Tuesday, April 14, 2009

I've grown bored with this site

It has been 3-and-a-half years since my first post here, but I've had a website in one form or another on at least 3 different domains, for at least 10 years. When I first started, it was fun coding my own HTML, making (simple) graphics, and generally tooling around with it. Over time, I put various roleplaying and other gaming material, including my A&E zines, up on the site. Because I figured it I was generating it, I might as well share it.

I have never been cutting edge when it comes to technology... OK, I have to pause right here and assure to any future employers that I have helped develop and market plenty of cutting-edge technology and products, but what I'm talking about here is my personal, home life. I have never been one who needs the latest gadget or get on the latest trend. At work, I'm a tech-oriented product manager. At home, I'm a bit of a Luddite. Well, not really. I don't hate technology. I think it's grand... At let me digress again to say that in the last episode of Battlestar Galactica <spoiler> the decision by the surviving humans to abandon their technology </spoiler> was stupid. But I don't own a smart phone, an HD television or DVD player, or a wireless router. The most impressive piece of technology I own is a TiVo. Whee!

My first true forays into the internet was that kiddie pool known as AOL, back in 1994. I can't knock it, since that is where I met my wife and we just celebrated our 12-year anniversary, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm anything other than a layman when it comes to the web. Nowadays, I spend most of my online time at RPG.net, RPOL.net, BGG.com, and playing flash games. I read forums, but I'm mostly a lurker. I'm not on any social networking site and don't really feel the need to be. The only reason this site has a blog format is to make updating it easier.

And it is exactly the blog format that I've grown unhappy with. Yes, it makes updates easy, but it doesn't work well as a repository for my gaming stuff. The indexing sucks. I miss my old tiered structure, even if it was a pain to manage. A more wiki-like structure would work much better for my needs, I think. I've been playing with Google sites for my Monster Hunters campaign and it seems to work reasonable well, but I desperately need to tackle the page design and layout.

Of course, changing the site would mean a lot of work that is neither rewarding nor interesting. And I really need to prepare my Call of Cthulhu game for Kublacon. So I have some more thinking to do and I'm not under any time pressure (though I tend to prioritize projects based on when they're due, so not having a deadline is not necessarily a good thing). If anyone has any suggestions, please send me an email.

Labels: