WWW pages of the past (Summary)

Well, it's about time to review the past WWW pages, and contrast how they have changed. The most up-to-date one that I have is from December 2001:

Notice that a few extra graphics helps to improve the layout and draw the eye towards key areas (such as CNDS and NOS links). Some of the graphics I've added are shown in the Tip's column. Another useful addition is the Code Snippets graphic:

The following is the previous page (from November 2001):

In August 2001 my page look a little bit yellow. At the time I though it looked good, but after seeing many of the newer pages, it didn't quite look so smart:

In July 2001 the menu systems were put in gray boxes, which make them 'stick-out' too much. Unfortunately there was too many different menu boxes:

In June 2001 the new gray menu boxes appeared. Unfortunately the menu layout was a bit confusing, with gray menus on the left-hand side, and yellow backgrounds on the right-hand side:

In May 2001 the menu system had moved from graphics-based to text-based. This was mainly due to the improvement in the font-layout, and the usage of CSS (Cascaded Style Sheets) files:

In December 2000 the text options were graphic's based, with a yellow background to highlight the menu options:

In August 2000 I had a layout which was based around columns (with text options as GIF files):

In January 1999 frames were all the rage. Here's a horrible frame's based page, which looked okay at the time, but looks terrible now:

The following links allow you to check some of the differences between the page:

Main Page:
CNDS Page:
Cisco Page:
Diary Page:
Code Snippets Page:
NOS Page:
Projects Page:
CV Page:

Text with paint stokes, nice graphics, and Christmas!

A nice effect is to put a paint stoke as a background and then superimpose text onto it. The text can then be changed so it has a good contrast against the paint stoke. I've achieved this with the CNDS and NOS graphics:

and for NOS:

and for the code snippets:

For this I took the following brush stroke:

and the text (Verdana, font size of 50 points):

and combined them together. The white text should cover the brush stroke, while the dark text is outwith the stroke.

Another trick that I've done is to add a nice graphic, with a shadow behind it. I've added the following graphic to my current home page, which I think really draws the eye:

Here's another from the CNDS page:

and for NOS:

I've also added a few seasonal graphics to some of the main pages. So, as it's Christmas, I've added a snowman to the main page:

and another snowman to the CNDS page:

and my favouriate:

The great advantage of using snowmen, as opposed to Father Christmas, is that you can use a snowman for a longer time, as it will still be relevant in March.

WWW pages of the past (Summary)