Glaring Notebook Reborn

34 Replies

Surprise!

Welcome to my new blog.

Or rather, my blog, reborn.

After years of sitting on Brinkster (since December 2000, using it to test scripts for Xfresh), I finally got round to finish coding my blog. Yes, I am not powered by WordPress. This programmer ethic was inspired by DJCS, the walking-talking-DNS-server and uber geek, who also coded his own blog.

You’ll notice some new features, like categories (I’m not done putting blog entries in categories; I’ll announce when it’s done), a new skin, Cubed, that is now default, replacing the 17-month-reigning Trained. (Yep, no more staring at people sitting on the LRT.)

Yes, you can still change skins, if you miss looking at people sitting on the LRT.

Or, if you miss me, you can come sit with me on the LRT. If there are seats available, and no more deserving people to sit in them.

What was the idea/theme/motif behind Cubed?

I just wanted to shock people. Make people go, whoa. Make people realize that hey, this is not the same site anymore. It does not have a default black background. No, it does not have anything to do with the black metal incident; I’ve always wanted to make my next one a colorful one.

As for the left-side image, it’s inspired by my love for Rubik’s Cubes. Somehow, I accidentally made the lines grey instead of black, and that’s where the sketch-like cube came from. The font was picked because it could not be held seriously; same with the colors. The rainbow was a last-minute addition, and the dithered pattern effect was made by saving the image as a 16-color GIF file, not through Photoshop. I liked the effect, as it was reminiscent of good old Windows 3.1 and 640×480 at 16-color VGA displays (or 320×240 at 256-color VGA displays.) Meanwhile, the font was more 70’s retro, making a mishmash that would never have happened in 1993.

The preface text on the sidebar did not need a background; it miraculously could be read across the screen. 😀

Yeah, just so you all know I’m not always serious even though I was born with a serious face, yo.

You can still add a comment with your email address, and the email address would come out jumbled to spambots, but clickable to humans. You don’t need to type a subject anymore (well it’s been that way for a while anyway.) There’s also a calendar view at the bottom, where you can view blog entries by the month or year.

As for other horribly-named blog terms like permalink, trackback and pinging, well… experiment with the Replies link at the bottom of each entry.

Give me more life stories!

I started a website in 1998 under XOOM.COM, as it was known then, to host my Quake 2 plugin-player models. My first ever URL? http://members.xoom.com/albnok. It did not have ads then! It was then bought over by NBCi.COM. Around that time too, I registered for a free domain name under NameZero.com (it was either that or the only other competitor then).

So, about 5 years before this, I had http://www.albnok.com/.

That domain died, and I started blogging in December 2001. Other than me and DJCS, I haven’t a clue who else has such a long contiguous stretch of blog entries on one server, one system. TV Smith perhaps? Paul had dozens of subdirectories, subdomains and domains before arriving at his current one, but I am not able to access his archives, so yeah.

Okay, so I’ve been sitting on this for much longer than I expected. Much, much, much longer. Ever since the days anybody wondered where I suddenly got so much bandwidth to upload so many pictures (Brinkster only has 30 MB of space), I have been using my webspace secretly. 😀

I’ve also put the links out on the side, in this Cubed skin at least. Because I took the trouble to update them, you should too!

My blog address was not:
http://www16.brinkster.com/albnok
It was officially:
http://www.xfresh.com/albert (but if you link me as the former I would still be happy to be linked.)
It is now:
http://www.glaringnotebook.com

The first ten people to change my link to the new one will get a free paragraph each, with me explaining why I linked to you, what I like about your blog and why you people should go to your blog. What are you waiting for? Free linkage and pimpage!

34 thoughts on “Glaring Notebook Reborn”

  7. didi Post author

    dude, i really dont mind the color but the font is too tiny lah!! eye straining..!!!

    but me likey the cubey…. me linketh to you soon.. if im nice… which im not… whatever lah i should start linking kankankan????

    Reply ↓
  19. Yuenqi Post author

    We started building home/web-page at the same year (1998). ;D

    My first was http://www.geocities.com/exlian and it’s gone undoubtedly. Had an XOOM’s one as well.

    Got a blogger account for the sake of commenting in year 2002. Started blogging the time Xfresh’s Blog launched, which was July 2004, have to thank you, anyway.

    Oh yea, happy new year Albert.

    Reply ↓
  22. lionel Post author

    No, I’m not taking this skin seriously.

    Changed link! Did I make it?

    You know, I would’ve known about this earlier IF YOU HAD RSS. It’s not that hard. How many times have I told you?

    Reply ↓
  24. Yurisan Post author

    "I just wanted to shock people. Make people go, whoa. Make people realize that hey, this is not the same site anymore"

    – Fucking straight!

    Reply ↓
  25. Yvonne Foong Post author

    Hey Albert. New layout! And ooh…GREEN. Updated yer link. I know it’s late so I don’t expect any pimpings. How about free advert for my t-shirts ah? You’ve so many fans. Write a post on it and perhaps place the banner too? hehehe

    http://www.yvonnefoong.com/images/tshirt/Heart_banner_static150X150.jpg
    http://www.yvonnefoong.com/images/tshirt/Heart_banner_static468X60.jpg

    Hehe… *grin*

    By the way, So we started blogging in the same year! But I only learnt html in 1999 though.

    Thanks for buying my tshirt yeah! Hope u like it!

    Reply ↓
  27. Jaymee Post author

    What a refreshing new look to return to. Sorry I haven’t been reading so long, Albert, but I gotta say, I totally dig this new look.

    Reply ↓
  30. lola.x Post author

    wahey. i didnt think i’d see the day you went technicolour. but this is so very much cooler than black!

    Reply ↓

  34. Pingback: Introducing Glaring Notebook: Pressed For Words | Glaring Notebook

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