What's New @ Pete's Place?

(You are currently visiting Pete's Place)
(This Page was last revised: September 28, 2001)

That's what I was planning to say - but my revisions and updates haven't been quite as complete as I had hoped they would be! I did manage to completely rewrite the front page, but it was just taking far too long! I'd originally planned to unleash my completely revised and updated site upon the world at the beginning of the year, but already I'm having to scramble just to get it out before February arrives. Oh well; the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglae, as they say! [Or is that just me?] So, of course, the entire place is still very much under construction, and bits and pieces of it will get rewritten piecemeal over the next few months... We'll set a new target of, say, my birthday - just so I've got another deadline to miss... And, in the meantime:

Welcome to my slightly revised, partially updated, and extensively repackaged web site!

That's right! After the fact, I've revised my Y2K Compliancy Statement. Hey, I survived the end of the wo...

I've just written a brand new short story; it can be found on my Creative Writing page. I await your comments with interest!

Okay, so maybe it wasn't exactly the event of the year - I don't even think it was an official GinQuiz Meet - but I was there with my camera. (But not overly active with my camera, I'm afraid; the photos I've put up so far are not mine, but I'll add mine just as soon as I get around to getting the film developed. Any day now...) Anyway, regardless of who took the photos, you can find them (if you're interested) by following the links from my Meetings page.

Added another link to my Friends' Links page: Alison. I also changed the counter that I've been using for the last year - not that anyone takes notice of the counter anyway, do they? (I know I try to ignore it; it's just so depressing, but it seems to be expected...)

Yep, I've finally added something to my Creative Writing page, to keep The Javary River Incident company - it was beginning to feel lonely! It now shares its little corner of this site with a poem (gasp!!!)

Added Suzanne, in fact. Since I've just spent the last few hours working with her on getting her site up and running, I figured I should probably include a link to it on my site! Sounds almost reasonable, doesn't it? :-) Also, in the process of testing a few details of her site, and of mine, I discovered that all you Lynx users out there have thus far been unable to see the pictures of me (I think!) Anyway, I've made the photos into links for Lynx (hmmm...) and - alright, who screamed? (Speaking of Lynx, are there any Lynx users visiting my site these days? If you are a Lynxer, please drop me a line 'n say Hi! Thanks...)

I figured I may as well get in on the old Y2K act with a disclaimer or two of my own. And so, after extensive research and exhaustive testing (which boiled down to about 30 seconds of scratching my head trying to figure out what to say) I am proud to announce that Pete's Place takes another bold step towards the wondrous future that awaits us all. (Just give it a minute, okay?) We are now unofficially Year 2000 Compliant!

For a while now I have been spending time on IRC playing various quiz games. I finally got around to updating my contacts page to reflect this. Nothing mind-blowing or anything, I'm afraid. Just a bit of housekeeping! (And another discovery in the catacombs, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry! Neither do I...)

I added one of those horribly embarrassing childhood photos to my Photo page, and a frightening picture of me before my face got all hairy... I also added a brief list of the places I've lived to my Life Story. This needs to be expanded and detailed, but for the moment it's a starting point... Finally, some excavation work was done on the catacombs beneath my site - but that's another story!

Added Donna and Jill, in fact. Also came to the conclusion that I'm going to have to make my next revision slightly more substantial; these last two have been little more than a line here, a word there - and while they needed to be made, they have each required more work here than where they actually appear...

'Twas Dawn who prompted me, finally, to add my sister's photo to this site. I decided I should publicly thank her for giving me the required nudge. Thanks again, Dawn! Also, adding the acknowledgement gave me the opportunity to fix a minor glitch on this page... A WebMaster's Work is never done!

I had several goals for this new revision of Pete's Place; some I achieved, and some will have to wait their turn! Here is a list of what I have actually managed to get done:

Rewrite Home Page: I originally decided to rewrite my entire site; however the rewrite of my Home Page took so long that I was forced to rethink my strategy. Plus, of course, much of my site would not really benefit from a rewrite anyway... But my first page - well, it needed a bit of work!
Added Consistent Menu: All of the pages of Pete's Place are now the proud owners of a consistent, easy to use menu bar. I'm actually rather proud of it myself, and I think it makes navigation around my site extremely easy and user friendly. Of course, it appears at both the top and the bottom of each page; some pages also have a sub menu providing easy access to links which can only be reached from that page. I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has trouble with this menu, or thinks it could be improved in some way; or even from someone who thinks it's wonderful!
User Friendly Support: As well as the menu mentioned above, I have made several other consistencies part of my design criteria. Perhaps the most obvious that I can think of is that all internal links - that is, links that keep you here - are bold, and external links are not! This may not, of course, be apparent in some browsers...
Browser Friendly Support: I have made a conscious decision to make this site accessible to as many browsers as possible, hence the WIP and Any Browser links on my first page. To achieve this, I have made a concerted effort to make my HTML code completely compliant with the current standard from the W3C: 3.2 at time of writing. Additionally, I have done my best to ensure that where I have used tables, they still appear readable in a browser which cannot display tables, such as Lynx.
Added Site Map: Actually, the Site Map has been online for some time, for my own use; I merely added a link to it from the front page! I didn't make it part of the menu - that would have been a case of severe overkill, even for me - but I figured it might make finding some deeply buried page marginally easier for my regular visitors... Hi guys, thanks for coming back! And, apart from anything else, it gives me a home page for my browser that won't keep triggering my visitor counter!
Added Friends' Links Page: This is something that is rather overdue. Several people out there in the big wide world actually consider me to be their friend - or themselves to be my friend - or vice versa... Some of them have their own web sites; most of those have links from their sites to mine! Methinks 'tis past time I returned the favour! So there it is, and there they are; the format of the page may yet change, but it's a start...
Added Contacting Pete Page: There are several ways in which you can reach me; hopefully, I've managed to list most of them on this page! Time will tell whether this approach results in a larger or smaller number of signatures per quarter in my guestbook... In fact, as a last minute afterthought, I've added a Guestbook submenu to my first page!
Removed Background Music: I know there were a few people out there who liked the background music I was using on this site; to those people I apologise, and I hope this sudden silence does not reduce your enjoyment of these pages! I may yet add an optional soundtrack link to each page, but that seems awkward at best... I had several reasons for removing the background music: it is not (yet) supported by the HTML standard; its implementation on those few browsers that actually supported it was often buggy and unstable; and it drastically increased the time required to load each page. On a more personal note, I have become aware of a (growing?) number of people who consider background music to be an annoyance, even an intrusion - I myself have noticed that I allow web music to interrupt any of my own music that I happen to be listening to while browsing! Finally, I know someone who suffers from a mild form of aphasia; for her, and other people in her position, background music is much more effective than a KEEP OUT notice slung over the door handle of a web site. And that just did not sit well with my policy of improving accessibility!

Revisions in 1997

November 24: New photos added to my Family Photo page.
October 19: Became a member of the HTML Writer's Guild, and added the logo to my Home Page.
October 5: Brought my Photo Gallery to the world.
September 5: Added an animated GIF. It's gone now.
Late August: Background music was juggled off 'n on. It's gone now too! Also discovered a few shadowy areas 'neath my bright new web site...
July: Background music added.
June: Last major rewrite - of first page, anyway!

Pete's Place went online - um, well who can remember that far back? Don't you really hate it when hindsight tells you that you should have written something down so that you wouldn't forget it? I have an early printout of portions of this site dated March 9, 1997; beyond that, I really couldn't say...

What is planned for the future of Pete's Place? I envisage a wondrous site, full of thrills and spills; a truly earth-shattering experience; a brave new web-site; boldly going where no web-site has gone before! [Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra music, as performed in 2001!] Until then, though, you've only got this to look forward to:

The Journal: Those of you who know what this is don't need any further information. For those of you who don't know what this is, an explanation would take so much time you may as well just wait a while and find out for yourself! The project was nearing completion, and I hoped to have it finished within a couple of days (but...); from then, it may take another week before it appears here! Official Projected Online Date? When it's done. (Of course, those of you who know what this is are rapidly becoming those of you who vaguely remember what this is, for which I apologise! Events IRL-ish have diverted my attention from the project for a while...)
Miscellaneous Stuff: This covers everything else; y'know, the stuff that made me put the Under Construction notice on the first page. There are many things that I want to do with (or to) Pete's Place, but most of these things are, as yet, poorly defined in my mind. They are things which will just happen along the way, but which I can't really talk about until they're done...