Squirrelism.net

Iva’s personal site. Formerly located at supersonicsquirrel.net

Archive for the ‘Websites’ Category

Fansites are unoriginal, part #1

Posted in Bitching, Websites on 12/11/2007 11:55 pm by Iva

OK so…this is the first part of my rant regarding fansites/unofficial “celebrity” sites. This was not meant to be offensive, I just visited many, many of them for the purpose of writing this, even some about people whom I had to google further to see who they actually were; and I was surprised to see how manifactured they were. I thought the days of the “me/you/www” pattern were over, but nah: now the clichés have extended to other types of websites.

It all started sometime last year when an owner of a female celebrity website (I don’t even remember for whom) asked me to exchange links with Invisible Movement. I asked them in what way does the subject of their website relate to John Frusciante and/or RHCP and they said that they have no idea, but they’re looking for a website with Google PageRank of 4 to affiliate, so they could improve their own PageRank. That was surely amusing, especially now that I have examined the reportedly elite fansites, with 1000+ hits per day and discovered that none of them has a PageRank higher than 4. During that quest, I noticed how many things all those sites had in common. It was creepy. I thought I’d share the results of what appears to be some sort of a study I did.

Let’s analyse a typical fansite from start to finish and debate it a bit. Ready? Here we go!

The first thing you’ll notice upon entering a fansite, is a huge PNG image as its background. In some cases it could be a huge jpg or a flash file; but seriously, the most of them are huge PNGs. Oops, I was wrong, they are BLENDS…those lil’ things thrown together in Photoshop, saved instead of being exported. I saw one with a censored boob, even. Very artistic.

In some cases, people actually pay someone else to do them “a header” or “coding”. Let’s dive into the coding of a fansite and see what we paid for, shall we?

<body bottomMargin=0 topMargin=0>

<table width="640" border="0" bordercolor="#ffffff" bgcolor="#ffffff" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="10" align="center">
<tr>
<td style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ffffff 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #ffffff 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #ffffff 1px solid;
BORDER-BOTTOM: #ffffff 1px solid">

<table width="625" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" height="15" align="center">
<tr>
<td class=box1 style="BORDER-RIGHT: #BA251D 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #BA251D 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #BA251D 1px solid;
BORDER-BOTTOM: #BA251D 0px solid">

<table width="400" border="0" cellpadding="1" align="center">
<tr>

<td width="65"><div align="center"><font size="1"

Know how, huh? Inline css, applied right after the element itself, font size of 1 (1 what?) and it’s quite obvious that people don’t even know what they’re doing. Web standards? I’ll have that with fries, thanks. Nested tables? Hello, 1999!

When you’ve recovered from the initial shock containing of a large image and horrible code (shame on you, you looked into a website’s underpants), take a peek at the domain name. It’s usually someonefan.com, miss-someone.com, ultimate-someone.com, someone-firstletterofsomeoneslastname.com, love-someone.com, oh-someone.com, someonenet.com (note the digresy), someoneweb.net …someone-online.com. Of course, there are also .net and .org domains, but you get the idea. If it is a website (duh), why does it need words like online and web? Of course it’s a website and it’s online.

The introduction texts are the same everywhere. It goes like this:

Welcome to domain.com, your newest/biggest/247 online source[1] for mr/mrs/miss Someone. Here you’ll find all the information about Someone, plus latest pics and videos.

If you’re lucky, such text won’t be written in font with bizzare dropshadow, of ridiculously small size, having its name begin with 04b or, why not, all three of those. Also, if you have not seen it scroll upside down and claim enormous amount of visitors as if there’s never been any differences between hit counters and visito counters, you have not seen anything.

Why is it “my” online source? If it’s online for everyone to see, why is it “mine”? Seriously.

Why are they 247 online sources? Do websites close at night, perhaps? The appropriate answer would be Of course they don’t, silly me, we all have to know when Someone went to pee and make a scandal of how they were actually leading lives of normal people. Duh.

1 They can also be “online sources of information” and “ultimate sources”, mind that.

In part two, I will be ranting more. The way I’d started, there might be up to five parts to this series, so look out for it!

, , , , , , , ,

Plugging, plugging, p-l-u-g-g-i-n-g!

Posted in Websites on 10/25/2007 02:49 am by Iva

Squirrelism is currently undergoing a writer’s block combined with a reorganisation (and too much other things to do, frankly), so I thought I’d post an “awww, those were the days” type of an entry and, at the same time, plug:

  • Mira (ex vega-dream.net), my wonderful real-life friend who bought herself a new domain name at last! And the site is mad! In a good way:)
  • Vera who was my hostee here, until a couple of weeks ago. She got herself a domain now

Shall I mention that the choices of domain names are absolutely amazing in both cases? I mean, none of these two words actually exists! ;)

More tomorrow. And more often from now. I promise.

An update! Happy?

Posted in Babblings, Bitching, Life here, Reviews, Websites on 09/09/2007 01:07 pm by Iva

I hate blogging. If I wasn’t obliged to blog on this website, I’d never blog again. Never. All I want to do is to hide and disappear. Buteveryone wanted me to update. I basically wanted to redesign and reorganise the site a bit before I do anything else, it’s not like anyone is actually visiting this website (or not as much as I’d love them to, anyway) and I don’t like being average in anything, I prefer being either the best or the worst, so I don’t think I felt like updating. Oh yes, and I had 5 different drafts of what I wanted to post here, it’s just that I never managed to turn any of them into an actual post. So, I’ll try to connect ‘em with duct tape and superglue and see if it makes sense. It probably doesn’t, but who cares?

My personality changed over the years *le gasp*
…either that, or I didn’t calculate my results properly on the tests I did after the one Heidi sent me back in 2000, when Tickle was still known as Emode. I thought that, as Travis say in their song Why Does it Always Rain On Me?, I lied when I was seventeen years old. But, apparently that is not true. The first time I solved a personality test, I was an INFJ. Each time after that, from, let’s say, 2001 to 2006, I would have been INFP. Now I’m an INFJ again. And I like that type. I like the J in it, I have to judge everything, I gain pleasure from judging and critique, so I am proud that my personality type is called The Critic.

Fanlistings
New: Elisabeth of Bavaria, empress of Austria, Calítoe and one more to come.
Revamped: Alfred J. Kwak, Beograd, bridges (OK, somewhat revamped), Danube river.

More revamps to come as well.

I owe some people emails on running the fanlistings I lost with them and/or giving them the members list. Sorry, I’m slow and confused. All the time.

I won’t rant about what I think of some certain people on TFL, but I simply wish all the staff members could be like Adrienne. She’s the best ever. A human, for a change.

RHCP world tour is over
…and I’m already missing it as it was wonderful searching for material for Invisible Movement after each show, looking for video and audio of intro and outro jams and whatever song dear John sang on his own. There’s one difference from the previous tour, though. I actually went to some concerts. Three of them, even. Three shows, three front rows, three unforgettable experiences. And the second one was perfect, simply perfect. I should seriously write about it sometime. And go to more shows and score more front rows on the next tour. It’s nice to be able to see John mess with his complicated pile of effect pedals, etc. Oh …there are three more guys in the band? Thanks, I’m always forgetting that.

Squirrelism.net extravaganza
In future, expect rants against women, men, the world, MySpace (that one’s not going to be coated in sacharine, y’know?), fanclubs, things and stuff.

And that’s it, really.

Lever Pulled

Posted in Babblings, Bitching, Creepy, Deeper thoughts, Life here, Websites, Work on 04/20/2007 10:12 pm by Iva

This is for Sofija, she wanted me to update…and I am guessing she’s not aware that I have made another blog for Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian-speakers, it’s over there. Also, RHCP Serbia, run by Ivan, Jovana and I is finally up, for now just the forum, but we’ll get the rest up when we can.

First, one of my best friends and one of the most important people in my life sent me an angry mail yesterday afternoon. I wrote a long reply to explain who was screwing around with me, she replied back today, but I don’t dare to read it. I put the message in the read later folder. I am not mentally able to see what she will say. All I know is that, whatever I do, I need her in my life because she’s like family to me. God, this sucks. And I know that she knows I have no nerves but…still… I lost her once already. My heart and mind wouldn’t survive that.

I had a website crash which I managed to solve but it ended up with taking tranquilizers and my hands were shaking. I thought someone hacked me, I alarmed the hosting provider support and it turned out a database table just b0rked itself and needed to be repaired. I was so paranoid. I almost thought years of hard work blew up…so, I needed a walk…and more Pepsi…

…and then when I came back home with Pepsi, snacks and dad’s cigarettes, my wallet didn’t come home with me somehow, so I lost my ID, my health care ID, public transportation ID with the monthly ticket, bookstore three-year discount card, Elle shopping card and two debit cards, one youth Visa and one Maestro. There was also a tiny birthday card from a friend, a couple of paper calendars and proverbs we get with popcorn. And some money, about 20 Euros in dinars, but that’s the least important thing. Luckily, I blocked both cards and nobody knows my PINs anyway…but god…I don’t have documents.

If my life continues like this, I’ll die from a heart attack at 30. There’s been too much stress recently, everywhere. And in the end, come se tutto quello non bastasse, my camera is completely broke, I can’t even turn it on because it starts pulling its lense in and out as if it was epileptic. I wanted to take it to the service, but with my schedule these days, that turned out to be pretty impossible.

Recently, I’ve been on DeviantArt more than ever before and I’ve been neglecting the most of the online communities I’m visiting apart from the local Lush forum I’m the administrator of. Why? Work, work, work; followed by social life, social life, social life; ending with sleep, sleep, sleep.

Partly, I blame all this on the fears and traumas I’ve been through in 2005. and the most of 2006. Partly, I blame it on having been completely smitten and gaga for the past two months.

Shakira knows how to describe it properly. So, I’ll let her finish this entry for me…

Ojerosa, flaca, fea, desgreñada,
torpe, tonta, lenta, necia, desquiciada,
completamente descontrolada
tú te das cuenta y no me dices nada
ves que se me ha vuelto
la cabeza un nido
donde solamente tu tienes asilo
y no me escuchas lo que te digo
mira bien lo que vas a hacer conmigo

Christmas & Personal Sites & Incantesimo

Posted in Life here, Websites on 01/08/2007 05:23 pm by Iva

Many thanks to everyone who wished me a merry Christmas yesterday, especially to Fruity, because she did it twice. And it’s still not late, as we’re weirdos who celebrate Christmas for three days…actually, four days including the Christmas Eve (which was on Saturday), as we’re weird like that. :D

After having been in the wonderful world of Despair for a little while, I can say this for sure now: people are strange. There’s also the other option, that people are OK and that Iva is strange, but as I have gained way too much self-esteem on one certain day last year, I’ll settle for the first thing. Basically, seems like there are trends in what people’s websites should be like, but, apparently, also in how people should behave? I am saying this simply because, lately, I’ve been running into websites with massive background images (better) and websites of dumb girls whose only thoughts are how to be pretty, how to get laid (because everyone needs to have sex to be cool or something like that?) and how to get drunk. BLAH. I wonder if a person with such amazing goals in life can carry out a normal conversation? The worst thing of all is that there are HORDES of 12-17 years old of that kind. Shouldn’t there be a way to brainwash them or something? Of course it’s fine to be with someone whom you love, to be clean and tidy and moderate social drinking is what most people do…but these kids are taking it to the moron-level. Do they read? I mean, do they read anything else than what’s trendy at the moment and watch any movie regardless of Orlando Bloom or whoever else’s presence in it? I think I’m worried about every new generation being dumber and dumber! Hopefully, someone will prove me wrong.

Oh yes. I’ve just watched the first episode of the season 9 of one of my favourite TV series, Incantesimo. Let’s say that I was not really impressed. The ending of season 8 was pretty much forced out, it was not clear if two of the main characters actually died (one was shoot and the other one fell on the floor after her lover hit the end of her neck bone) and now, boom, nothing has happened, new characters are there, these two are most likely dead and some others have just…err…vanished away? My mother was wondering what happened to a little boy who was adopted by the woman who was killed in the last episode of the season 8 (and who was, sadly, one of my favourite characters…we will miss you, Denise *sob sob*), as he would obviously could’ve only been adopted by his uncle who’s still in the series…? Either way, what’s the point of a series if things like this are happening? >_<

Older Entries
Newer Entries