| Welcome to the Coinquay web presence -- / -- Welkom by die Coinquay webpraesens |
|
|
|
This is not my first website. In fact, I've had quite a few sites before this one, some of them still active. The inactive ones I've made available for download in compressed format. Have a look! The Coinquay web presence is mainly in Afrikaans, but keep looking and you may find some English bits here and there. All questions and comments are welcome ... e-mail me at leuce@geocities.com. Click on the title graphic to return to the main page. And while you're here, please sign my guestbook [ Sign Here ], or read what others have said [ Read here ]. Not all my available articles and websites are reviewed here... for a complete list, visit my main page. |
|
... My desktop...
To give you an idea of what sort of person I am, I've deemed it prudent to show you what my desktop looks like. I use some version of MS Windows95 with millions of colours at 600 x 800 resolution. I prefer to navigate from my desktop rather than via the startmenu. Additionally I prefer to a three-line taskbar for ease of navigation when using many open windows. I installed the Desktop Update really only for the "Show Desktop" icon, at the bottom right. 
When I surf I prefer Netscape over Explorer. I hate surfing within frames, and Netscape enables me to click out of frames easily. I also like Netscape's ability to load images in seperate windows -- this is quite a help when surfing picture sites. Two things I hate about Netscape: the first is the notorious system freeze when a right-click menu execution coinsides with a browser prompt popup, and the second is Netscape's program feature which disables button clicking at odd times, thereby disallowing me to access e.g. webbase mail, and which requires reboot to remedy. At present I use OutlookExpress for e-mail. OutlookExpress is about just as crappy as Netscape Mail, and I sometimes I use Netscape Mail for sending and OutlookExpress for receiving. For some reason Microsoft's programmers saw fit to put the signature at the top of replied messages instead of at the bottom, necessitating me to cut and paste the signature everytime I reply to or forward mail. Pegasus mail rules! Except for the fact that one cannot save mail messages unless they are in attachment format, something I value quite a bit. I prefer Explorer 3, but unfortunately one cannot have OutlookExpress without having Explorer 4, at least. For newsgroups I fall between FreeAgent, which is very userfriendly and user configurable, but has one or two flaws, and OutlookExpress, which has that signature program feature. OutlookExpress also fails to indent quotes messages with proper characters -- I have to write messages in RTF format and then convert to text. For graphics I use three programs. The first is XnView, a brilliant and very small little program which is both an image viewer and an image manipulator. The second is, of course, MS Paint. And the third is ACDSee, a program of which I will never purchase a registred copy because of its very annoying program feature of freezing the interface when attempting to read an image with a corrupted header, a feature which only repeated End Task attempts can remedy, short of reboot. Finally, for webdesign and html writing I use a nifty little careware program called Arachnophilia. You can make use of advanced features that write chunks of code automatically, but I use it basically as a colourcoded Notepad with autoview function. |
|
... My dead and other websites...
Kewl -- my very first website kewlwerf.zip (37 kb) My very first website was designed using FrontPage97. At the time I knew almost nothing of html, and my knowledge of the web interface was limited to what I saw at friends' places. 
The first website never reached the web. I designed it in anticipation of pending internet access, which never came. I never got as far as scanning a picture, even. The site consisted of a large essaylike front page with witty comments about myself and about the rest of the site. There would have been a section for hobbies, poetry, literature, my working holiday to the UK, and a picture gallery. In the end a bastardised version of the site reached the Net, with sections of poetry, a sex story, and an internet terminology word list. Simpelwerf -- my second website simpelwerf.zip (38 kb) In many ways this website introduced me to the harsh realities of the Internet. I learned about browser incompatibilities, and about interface design, and about needing to know html in order to get anywhere. I learned that html is very dissimilar to ordinary WYSIWIG text format. 
This page was designed using Publisher97, which, it turned out, designs Netscape incompatible sites. The site consists basically of a front page with minimal biographical information. The idea was the "get something on the Net". I had Internet access at the time, but again never really got round to uploading the site. Months later I was astounded at the results when I viewed the page in Netscape. This is how the page looks in Explorer and Opera: 
Did I mention I hate Microsoft Word? I can never understand the hidden coding of the text, and I usually spend hours and hours trying to get a simple thing right. I prefer WordPerfect, with it's nifty "reveal codes" feature. So naturally I'm disinclined to take Microsoft's side in this website botchup: it's not Netscape who cannot display it correctly, it's Publisher who cannot design it properly. *g* Termwerf 1 -- my first attempt at a language related website termwerf1.zip (74 kb) I dreamt of using the Internet to bring together amateur terminologists. This was partly owing to my instant recognition of the power of the medium, and partly owing to my utter disappointment in the internet terminology list supplied by the Afrikaans Foundation at the time. This was also my introduction to the power of word art. Long after I started using notepad as an html editor I still used Publisher exclusively for designing word art. 
The site basically consisted of an introduction page and a policy page. The policy page explained what kind of lists were eligible for submission. I made use of the freespace webhost www.afrikaner.co.za, which gives free space to any site whose main page is in Afrikaans. Pages had to be manually uploaded via FTP, and this turned out to be a rude if perhaps useful introduction to how file transfer really works. Leuce's site 1 -- my first attempt at notepad html, and typography control leucsite.zip (76 kb) I soon realised that a website needs careful design and planning. I set out to make me a multilayered website along the same ideas as the very first website, "kewl" above. I used notepad as html editor. I also experimented with typographic control -- I wanted two spaces after every fullstop, something which html by default does not do. I almost implimented the invisible gif trick as well. 
The site consisted of a front page, with subpages for many sections of interest, but the poetry section was the only one completed. I was in the process of writing the other sections when I happened upon the program Arachnophilia (for html design), and also realised the shortcomings of my existing design. The next personal site I designed was the big Leuce's site 2. My second language site was also taking a lot of my time. Termwerf 2 -- my second attempt at a language site termwerf2.zip (22 kb) One big flaw of my first language website was that it focused to greatly on word lists. My second attempt at a language website had a slightly more broad focus. I set it up as a general site, with sections for terminology and lexicography, as well as for translation, proofreading and copywriting. I sometimes wish I completed the site, but time constraints caused me to give it up. 
I was very proud of my neat page layout. At cession the site consisted of a main page and a subpage for terminology. I realised that I would probably not be able to launch a full language related site, owing to time constraints. Soon after this page went live, I decided to devote all my energies to my personal site, the big Leuce's site 2. Leuce's site -- my biggest personal website yet http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5897/index2.html At completion this site would have boasted over 70 articles on various topics. There was a section for personal information, for hobbies, for heavy topics, for quizzes, for my working holiday, for web design, and for an introduction into South Africa. There was also a seperate section for terminology studies. I designed it as a two-layer site, having a single main page linking to a single sublevel of different pages, which in turn linked back to the main page. This must seem clumsy, but I preferred that design to a more complex deep structured design. 
After many months my internet access was coming to an end, owing to financial reasons. I quickly grabbed the completed articles and sorted them in a kind of "grave site", which is reviewed seperately, below. I was very lucky to get the site listed with Die Knoop, and I watched in awe as my visit count skyrocketed beyond "100" (one hundred). Today the site has had over 4000 visits, still not much, but I'm happy. Translation 1 -- my first advertisement site oldleucetti.zip (62 kb) I designed a web page to advertise and promote myself as translator and proofreader. I did not expect to get any replies... translators normally advertise via word of mouth. At first I had it hosted by Geocities, but a friendly Dutch translator warned me of Geocities' non-commercial policy, and I moved the site to Afrikaner.co.za, who had no problems with commercial sites as long as the main page was in Afrikaans. 
In retrospect the site was a disaster -- it was far to long and wordy. I designed seperate pages for Afrikaans readers, English readers and International readers. In the end the page did prove successful, because one of my overseas contracts (for about £100) did come because some agency found this page. Later I redesigned the page completely, and that page is currently available at http://www.afrikaner.co.za/termwerf/smurray.html. Talanimi -- my internet language practice journal http://members.xoom.com/talanimi/ I never learn. Concurrent with my personal website project, Leuce's site 1, I started a project which was supposed to be a monthly updated journal of scientific and academic papers on anything language related. I had many friends who had interesting language related jobs, and I hoped to coax them into writing some things for me. Alas. 
This page still gets many visits from unsuspecting surfers, mainly because it is still listed with Die Knoop, who for some reason stubbornly refuses to remove the link, and also refuses to add a link for either of my other language related sites, Die Kraaines (The Crow's Nest, http://hello.to/afrikaans) and Termswerf (reviewed below). Termswerf -- my grave site for language related sites http://www.afrikaner.co.za/termwerf/ I took my first language related site off the net, and replaced it with a "grave site", a site that explains the demise of the previous sites. It gives an introduction to each of the departed sites, and contains links to compressed files of those sites. It also contains a vision statement, hinting of what may come in a year or two years' time. 
Notice the topdown structure of this page. It contains a heading, and an article with subheadings. This type of simple but effective page structure continues to be an influence in my web work. Jasper of #Havnor -- a fan page of an Intenet personality jasper.zip (19 kb) I started a fan's website of a certain Internet personality, and was promptly threatened with libel charges. So I took it down and rewrote it, removed all references to real persons or places, and put it on the web again. 
I used codenames in the page. I'm Ged Sparrowhawk of #Gont. Jasper of #Havnor and Vetch of #Iffish are also relevant persons. These codenames come from the novel "A wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula le Guinn. Mouseover experiments 1 and 2 http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5897/jilllmouseover.html http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5897/milanmouseover.html A few months ago I wanted to do those cool mouseover things. I searched the internet high and low for a script or a utility that automatically creates mouseover code. Most utilities made mouseovers that worked in one browser only. Then I found the Mighty Mouseover Machine. 
Jilll is me, and Milan is my little sister. |
|
|
(c) 1999 Samuel Murray |
