 18.
We put a rug over it, but then we started having these 40’s parties and folks came over and were like “oh man, this is the apartment where homeboy OD’d and died over Christmas break.” So terrible. The landlord had told us a cat died there. A human-body-sized cat.
Note: The landlord’s name is Waybright and he is the worst kind of slum lord. Everyone from Richmond has a bad story about this dude.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Speaking of dudes dying; bad news. Sheldon Brown rode off into the sunset: http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/sheldon-brown-1944-2008-14433
February 25th, 2008 at 5:24 am
I had never heard of Sheldon until after he passed. My life is richer just reading of his legacy. We need more people like this. In the meantime keep riding when others don’t and laugh at the gas prices!!