Special beta test invite...!

[Raph]

OK, so I am trying to sucker you in. ;)

I've outgrown the hosting at LegendMUD--they don't always have the bandwidth to handle the occasional Slashdotting or BoingBoinging.

Anyone wanna check out http://www.raphkoster.com and see if everything survived the transition, what's broken, what should change, etc? In return, you can spam my comments or something.

[RhyssaFireheart]

No frames!   

Looks good from what I can see, but I was just clicking random links is all.  It's what I usually do.   

EDIT - BTW, some very nice art doodles there.  Meetings and other such events always seemed to bring out the best in creativity in me as well.

[schild]

Goddamn that looks better than the old site. Now go make a compelling game.

Edit: Two dead images on the "Games" page. Unless you meant to have the little red X. In which case, very avant garde. I don't understand this art.

[Ironwood]

Ian Rankin is good, but ordering ALL the books in a oner ?  That's a bit mental.

[Samwise]

Purdy.

[SuperPopTart]

Great looking site.

Center the page if possible.

Get rid of the ? in the copyright.

If you can at all make the Previous Entries link at the bottom smaller, do it.  And space it down from the text of the article.

gaming/index.shtml has a grey bar going across the Firefox logo that makes it break the gold bar going down the right side of the page.

Two broken pictures on gaming/index.shtml

Text on gaming/index.shtml not centered right on the yellow bars and moving off said bars into the grey.

The grey bars on the firefox image are also on writing, music and art.


I reserve the right to say I read in 1024 x 768 and so these may just be my computer being iffy.

[Signe]

It really is nice looking site.   Do you have something planned for the right side?  If not, then yeah... what PopTart said... centered would be good.

I got a Ian Rankin book a few years ago for Christmas and really like it... I've read more since.  (See?  I actually read   your stuff!)  Since Righ and his family are Scottish, I'm pretty much assured of something Scottish every year.  This past year it was a tea towel with strange little sayings on them.  ("Haud yer wheesht!")  If you haven't already, you should keep an eye out on the Inspector Rebus series.  John Hannah is teh sexay!  Well, maybe you won't think so... but I have a thing for very smart, arrogant Scottish men.   

I can buy your book at Amazon for $15.63. 

Just sayin'....

[Ezdaar]

Looks good in Firefox, Opera and Safari for me. I like the new layout a lot better than the old one.

[WayAbvPar]

I can't get it to load. I will assume it is wonderful, however.

[HaemishM]

Looks good. I'd try to add that background you have at the top running all the way across the page (no matter the screen size) whether you center it or leave it left-aligned.

[Lum]

Welcome to the dark side! Now that you're a blogger, you can pick up your "I <3 Jack Thompson" t-shirt in the foyer.

[WayAbvPar]

OK, I got it to load. Apparently my office was having connectivity problems earlier. Is the right side  filled with ads or something? I have an ad blocker, so all I see is a lot of empty space...

Overall, good clean design. I wonder if Ian Rankin is a distant relative of mine? I wish I cared enough to investigate  :-D

[Hammond]

At the top the Home Gaming Writing Music Art change font size and move off of the yellow bar under it once you move off the index page. This is using IE and Firefox.  I agree either center it or consider making it dynamic so that it will change size regardless of resolution. 

[Furiously]

OK, I got it to load. Apparently my office was having connectivity problems earlier. Is the right side  filled with ads or something? I have an ad blocker, so all I see is a lot of empty space...

Overall, good clean design. I wonder if Ian Rankin is a distant relative of mine? I wish I cared enough to investigate  :-D

We can settle this quickly...How large is his head?

[Raph]

Ian Rankin is good, but ordering ALL the books in a oner ?  That's a bit mental.

I read really fast. Really really fast.

When I find a new writer I haven't read before that I like, I tend to go buy out the catalog and read 'em all. I'm perenially short of writers, you see. I have a backlog of books to read, but many of them I just dont enjoy that much.

Other recent writers I have fiended: Laurie King and Scott Westerfeld.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. We'll try to get as much fixed as we can. I note that just about none of you actually signed up to comment. Phooey, how am I going to get a decent conversation going in the comments if nobody signs up to say anything?

[Roac]

I note that just about none of you actually signed up to comment. Phooey, how am I going to get a decent conversation going in the comments if nobody signs up to say anything?

Too many places to sign up at.  Maybe offer signed copies of your book?   

Good site btw, and glad to see you actively blogging.  Didn't realize you've been at it a while - hated seeing it dead for a long while.

[Evangolis]

I note that just about none of you actually signed up to comment. Phooey, how am I going to get a decent conversation going in the comments if nobody signs up to say anything?

Raph, reading game blogs is cutting into my play time.  I can't stalk every designer in the damn field.

[Cheddar]

I note that just about none of you actually signed up to comment. Phooey, how am I going to get a decent conversation going in the comments if nobody signs up to say anything?

Raph, reading game blogs is cutting into my play time.  I can't stalk every designer in the damn field.

No, but I can.  I shall begin first thing in the morning.   

[Signe]

uh oh.

[Raph]

I note that just about none of you actually signed up to comment. Phooey, how am I going to get a decent conversation going in the comments if nobody signs up to say anything?

Raph, reading game blogs is cutting into my play time.  I can't stalk every designer in the damn field.

Sure, but I'm one of the ones worth stalking, right? You can just stop reading the others. ;)

[Merusk]

Wow, Raph, how do you walk around without a neck brace when your head's so big?  :-D

Nice looking site.  I'll have to add it to my frequenly visited places.  As for registering.. I don't do it until I have something to say.  That way I have to think before replying.  Same reason to stay logged-out of most places I visit. Usually keeps me from getting myself into trouble.    Usually.

[Cheddar]

Per your plea for people to register I have done so, though I doubt you would want one such as I in your community.  Good read as usual!  It is funny that last week I took a gander at your old site and wondered to myself "Sheesh, when will this man step into 2001?"   Well seems like you did admirably!  Flipping through some of your diatribes on gaming now;  by any chance are you going to bother with a forum or will you stick with comments only ala Lum?

[Signe]

I would have been happy to stalk you earlier... even if you are guitar playing, mud progging hippy.  Probably a pot head still subscribed to The WELL, to boot.  It's all good.  I just don't feel like it anymore.  I lost all my energy in a poker game.  I can't be arsed to do anything dodgy these days.  I did, however, sign up on your site.  Don't worry... I'm much too tired to cause any trouble.

[Raph]

I'm the squarest hippie ever, Signe. :) And never was on The WELL.

I had thought about forums, but frankly I don't want to deal with moderating them... What are the odds everyone would be civil?

[Rasix]

What are the odds everyone would be civil?

  Thanks, that made my day.

Ohh, and I like the new site design.  Too much dead space on the right, but at least it doesn't look like your typical MUD webpage anymore. 

[Signe]

I don't know what I was thinking... you're much too young for The WELL.   

I've seem a lot of the people from here who contribute on other boards and they almost never act like themselves.  F13 just brings out the inner misanthrope, I think.  I'm sure you could convince someone else to moderate it for you, or at least help, because you have, like, a job and stuff.  It's the easiest format to encourage discussion... second only to a den, comfy chairs and refreshments.

[Raph]

Even young people can be on The WELL; I had a chance to be on it back in the early 90s and just didn't bother. :)

I think we've fixed most of the things that people mentioned ni the thread as problems. Don't quite know how to fix the resizable thing. It's designed for 800x600, and that means that it never gets wider than that. The old site used frames which resized dynamically; this uses fixed size coluns in css. I didn't do the CSS, my wife did it to learn it... how would you get it to be resizable given that the top banner is an image like that that doesn't tile?

[Signe]

You should have.  I did and it was really interesting.  It's where I developed a big crush on Howard Rheingold ... I  old people, anyway... even though he's insane.  I bet you two would have got on like a house on fire, too.  A lot of other very cool people were also there.., who are ever "insaner".  I was very into "virtual communities" back then and those sorts of people are who inspired me to become involved in conferencing systems and developing muds.  Gee... it seemed so much more fun back then!  Now I just lay about and almost stalk people.

Anyway... I think the site looks very nice.  I didn't even notice the wee errors but then, I'm not inclined towards pedantry.  If it's purdy and shiny, I likes it.

[Raph]

Rheingold and I have *almost* intersected many times... we have several friends in common.

[HaemishM]

I'm pretty sure in the CSS, you can set the column widths to be percent-based instead of just pixel-based. I was actually thinking old skool style HTML with tables when I talked about the resizing. Make a table that is 100% width, with the top table cell background being that background image you have at the top.

But if you didn't use tables, never mind.  :-D

[Murgos]

Even young people can be on The WELL; I had a chance to be on it back in the early 90s and just didn't bother. :)

I think we've fixed most of the things that people mentioned ni the thread as problems. Don't quite know how to fix the resizable thing. It's designed for 800x600, and that means that it never gets wider than that. The old site used frames which resized dynamically; this uses fixed size coluns in css. I didn't do the CSS, my wife did it to learn it... how would you get it to be resizable given that the top banner is an image like that that doesn't tile?

You can set the image to be a % of the size of it's surrounding box.  It will resize auto-magically though you can end up with artifacts due to compression and etc...  Getting a page that sizes correctly to an n by n dimensioned browser window can be a little tricky but it's not impossible.  You'll find that most sites use a fixed size content area and then pad around the outiside, it's a nice clean effect.

Some links for the wifey:

Wiki of CSS topics

The CSS Zen Garden is an excellent site for some examples of what can be accomplished through proper seperation of content from design.