In my last post, I mentioned my portal site MichaelAllenSmith.com needed to be rewritten because it was an ugly version of my GitPage.
I completed that task yesterday and did a few changes this morning. It went so fast because I discovered a Pico.CSS, which is a minimal CSS framework that doesn’t require learning classes. Out of the box, you have a sharp-looking HTML site that is responsive and supports dark mode.
I love it. If you know basic HTML but don’t want to waste hours tweaking CSS, I highly recommend looking at Pico.CSS. Simple.css is another classless framework that I will likely try out for a future project.
I did make one addition. The first photo of me on a bike had an old-timey frame that I scanned in. I liked that look, so I created a CSS class that allowed me to apply that same frame look to the other photos.
My goal with the rewrite was to have a page that introduced me and not just a list of websites that I built. I also get alerts every month or two where someone with my exact name got arrested. I wanted to clarify that my record is clean and I’m not the alleged criminal should someone be looking for them.
Let me know what you think. MichaelAllenSmith.com
Jim
Feb 1, 2022 — 3:18 am
@MAS
The new page looks good. It’s interesting that a common name can lead to bad associations. It reminded me of the Michael Bolton character in the movie Office Spcace. 🙂
Separately, I’ve found the improved “related posts” section on this site to be very helpful. It’s lead me to several posts that I either never read, or at least don’t recall having read.
Michael J Smith
Feb 1, 2022 — 3:27 am
@Jim My mum always used to say it’s “popular, not common”. 😉
MAS
Feb 1, 2022 — 7:23 am
@Jim – I like the related as well. I’m going back into the archives to make grammar fixes a few times a week to older posts. I love Grammarly.
@Michael – My mom wanted to name me Steve, but my dad got his way. I think I would have liked Steve better for the alliteration.
Michael J Smith
Feb 1, 2022 — 11:10 am
@MAS, so then your initials would have been SAS, which (as a Brit) sounds pretty cool!
Sandi
Feb 11, 2022 — 7:02 pm
Very nice abbreviated life overview! Such an easy flow to it. I like the pics of you too.
It’s sad that we live in a world where someone could copy all of that, set it up somewhere else as you and try to mislead and defraud others. It came to mind because of all of the stealing of avatars that is happening at FBook and the creating of impersonating accts. I don’t know of any way to have a Web presence and not run the risk of cyber theft in some form.
I ceased being afraid many years ago. I simply limit what I share and like you, use nonsensical info whenever possible and stretch out my passwords sometimes to 18-20 characters. Take care!
P.S. I always miss the old INC days…nothing stays the same…
MAS
Feb 12, 2022 — 8:28 am
@Sandi – Nice to hear from you. I updated your INC author profile to point to your latest website.
https://ineedcoffee.com/coffee-cup-eraser-art-stamp-carving-relaxing-and-fun/
Another reason for being transparent on my portal page and linking to it from all my websites is so that I come up higher in search rankings than the “bad” characters with my name. So far that strategy is working well for Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.
Sandi
Feb 12, 2022 — 3:11 pm
I like that you kept your smiley face at your portal. Hopefully, I can reap some of your linking strategy benefits. I recently started using Linktr.ee but plan to design my own portal page soon. Thanks for editing my INC website link. Be safe.