Blasts from the past

[trixtah]

I was just trolling through some Victoria University web stuff for a particular reason, and I thought I'd check in on the site that I ended up implementing for the School I worked for initially when I returned to NZ. Now, I am not a web designer. I was hired to administer the school's servers and to maintain the lab machines. The School had spent over $5000 on redesigning their website (carried out by students and a senior tutor with Flash as the sole navigation method), and it was unusable. The University's marketing department were developing new Dreamweaver templates for use by the Departments and Schools, and I volunteered us to be among the first to implement them. At least before anyone seriously talked about implementing the crap site, which was not better than nothing.

Now, the templates as they were designed were fairly eh. Here is an example from the HSS Faculty, and here is the Faculty of Commerce and Administration. Since the School of Information Management was part of the FCA (and still is), we had to base our colour scheme off the green for the faculty. However, the useful thing was that the School had just been moved into new, fairly funky premises, and I borrowed a few shots that someone took of some architectural elements for the design.

So, here's the SIM website. It is almost exactly the same as how I initially designed it over 3 years ago, cute drop-down menus and all. The School title is still a tad small. No-one's added to the header image, which was my intention (I think a few more thumbnail shots would have been good). And no-one has implemented pics on the title page, which was my intention as well, but which I ran out of time to do (like on the Law Faculty page). Well, I suppose it proves that my 3-month rush job to implement it before moving roles has been functional enough in the interim.

Also talking of things not changing at all in the interim, there is the grand total of 6 new staff out of 45 in the department - two new academics, one new senior tutor (new roles), and two new administrative roles. The senior academic staff haven't changed in the slightest. I can't see anyone "missing", and the only swap is that the guy who replaced me is now the "senior administrator" (I see that it's no longer a management role), and there is a new guy for the donkey-work job. Hah.


ETA: There's a new feature in Google Maps called My Maps. I've made one featuring all the places in which I've lived. While I may have missed one or two, 26 different houses in four cities in three countries isn't exactly shabby (in a horrible "I've moved waaaay too much" kind of way).

Comments

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

You know, some of us admire that amount of motion. By some of us, I clearly mean "me."

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Okey doke, let's swap, then. :-)

I loathe moving, with a passion. I'm not so great at culture shock, and the amount of culture shock between Australia (or, at least Canberra) and NZ is probably not as much as between Canada and the US (ie. pretty minimal). I still feel it though. England was worse.

I'm glad to have gone to England, though - I love history, and it boosted my career. I'm glad to be here, because I have fabulous lovers (and a decent job). All things being equal, though, I'd rather be Home. Although I'm not sure if I'd recognise it.

I also haven't sussed out if I loathe moving because I've done it way too much (especially as a child - perhaps if we'd stayed in one place more, I wouldn't get so bothered about moving as an adult), or if I would hate it anyway. It certainly appears to be habit-forming...!

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

We should totally swap. I keep minimizing the amount of stuff I own so as to make moving easier, and for a long time I moved about twice a year. Admittedly, at the end of it I hated moving so much that I stayed in a house with my ex for two years just to avoid it, but you know.

I think I mostly like the amount of travel, because I've been attached to Ontario a long damn time.

You know what? That's it. I'm writing a Southern Ontario Adventures travelogue and attaching it to the map I'm building. It promises to be great fun.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Heh, I didn't leave NZ (except to go to the US twice) until I was 30. I only ever lived in Auckland before then too. I've been quite busy this last (almost) decade!

As for stuff, I have bugger all, really. I think I'm still in that mindset of "able to comfortably move countries within a month if necessary". I don't have a proper couch (I have a crap thing my partners hate - I need to suck it up and get a real one), or proper tables and chairs. I have two beanbags. I have a futon and two bookshelves, with my books double-shelved (I need another one). All these things cost less than $400 total (well, except the futon), and I'd be happy to throw them away if I move.

When I came back from England, I had 6 cartons full of general stuff (including clothes) and 8 cartons of books. Ooops. Now that I've merged my NZ bookstash, and bought quite a few more here (evul high wages!), I will need at least a round score of cartons to transport them again. *sigh*

I'm enjoying your travelogue. I should do a similar one for NZ (did you know that Ontario has nearly 3x the land area of NZ?). As for your aunty working in the blah town, perhaps it's best you don't know what she did. And even though I'm an antipodean, even I have heard of Peterborough and its dykes. Guelph sounds groovy, as long as the coffee is really good. And, ah, Duke of Edinburgh Awards. I haven't myself, but I've heard the stories. :-) She-cats, btw, are "queens" - I don't think their consorts are "dukes" though. (I'm sooo funnee)

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

Heh. I need to expand the travelogue a bit. I want to make it into a short-story thing for the art exhibition I'm having in six weeks, then attach it to the map.

[pretentiousgit.livejournal.com]

I also want to not hit "enter" when I'm still thinking about something. Go LJ! Thanks for the advice about the cats. I'd love to see a similar project for NZ.

[ironed_orchid]

Wow, I love your map. And only partly because you lived in as many places as me, if not more.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Groovyness! :-)