| Last modified 16 Apr 2010 |
About My Page
For you or for me?
This site focuses on my research papers, books and interests. Some of it is useful for others, and some of it is useful for me; in the words of David MacKay, 'When I acquire information, I usually put the details on a webpage, so that I don't need a memory, and so that other people can use this information too.'
Date
At the top right of each page I list the date when that page was last modified. This tells you how recent the information on a page is.
Layout
The layout is organised as follows:
• Top masthead: Site name and general information about me and my homepage.
• Centre column: This is where the content is. It is the only region that ever changes during browsing.
• Left menu: This is the menu for the academic part of my site. From here you can access all of the content with a single click; there are no secondary menus. 'Highlights' leads to no new content but signals recent changes, papers and events and lists some external links.
• Right menu: This is the menu for the popular part of my site. Again, from here you can access all of the content with a single click. 'Highlights' shows recent changes and internal and external links.
Browser notes
In 2006 I moved from Linux to Mac OS X and remain euphoric. (Don't despair, I still use vi exclusively.) These pages look better on a Mac than on Windows.
Production notes
Rather than using a software package to create these pages, I edit all of the html files by hand. The masthead, left menu and right menu are all inserted using server side includes, and all of the pages are formatted using a single style file (style.css).
Usage
In 2007, this site had 63,800 visitors and 123,000 page views.
In 2008, this site had 72,300 visitors and 121,200 page views.
In 2009, this site had 79,359 visitors and 124,075 page views.
Typographical summary
| Text, principal | |
| Typeface | Arial |
| Text size | 12 px |
| Leading | 17 px |
| Text, menu highlights | |
| Typeface | Arial |
| Text size | 11 px |
| Leading | 16 px |
| Text, headings | |
| Typeface | Georgia |
| Text size, primary | 21.6 px |
| Text size, secondary | 18 px |
| Text size, tertiary | 14.4 px |
| Figures | |
| Aspect ratio | 3:4 |
| Size, small | 120 x 160 px |
| Size, large | 180 x 240 px |
| Border | 10 px |
| Layout | |
| Top masthead | 60 px high |
| Left menu | 215 px wide |
| Centre column | 500 px wide |
| Right menu | 215 px wide |
| Colours | |
| Background, centre column | white |
| Background, other regions | pale grey (F9F9F9) |
| Text | black (default) |
| Link | blue (default) |
| Hover over link | light blue (6495ED) |
| Visited link | purple (default) |
| 'Last modified', etc. | grey (A9A9A9) |