Just so you all know, my recent absence from disassociated is in no way connected to my last post here. Heh, I have not been going to every session I possibly can of Star Wars since episode three opened a week or two ago.

So yeah, basically ignore that photo above.

The big news on inter-web of late, albeit very low key, is the ten year milestone Jeffrey Zeldman reached this week with his website. On-line since 1995. Not a bad accomplishment by any standard.

I was interested to read that Zeldman was working on the website for 1995’s Batman Forever with some friends, and that triggered his interest in web design.

Staying awake all night to get batmanforever.com launched, I at last knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Fantastic stuff. It reminds me of how I used to feel wwway back in 1997. I’d stay up half the night pulling together what I now consider, quite frankly, stupid websites. Still it was all part of the learning process, and would lead to bigger and better things later down the line.

…at last knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.

That sentence really hits the nail on the head for me. I haven’t really done much in the way of web design in the last few years, but have been thinking a lot about what I’d like to do when I “grow up”. If I ever grow up… ;)

I’m not sure that I’d like to go back to full on web design, but I’d like to get back into the fold somehow. Web projects are exciting. In fact any sort of projects are exciting.

One big problem I had when working in web design several years ago was the apathy towards web standards. Studios and creative directors had either never heard of them, nor were not interested in being enlightened either.

I pretty much taught myself to hand code HTML working to the standards (then HTML 3.2) from day one, so I was always big on standards. Having to use non standard workarounds and hacks in my work was frustrating for me though.

It has to said though support for standards was flaky at best in the late nineties, and early noughties, so trying to win over people was not an easy task. Anyhow I’ve gone over all this before, so I won’t carry on.

Well done Mr Zeldman on being on-line ten years. Here’s to the next ten, and thanks for the inspiration.