greydove.org

THIS IS GREYDOVE.ORG

It's my personal website. Here I house photos (manually, because all the galleries suck and FlickrPro costs more than free), artwork, writing and some useless information about myself. It also includes a blog hosted at WordPress, because my server doesn't have MySQL and WP is my blogging method of choice. I'm hosted on an Apple Xserve, get as much space as I want, and this makes me happy.

If you have anything to say about the site, you can post it in the guestbook, or find a way to contact me. If you would like to link to greydove.org, you can find out how at the links page. If you can't find something, please look at the site map. For all the boring site terms about privacy and use, check out the disclaimer. A link to the disclaimer is displayed in the footer at all times.

A spot of history...

Greydove.org started out as a site called Cherrlastic (because I'm so lame, I named my site after my old nickname) hosted on Freewebs. Then, my dear friend Katy (who still exists, but not online in any form other than MySpace and LiveJournal) hosted me under a subdomain on her site. This time period was chock-full of terrible layouts, terrible HTML and even more god-awful CSS. Don't forget the colored scroll-bars, either, and "required: IE! FRAMES! TABLES! LOVE!" You know we all did it.

At some point, I became aware of a better way of doing things. I've been a fairly regular reader of Jemjabella.co.uk since God knows when, so about the time Jem started checking out things like validated XHTML and CSS, accessibility issues and standards is probably when I did, as well. Since, I've gotten better at coding, minimizing my load times and making better designs. The old ones are far too horrid to begin showing to the public, but maybe in the future when I've since redeemed myself I'll show them about.

Why Greydove.org?

I wish I had some really posh answer to give you, but I don't. I was fifteen. It sounded cool. I guess the connotation it delivers is a bit like fallen angel, but not so glamtrash. The dove, being a symbol of religious purity, is normally white... hence why they're viewed as pure. I guess a grey dove would be a dove that's fallen from grace a bit, but is still just as pure on the inside, no matter what its life course had been.

That's my metaphor, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Current Layout Information

  • Name: Changeling
  • Date: June 2008
  • Resolution: 1024x768 and up
  • Cross-browser Compatible: Yes
  • Recommended: Javascript (for clickable images)

Current layout is really cool, and really simple. The dove was hand-drawn (more like scribbled with a marker) and all the photography featured belongs to me. I really like using the rotating images and headers... I feel like it keeps the site fresh looking. The site looks best if you have the font American Typewriter, but if you don't, it's not like you're going to die or anything.

Street Cred

This is for all the cool kids on the block who let me use their stuff.

  1. Jemjabella - BellaBuzz, BellaBook, free PHP mail form.
  2. Squidfingers - For the background you see. Pattern number eighteen.
  3. A List Apart - For the rotating images script by Dan Benjamin (the 2003 version)
  4. Lightbox - For the neat way images pop up on your screen (if you have JavaScript on...)
  5. Impish.ca - Because simpler is better, and I like her style.

Old layouts...

  • Name: Bombshell
  • Date: Dec 2007 - June 2008
  • Resolution: All, basically
  • Cross-browser Compatible: Yes
  • Recommended: Nothing extra required

While Greydove.org was in hibernation for the past six months, I had a generic layout up with some generic content that would appease the masses if they came looking, but it was basically unremarkable. It was a nice, simplistic layout. The image was made by me from some serious, serious editing of a retro bombshell. I can't even remember which one it was anymore. The centered text got to bugging me after a while, but I really do enjoy courier as a font choice.