Tripalog

A few years ago, I setup tripalot.com and franklindrive.com. If you're reading this blog, then you've probably heard of the former. But the latter? Nope. I never mention franklindrive.com, because it isn't doing anything. I added this to its home page today:

My initial reason for creating this site was to get more online disk space. I had been filling up txe.swa.com with Tripecac mp3s, and wanted a separate server for storing mp3s, photos, and possibly videos. I also wanted a server for trying out some mysql/php projects.

In the past couple years, the need for franklindrive.com has disappeared. Tripalot.com now hosts my mp3s, flickr hosts my photos, and I still haven't digitized my videos. There's enough room on tripalot.com for videos when the time comes. As for playing around with php and mysql, well, tripalot.com lets me do that too. So, franklindrive.com continues to be unused. It just sits here collecting dust at a rate of over $100 per year.

So how am I gonna use franklindrive.com? Some possibilities:

• host for content too "serious" to be associated with tripalot.com (e.g., my parents' sites)
• mirror of tripalot.com (though there is little point, since both are hosted by the same company)
• encrypted online backups (although I already have a million backup points)
• ditch the account, redirect the domain name to tripalot.com (like I've done with my other sites)
• defer any decisions for another year

Hmm…

Okay, see you next year!

After I typed that, I figured it was kinda "bloggy", so I copied it here. After that, I added the intro paragraph and then this closing paragraph. After that, I clicked "Publish". After that, I clapped my hands once, crackled a couple knuckles in my left hand, and then spat my green gum into the trash.

So my ultimate plan is to put all my songs, photos, and writing in one place.  My working title for that project is "Travart" (a palindrome, which implies self-reflection).

I've been thinking about what the format should be.  A web site?  A book?  A movie (like Ken Burns' collages)? A multimedia CD/DVD?

One way to answer that question is to ask myself: what format would I prefer if I'm viewing someone else's life work?

My answer to that is: a combination of books, cds, and dvds.  One format cannot suffice.

A website doesn't cut it.  I hate reading long pages online; I much prefer a book.  And online video (a la youtube) is too lofi and time limited to be immersive.  And mp3 sound quality sucks.

The Fall have books, cds, and dvds (plus websites for discussion, news, and commerce). There's nothing wrong with that model, from my perspective.

So my idea of putting everything in one package is probably not gonna work.  I need to think of partitioning my compilation into multiple formats: book, cd, dvd.  The website should be supplementary only.  Putting every scrap of paper, music, imagery, and video online is probably a bad idea.

I should think in terms of presenting the most interesting bits in a traditional format.

At least, those are my thoughts for today.

I read a very thought-provoking article this morning. It's by Jakob Nielsen (a tough name to spell!). Before you read further, please check it out: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/articles-not-blogs.html

As with most of Jakob's writing, this recent article is technical, dry as a bone, humorless as a security guard, and has a HUGE FONT, so it's a little annoying to read. Also, Jakob has a tendency to talk mostly to himself and people like him (if any exist) rather than to the "little people" in the world. If you've ever read any of the "Head First" books, Jakob's writing is pretty much the opposite, at least in terms of snazziness. If Head First is MTV, then Jakob Nielsen is a sermon. Not that sermons are bad, mind you, but, um… they can get a little boring if you are not in the mood.

I'm usually not in the mood for Jakob's topics. Sure, I might be able to reap some benefit from studying every word of his usability testing analysis sermons… But usually I just skim 'em, make exaggerated snoring sounds (if I'm feeling hyper), and then close.

However, occasionally Jakob says something interesting, something that "clicks" with me. And those moments are enough to keep me subscribed to his mailing list. And also enough to make me buy his book too (though I much prefer Zeldman's style).

Anyway, today's article was one of the neat ones. Basically, Jakob called bloggers monkeys. Not directly, but the implication was obvious, as was Jakob's disdain for blogging in general. I'm definitely with him on that; I feel huge disdain too. Bloggers are like monkeys who sling poop on the walls and then frame it in a blog template and call it "art". Well, Jakob didn't say that, but I do.

Okay, to be honest, I only actually skimmed the article, but caught enough of the gist to appreciate what he was saying, which is basically this: if you don't have anything useful to say, shut the f— up.

Of course, Jakob didn't put it in such colorful, attention-grabbing terms. Instead, he buried his point in boring charts and boring paragraphs and boring numbers. Zzzz…

Well, I call his presentation "boring" because I'm stupid, at least compared to Jakob. My babbling on this blog and my musical babbling (as Tripecac) are monkey poo self-portraits, and I don't even bother to frame them nicely. I guess the one thing I have going for me is my sense of humor. Take away the monkey poo references and you're left with… um… well… just monkey fart references and they aren't as funny.

So anyway, the reason I keep mentioning monkeys (and their scatological splashings) is that I found Jakob's [apparent] anti-blogger snobbery refreshing and amusing; finally, he's acting human!!! And I agree with him! We should just shut up if we don't have something useful to say.

So why is it so hard to shut up???

This blog is monkey poo, and if you're reading it, then you're smelling monkey poo, and the monkey poo particles are going in your nose and sticking to the surface of your throat and lungs, and some of your cells start absorbing bits of monkey poo, and the monkey poo becomes part of you.

p.s. I sure wish Jakob would shrink those fonts a bit!

Last week, I revamped all my UVa pages. I had written them in grad school (1997-1999). Most have to do with my classes, but some are about topics I liked at the time (such as neural networks). These pages looked very, very old school. Horrendously so. Full of bad links, out-of-date info, and [gasp!] email addresses. Yuck!

So I rewrote them in xhtml + css, added headers, footers, and navigation, and generally spiffied up the design. I also made sure I could run a mirror of those pages on tripalot.com, in case UVa finally kicks my pages off. And I updated some copy too. To correct grammer and spellings and, punctuationing; get it? Anyway, it took me a few days.

After doing all that work, I decided to go all the way and design the nav and links specifically for Tripalot. I then redirected the pages on UVa to corresponding urls on Tripalot.

Thus ended my dependency on UVa for hosting. Hooray! What's Tripalot gonna swallow next?

After all those weeks working on Trex launch I find myself lifting my head out of the song-after-song-after-song tedium and focusing (or at least trying to focus) on the Big Picture.

What do I want Tripalot to be?

• A technological practice ground?
• A diary (for myself)?
• A self-centered encyclopedia?
• A portfolio?
• A marketing mechanism (for my music and other creations)?
• A place to meet and keep in touch with people?

I really don't know at this point. Right now, it's a little bit of all of the above. It doesn't really do any of those things very well, though. I could go into details (for example, I would want a diary to be chronological) but I won't (or, for example, I'd want a portfolio to present different views to designers, musicians, writers, etc.) because that would bore you (or, for example, a marketing mechanism would have search-engine friendly urls and a much "hipper" design)…

In some ways, I kinda wish Tripalot.com were unified. If I refer to a person, song, or piece of gear on any of my sites, I'd want to be able to easily link to a page which discusses that subject. For example, in my Tripecac site, if I type "<album>Zipit</album>" within some xml, I know that that will turn into a link to the Zipit album page; it doesn't matter which page I am editing at the time. I want that easy linking from any page. Like here in this blog; I want to be able to reference a Tripecac album like this: <album artist="Tripecac">Zipit</album>. Does this mean I need to convert all my sites to xml? I don't know. It's an intriguing idea.

I also wish I could edit my sites from any computer (not just my main computer). However, that means doing one of the following:

• share the sites' master files among all my computers (which requires me to port the publishing tools as well)
• migrate all sites to Web 2.0 technology (which requires tons of work and research and doesn't feel very future-proof)
• connect to pc w/ master files via ssh, edit via vi (which is clunky compared to my favorite text editor)
• connect to pc w/ master files via remote desktop (which is slow)

I also need to figure out how to add user comments to the various pages. That's pretty much a staple nowadays, at least for information-heavy sites like mine. I don't really have a clear picture of how I can add user comments without switching to Web 2.0, though. Sigh.

So I need to do some thinking and visualizing in the next few days (or weeks or months). I need to decide the future of Tripalot. Sounds like a theme from a fantasy book, eh?