Mike Davidson has done a much better job of articulating the horrific design problem that is known as myspace. He has actually worked to create a better looking myspace page by hacking the code. Check out his blog, it’s good to know that other people are worried about the atrocious design of myspace. Also, check out clipmarks.com. It is a new bookmark, networking site that is pretty interesting. If you use del.icio.us or other bookmarking sites, you will enjoy clipmarks. It has built in message boards and comments so you can talk about various sites…rather than just bookmarking them.

So I signed up to myspace today, simply because I was getting angry at not being able to see my friends blogs and other content. In accordance to my last post about myspace, I was again completely disappointed with the myspace site and their apparent lack of concern regarding design and layout. Oh, and when I finally signed up, after skipping all of the requests to add pictures, invite friends, and talk incessantly about myself in my profile, I realized that I have one friend…named Tom. I do not know Tom. I do not know where he came from, or how he became a friend of mine, but apparently we are friends according to myspace. Tom is from California and apparently he is pretty popular. He has 70610599 friends as of 11:34 PM on April 12th. That means that Tom knows a fourth of the entire population of America. But, I do not want to be Tom’s friend. Why do I need a default friend? It says he is supposed to help me with myspace, but I find it pretty forward of him to classify himself as my friend when I have never met this Tom. Anyways, here is my profile.

I have been working pretty hard on the website lately, refining the visual look of the site and making browsing a little easier. I’ve been engrossed in code, writing html and CSS. I have changed things a little bit, but the majority of you will probably barely notice a difference. Oh well, at least I can be a geek and know that I dove right into CSS code and some .php code and tried to hold my own. Web site design has come a long way since the mid nineties when everyone put up their first websites, complete with the little construction guy saying “site under construction, come back sooon!!”…ahh the good ole days. Now it seems more than ever that good design lies within simplicity. I”m still working on some code in order to revive the thumbnails beneath the images, and I think I will be able to get them back up this weekend…the guy who actually knows what he is doing within the code is planning a revision soon :) My dad pointed out a great fact that you couldn’t actually browse the different images within a category without getting images from other categories, so I changed that, and made it so when you select a category and an image, it will only display images from that category. I have a feeling I’m boring all of you with this chatter and revealing how much of a geek I really am, so I will shut up now…peace

If anyone has ventured onto the virtual community that is called myspace, no doubt the first thing that they will notice is the incredible visual style that comprises the entire site. There is no where else on the web where amateur web authors can display their latest and greatest visual styles to the entire world. For instance, take a look at this site. Now this is an amazing example of how to effectively design a great looking webpage that accurately represents who you are. Notice the intriguing use of the background image. Now some may say that it is a little overbearing, but I would have to disagree. It has just the right amount of irish flair to make anyone wish it was still St. Patricks Day. It’s almost impossible to pick a favorite element within this page because everything is so well done, but I would have to say that the use of the transparent green background on the text is an understated but well executed feature. It reminds me of the glee that I experienced in 8th grade when I learned how to use the watermark feature in Microsoft Word. You mean I can put clip art of a court gavel behind my essay on the judicial system? Unbelievable!! But back to my favorite myspace site. I love the way that “shirlee” uses that extra space at the top of her page. I just love webpages that use the full potential of the scrolling feature. There is no better feeling than having your mouse fall off your desk because you are scrolling down a 10 page website. And if that wasn’t enough, Shirlee has also used the horizontal scrolling feature, which is the only thing better than vertical scrolling. The only thing Shirlee left out on this page was a contact email so I could hire her for web design consulting.

I’m sure that some of you have seen my previous website and have been faithfully visiting the same boring site for over 2 years now. Finally, I have listened to your pleas and redesigned the entire website! The most exciting change about the site is that it is now a dynamic website rather than a static website. This means that I can post images and entries whenever I want very easily. So instead of looking at the same boring images for 2 years, you can now get many more new boring images all the time!! I will be trying to post content as much as I can, and I would like to get as many comments on different images and posts as possible. Don’t be afraid to post and tell me how much you hate or love an image or something that I ramble on about in the blog.

This takes me to the organization of the site. I am still working very hard on getting the site to a launchable state, but if you are reading this, I have decided to launch the site as it is. There will two main sections of the site, the first of which will be a photoblog/portfolio type interface that you will see when you goto www.johndcorson.com. The second part of the site is this blog that will be accessible from the main site. This blog is meant to be a more candid section of the site explaining some of my reasoning behind certain images and hopefully getting some dialog going between people about certain images.

Chase

i was talking to my friend Chase the other day while we were in New Orleans, and he said, “hey man, you should start a photo blog for all of your photos.” So I said, “ok, that sounds like a pretty good idea.” And thats how you have come to be reading this now. I’m a photographer that is currently enrolled in graduate school at Southern Illinois University, but to be honest with you, I don’t know why I’m in grad school, and I may just drop out because it is a highly policitized load of institutional crap that forces you to succumb to other people’s views of what education should be, but usually leaves out the actual practice of creating visual art. so anyways, im going to post a lot of photos and hopefully get some feedback or just comments from friends and family. Feel free to tell me whatever you think, using comments such as: “that photo made me realize what my role in life is” or “you should really consider a different profession because that photo is perhaps the largest waste of silver i’ve ever seen in my entire life.”