PlutoLighthouse.NET V11

[Ageman20XX]

Greetings!

So I've actually been working on this particular project for the last 7 or 8 9 or 10 months, but only felt it appropriate to display here now. I'm still not done (though pretty close), as you'll undoubtedly notice, but there's enough content to warrant checking it out and I hope you do. ^_^

The current version of the site (Version 10) can be accessed here and checking this out first will give you a better idea of how much has improved when you view the new version (11) below.

UPDATE : I've started "migrating" to the new site. This means that some pages on the old site will no longer be viewable - the "About" page, for example, now automatically redirects to its newer counterpart. Because of this, its possible that by the time you read this, there will be no more "old" pages to view. That's a good thing though! The new pages are better! Haha.

Now, on to the description, shall we? Please note that I'm gonna ramble a bit. If you just wanna get to the meat of this post, I suggest you scroll to the bottom down a bit.

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UPDATE : I ramble too much - lol. I've revised the text in this post to be more straight-forward, so those of you who haven't read it yet are in luck.

PlutoLighthouse.NET is a site that I've been constantly updating, revising, and adding on-to since I was in high-school, early Grade 9. The site's been around for nearly 10 years now and while it hasn't always been the busiest place, it's always been my own personal guilty pleasure. I just love web design, artwork, and programming so much it would be crazy to take it down at this point - I've gathered quite a lot of content!

That's not to say it's the perfect site or anything - far from it - but I do pride myself in how I've kept it consistently updated with content for so many years and how and how diligently I try to follow the most up-to-date web-standards and optimization, not to mention user-accessibility.

Each year or so the site goes through a kind of redesign/upgrade after I get sick of it. Sometimes it's merely a visual/design change but occasionally (like this time), it's total and complete overhaul of the entire website's design, structure, and purpose. In the 10 years since I created the site, this is absolutely the biggest upgrade I've done yet and it's taken the longest amount of time in total. Version 10 of the site lacked a lot of order in code and design. It was messy, hard to navigate, and honestly looked very amateur retrospect. Version 11 - the one I'm showing you right now - tries to improve in many of these areas. Organization, layout/design, content, search engine optimization, accessibility, code cleanliness, web-standards, and more.

PlutoLighthouse.NET - Version 11

PlutoLighthouse.NET (Portal)

The Portal is exactly what it sounds like - a "home" of sorts for the entire PlutoLighthouse.NET umbrella. This particular site is essentially the "parent" for the other 4 sub-sites and contains general, site-wide information like site history, about the website, about the webmaster, updates, etc. (NOTE : This url is temporary until the new site is fully migrated - eventually the portal will be accessed simply using "plutolighthouse.net")

PlutoLighthouse.NET Scrapbook

The Scrapbook contains all my creative sorted and cataloged for browsing. The Scrapbook contains both original artwork & fanart as well as trading card games, wallpapers, and (in time) comics and possibly more. This is really the meat of the entire PlutoLighthouse.NET umbrella of sites.

PlutoLighthouse.NET Blog (WIP)

The Blog is currently a work-in-progress and has no content, so it's just a placeholder for now. In the future, the Blog will become a place for me to post and discuss artwork, web design ideas, and whatever else I feel is appropriate.

PlutoLighthouse.NET Portfolio (WIP)

The Portfolio is currently a work-in-progress and has no content, so it's just a placeholder for now. In the future, the Portfolio will become a place for me to post only my best artwork and projects in a way for potential clients/employers to see my work without having to wade through the entire archive of the Scrapbook.


PlutoLighthouse.NET Version 11

What's new with Version 11?

Quite a lot has changed for Version 11, actually. More than I've ever changed before. I'll list the most obvious changes below.

• PlutoLighthouse.NET has been split into 4 distinct sub-sites, one of which is a landing-page-like site for the other three called the "Portal". The Portal is the parent site for the plutolighthouse.net domain with very big, very obvious links to the three sub-sites within.
  
• The design has changed dramatically. Not just in terms of layout and colour, but the code is cleaner and more W3C-compliant as well. CSS is used to the full-extent and every single part of the site is dynamically generated using PHP and my own hand-coded CMS system dubbed the "LighthouseNET Framework". Sounds cheezy, I know, but it works!
  
• All URLs have been converted in "friendly" URLs. That means that previously, in order to view a specific piece of artwork (for example) the page would look something like this "index.php?page=artwork&sub=view&artid=ARTS-XXXXXXXX-XXXX". The URLs have been revised now using mod_rewrite and are now much easier to type out and remember "artwork/view/bubbleman_powered_up/".
  
• Artwork, trading cards, doodles, and comics have been moved to the new subsite called the PlutoLighthouse.NET Scrapbook. The Scrapbook will be the new archive for all my creative work in all mediums.
  
• The PlutoLighthouse.NET Portfolio will contain only my best artwork and will be laid out in as professional a format as possible. I want to have a place where I can send potential employers/contractors without them having to wade through hundreds of pages of content.
  
• The PlutoLighthouse.NET Blog will eventually discuss artwork, web design, programming, and possibly more.
  
• The PlutoLighthouse.NET Admin is something you can't see! Lol. It's a private, protected area but it functions as a huge Administration Panel for the entire umbrella of sub-sites. I can manage site text, graphics, pages, and more all from one place including a self-coded system for adding new artwork, updates, comics, etc. It's actually pretty awesome. ^_^
  

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UPDATE : As I've said - I updated the text but there's still a lot here to read, I hope you do though! I put a lot of work into this new site.


Alright, so that's it. I know there's a lot to swallow, and maybe 1 out of every 30 people will actually read the descriptions, lol, but let me know what you think anyway. I've spent a lot of time on these and I'm eager to show 'em off.

-Age

[Pitch]

Ageman, it's cool to see you around again. I've missed your nifty Powered Up artwork.

Alright, so that's it. I know there's a lot to swallow, and maybe 1 out of every 30 people will actually read the descriptions, lol, but let me know what you think anyway. I've spent a lot of time on these and I'm eager to show 'em off.

And since I already read them that means no one else here will because I highly doubt there are even that many active members hanging around.

I'm just curious, the links you posted, and apparently the link in your signature don't go anywhere? (I'm getting “http:///”) Was this intentional? (if so, that's rather clever, go and make 'em look through your post to find the actual link — good job)

Anyway, I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I poked around your site a bit and I must say, well done. I never had any real gripe with your site before, but the new look is definitely much cleaner. I even took a peek at the source code, which also looks rather good. I'd like to point out, though, your link to the blog portion generates an error rather than an empty page and “Under Construction” message. Very cool, though.

[Ageman20XX]

Ah! I'm a mess! Lol. All that work on a post and I screw the whole thing up. Haha!

Seems I used quotes in all my tags and it broke all the links, lol. And about the blog page it appears I accidentally made an FTP copying mistake in my excitement.

All is fixed now and should be working. Sorry!

Apr 13, 2009 9:39:25 GMT -5 Pitch said:

Ageman, it's cool to see you around again. I've missed your nifty Powered Up artwork.

Heh, thanks! I've been so busy lately, but I still love this place no matter how dead it is. Lol. And I added some new Powered Up stuff to my art thread! It's not 100% new material, but I still think you'd be interested to see.

Apr 13, 2009 9:39:25 GMT -5 Pitch said:

Alright, so that's it. I know there's a lot to swallow, and maybe 1 out of every 30 people will actually read the descriptions, lol, but let me know what you think anyway. I've spent a lot of time on these and I'm eager to show 'em off.

And since I already read them that means no one else here will because I highly doubt there are even that many active members hanging around.

Haha, maybe I should change that to "...and there's a 3.333% chance you'll actually read the descriptions...", haha.

Apr 13, 2009 9:39:25 GMT -5 Pitch said:

I'm just curious, the links you posted, and apparently the link in your signature don't go anywhere? (I'm getting “http:///”) Was this intentional? (if so, that's rather clever, go and make 'em look through your post to find the actual link — good job)

Apr 13, 2009 9:39:25 GMT -5 Pitch said:

I'd like to point out, though, your link to the blog portion generates an error rather than an empty page and “Under Construction” message. Very cool, though.

Haha, no - quite the opposite of clever, actually. And thanks for the heads-up - fixed!

Apr 13, 2009 9:39:25 GMT -5 Pitch said:

Anyway, I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I poked around your site a bit and I must say, well done. I never had any real gripe with your site before, but the new look is definitely much cleaner. I even took a peek at the source code, which also looks rather good.

Thank you! The source code is one of the things I tried hardest one - or at least put a lot of thought into. My programming teacher in high school would always get on my case about my source code and I was too much of a loser to listen to him. >_> If only he could see me down! I think he'd be proud!

Again, thanks for taking the time. I'd love any negative feedback too if you have any (and have time, lol) - I'm constantly trying new things with this project and it's come a long way.

-Age

[Musashi]

Nice to see you around! I love your art, especially your 3D works(no, not just because they're Legend-related )

[Dashe]

Hey Age, good to see you back again! Your site's looking pretty spiffy too, I like it.

[Ageman20XX]

Thanks guys! Glad to be back.

-Age