Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Content Management System - Intermission

To CSS or not to?

During the design phase (will be posted here, when it is completed), I was going through many articles and resources. I was also looking out for how best to modularize the final layout. That is when I stumbled across CSS Zen Garden.

Here is the extract from the site:

The Road to Enlightenment
Littering a dark and dreary road lay the past relics of browser-specific tags, incompatible DOMs, and broken CSS support.

Today, we must clear the mind of past practices. Web enlightenment has been achieved thanks to the tireless efforts of folk like the W3C, WaSP and the major browser creators.

The css Zen Garden invites you to relax and meditate on the important lessons of the masters. Begin to see with clarity. Learn to use the (yet to be) time-honored techniques in new and invigorating fashion. Become one with the web.

So What is This About?
There is clearly a need for CSS to be taken seriously by graphic artists. The Zen Garden aims to excite, inspire, and encourage participation. To begin, view some of the existing designs in the list. Clicking on any one will load the style
... read more at CSS Zen Garden


But, the extract serves no purpose. You need to visit the site to realize the beauty of the site. I usually restrain myself from making such remarks but I have to give it to this site.

Going through this site, really affected the personal CMS project I am undertaking. It made me revisit the option of using CSS. Thus I ask, to CSS or not to.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Content Management Systems

I know. This sounds boring and would seem like something that would not come out of my mouth. But I came across this term when I had to face with reality of the amount of content that I want to put up on the web for all to see and how I would be able to manage it.

Most of what I put on the net is through this blog, the sister blogs (
Universe of StarWars, Roleplayers' Rantings), the webcomic (Firman Tales), and the forum based roleplaying game (Chaos And Order). Now, as you can see, these are all good in they are taken in parts, or atleast fairly good. But, as most of them are related topics, intermingling with each other, I would also like to provide with a portal, that puts them all together. Something dynamic, so that I do not need to go about coding the HTML or whatever just to include more content. And all this lead to a logical conclusion, Content Management System (CMS).

Now that I got the jargon, it was hard for me to understand the underlying principles in this matter. Scourging the results page of Google, after some effort got me to some good pages that would explain me the fundamentals of CMS. One of the Article that really caught my attention was
'CMS and the Single Web Designer' by James Ellis.

He goes about explaining how a group of people, designer, editor and authors can create a good website, if provided with a proper CMS, that all would find good use of.

My approach now in this matter would be to a very simple CMS, where designer, editor and author would be myself and the audience would be the rest of the world. This would be a bit of over-simplification, but this done, details could be added later by successive designing over the older one, or by redesigning. The redesignin may seem as a lot of work, but the whole process, in my opinion gives a lot of scope for learning.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Web Comic

I have to agree that I am crazy about comics. I cannot help it. I think, no matter what my age, I would always love comics.

My love for comics would actually explain the stack of them that lies in my room. My facination for comics, surpasses the print media and enters the cyberspace. It is called webcomics.

Sometime back, I somehow came by this term, and then, after few Google searches, I was hooked to them.

It is sometimes odd as to how, the various facinations fuse together. My indulgence in RPGs actually resulted in me creating a WebComic of my own. Check the particular article, 'Diversion', that I put up in my other blog, Roleplayer's Rantings. I put this article sometime back, and after that, I got time to work on another page of the comics. Here is a sneak peak:


See all the pages that are done until now at:


Here is the link to one of my favourite:

Inverloch is an amazingly drawn comic with great detail. The storyline is very indepth, and can keep one occupied. It makes one wait for the updates to come.

There are many others. One just needs to search.

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