Today I launched two websites for Kip Zurcher, Lambda Chi Alpha’s chief operating officer.
KipZurcher.com will be Kip’s new blog, while wiki.kipzurcher.com will be a site for he and board members to use for projects.
I launched a cleaner, XHTML/CSS friendly redesign of the North American Interfraternal Foundation’s website yesterday. I still have a lot of work to do in rebuilding their online applications. In the meantime, users will rely on their PDF applications.
My conference in Chicago this weekend went well. Called CFEA, the College Fraternity Editors Association is really for editors of fraternal publications. I used to be editor of Lambda Chi Alpha’s publication the Cross and Crescent, but now focus solely on web content. Regardless, I wanted to go and had a great time.
In addition to having a great time, I added a few more things to my plate. I’m going to chair CFEA’s Information Technology Committee this year, which means I’m in charge of cfea.org, a site I designed nearly three years ago. I was also re-elected to the board. I’ve always enjoyed this organization, so serving a fourth year on the board will be a pleasure.
My brother was also in Chicago this weekend, but we were unable to connect. Between his crazy schedule on set for a Nicholas Cage movie and my conference schedule, it just wasn’t likely that we’d have the time. Plus, my brother kept calling my old cell phone number; so I didn’t get his messages until I returned to Indianapolis.
Last night, I did a little work on the Where I’ve Been section of my site. I decided to add a column that displayed each nation’s flag. I also linked each flag to the CIA’s World Factbook, which contains an excellent summary of each country. I like this site because it starts with a country map, a paragraph of background information, and then follows with a bunch of stats.
A few of the places I’ve visited a no longer countries or are considered territories, and thus, were not in the CIA’s World Factbook. For those, I had to look elsewhere to find their flag. In doing so, I found Flags of the World; a content-rich site that covers the history of each flag, its design, its use of colors, and a whole lot more.
Now my “Where I’ve Been” page has some color. I’m still not very happy with how the table/chart looks, but I do like its function, for sorting the columns by date first visited, country name, and continent is useful.
I continue to contemplate the definition of “country” and “visit.” Of of the places I’ve listed some are considered territories, which questions what I consider a country. Other places I’ve listed I visited for less than a day. For some, I saw a lot in a single day. Others, I saw only in passing.
Qualifying my list of places visited continues to challenge me. Perhaps I’ll flesh out that debate in a later posting.
I redesigned my personal website using valid XHTML 1.0 and CSS coding techniques. It is a fully accessible site — as described in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 and the Web Accessibility Guidelines.
Note (Feb 2005): I retired jason.pearce.net in February 2005, archiving a copy at net.jasonpearce.com for historical purposes.