posted 2007/02/21 at 16:05
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday about going back and updating old pages here on the .org is that I kind of forgot that in the early days here, instead of linking to Amazon.com affiliate links for music I mentioned here, I would link to CDNOW because their commissions were higher. The thing is, Amazon.com bought CDNOW ages ago, and now none of my old CDNOW links point to the products I originally wanted to link to, but instead lead to a generic CDNOW "page" created by Amazon that's really just a modified version of the Amazon homepage. I'm thinking that I should probably go back and change those links to the appropriate links on Amazon.com, but at the same time I'm tempted to leave the links as CDNOW links just for historical purposes.
(On the subject of Amazon.com, I'd just like to point out that it's less than a month to go until my birthday, so now would be a great time for you to go and buy me a birthday present off of my Amazon.com wishlist. Yes, I have no shame, thanks for asking.)
Going through some of the first pieces of writing here on the .org, I'm wondering if there would be some use in expanding the About Me section of the site. I was already considering adding a page just about the .org, to mention things like the different designs I've used on the site (and how I've stolen heavily from Ariel's Website for each of the last two redesigns), and how I started coding everything by hand starting in 2002, and how my hosting company has the coolest name in the world. After reading my first writings, though, I'm wondering if maybe I need some sort of glossary so that people who may not want to read through all of the old entries (and who would have the time for that) can get thumbnail sketches of the people and places I used to refer to in older writings. A FAQ page would be another option, although that might end up duplicating the old question-and-answer entries I used to do for the Website's anniversary in the .journal, and there are still some recent events I don't feel comfortable discussing (such as what happened to cause me to leave Spectrum).
There are a couple of things that make me reluctant to do anything of the sort, though. First of all, the older pages of the .org simply don't generate that much traffic, so I'm not sure there's really much of a demand for those kinds of documents. Mostly, though, I'm not sure what use there is in dwelling in the past, especially considering that right now I'm in that transition period between finishing school and getting my first post-school job, and I'd like to place more emphasis on my future than my past right now. It's not that I want to run from my past -- as much as I said (and did) a lot of really stupid stuff back in the day, it's important for me to acknowledge those mistakes so I can learn from them -- but I'll be going through a lot of changes in the coming months here, and I'd rather focus on what I can do correctly in the future than what I did wrong in the past.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon