w  w  w  .  s  c  h  u  m  i  n  w  e  b  .  c  o  m

4 minute read

March 22, 2006, 11:38 PM

Scary to think about it, but it’s true – it’s been ten years since I first created The Schumin Web. And now I’ve got the site all decorated up for the tenth anniversary. The photo feature is a collage of old site designs, and the URL beneath the logo at the top of all the pages has been replaced with the phrase “Celebraring ten years online”.

I still remember the day that I first created this site way back in 1996. Of course, we didn’t call it “The Schumin Web” back then. Back then, I called it “Ben Schumin’s Home on the Internet”. That then changed to “Ben Schumin’s Internet Command Center” (I was big into Power Rangers in 1996). That then changed to “The Great American Road of Ben Schumin” and then to “The User-Friendly World of Ben Schumin”. That last one’s being such a hideous name, by the way, gave rise to the current “Schumin Web” name in late 1998, which ended up sticking.

Still, that first day was something. I was playing around with NaviPress, which was a WYSIWYG Web page designer – a good thing, since I’m more of a visual designer than a coder. I was playing around on there at our old computer down in the living room, trying to figure out how to make the program work, and I actually got something to work. I ended up uploading it to AOL’s “My Place” where you had a little Web space. Then the next step was showing it off. I was so proud of my little URL, which was http://members.aol.com/BenSchumin/. Nowadays, I would be embarrassed to have such a URL, but this was the mid-90s, and the Web was still young.

Continue reading…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

5 minute read

February 2, 2006, 11:38 PM

This last trip to Washington was definitely an interesting trip. I managed to put myself behind schedule at almost every turn I took, but it was SO worth it.

I arrived at Vienna on time – right after 10 AM. Rode Breda 4053 to Rosslyn. At Rosslyn, I got a message on my phone from Matthew Tilley. That turned into a phone call, where we discussed all sorts of stuff while I also watched birds do laps in the air above North Moore Street.

Then after that, I got on the Metro and rode Blue to Capitol South. I took a walk from the Capitol South station entrance up to Union Station, going by the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court in the process.

The Supreme Court building has netting around the pediment, due to a chunk of marble falling off the building and onto the steps on November 28. In addition, on the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court, a pro-life group stood facing the building, symbolically gagged with red duct tape with “LIFE” written in black on the tape. Take a look:

Continue reading…

Categories: Activism, DC trips, Religion, Schumin Web meta

2 minute read

January 27, 2006, 12:51 AM

My Wednesday-Thursday weekend was fun. I got to accomplish a few things that I’d wanted to do. First of all, I attempted to visit the new Martin’s store in Waynesboro, that opened up next to Wal-Mart. I attempted to get in, but the store was so crowded that I ended up having to scratch that idea, since I wasn’t about to park at Wal-Mart and walk over to Martin’s. There were literally no parking spaces available in the Martin’s lot. I consider that too far of a distance to walk, plus I consider it rude to park in one business’s parking lot to patronize their competitor. I did, however, get the chance to fill up the car, since Martin’s has a gas station on its premises. I got to fill up for $2.19 a gallon, too, which is pretty good for Waynesboro at this time (the nearby Exxon and Citgo stations were selling at $2.29 a gallon).

After that, I took a trip to Roanoke, which worked out well despite that the friend I was supposed to meet up with in Roanoke never got back with me (so we didn’t end up meeting up). I ended up visiting my usual Roanoke spots, plus I also drove over to Salem, where I basically took a little driving tour of the town. So that was fun.

Continue reading…

Categories: Martin's, Retail, Roanoke, Schumin Web meta, Wikipedia

< 1 minute read

January 16, 2006, 7:22 PM

I have burned EVERYTHING in my image collection to CD that was taken between August 18, 2004 and December 31, 2005. To give you an idea of what a project this was, I burned 29 CDs to accomplish this. But it’s all on CD now, which frees up a lot of space for other projects. What does this leave on the actual hard drive? It leaves my January 4, 2006 trip to Washington, and my trip to the Outlet Village on January 12.

And this was a project I was determined to finish as quickly as possible. I set my away message to “Burning about a year and a half’s worth of images to CD…” and vowed not to take it off until I was done. So there you go.

Otherwise, after not only that one IM that I told you about previously regarding something on Wikipedia, others have contacted me through Schumin Web to discuss Wikipedia. This has led me to put this on my user talk page:

I don’t think it’s that much to ask that what happens on Wikipedia is discussed through the discussion channels that Wikipedia provides, as it adds to the record for Wikipedia, and allows others to help in the collaborative effort, since everyone’s supposed to be there for the same reason – to create an encyclopedia.

Some people, though…

Categories: Computer, Schumin Web meta, Wikipedia

2 minute read

January 9, 2006, 6:04 PM

As you may know, my site’s tenth anniversary is coming up in about two and a half months. And I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate it. I want to get myself something for it. What I really want is a custom engraved ring to commemorate the anniversary, but there’s no money in my budget for that. I’m still working on what to do for the anniversary.

One thing I’m certainly not doing is getting a tattoo to celebrate it. I have no tattoos whatsoever, and have always found tattoos on other people to be very low-brow and un-classy. I also think that it’s far too permanent. If you get a tattoo, it’s there, and it’s not going anywhere, regardless of whether you’re twenty, thirty, or ninety. And I don’t know of anything I’d want to have drawn on my body that I would know for sure that I’d want to have on there twenty years down the road.

That and I can’t stand pain, and I understand that getting a tattoo really hurts.

Continue reading…

Categories: Myself, Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

December 22, 2005, 6:39 PM

First of all, despite the site outage, its resolution, and related kinks to be worked out in restoring everything, I’m still doing the Journal, though composing the entries offline to be added in later (the time, however, does reflect the time of wrtiting). It’s been so long in writing because I’ve been hoping that this would be a short downtime. Since it seems it will be longer in getting things fixed, it’s time to get some things going again.

You’ve probably wondered what happened with the previous entry, regarding whether or not I would be brilliant or stupid with clearing my window. Turned out I was brilliant, but ended up looking stupid another way. What happened? I got my driver’s side door to open, but then I was unable to get it to close again. Mom ended up taking me to work. Mom later got the door closed, too. It had something to do with some gunk. I still don’t completely understand what’s going on there. But the door closes. Previously, I’d had some trouble getting it closed on really cold mornings, but never before had I been unable to get it closed.

Otherwise, I stocked up on Vault. The 20-ounce single-serve bottles are perfect for the drive to work.

Categories: Food and drink, Schumin Web meta, Toyota Previa

< 1 minute read

November 16, 2005, 4:34 AM

I’m going to Washington this week on back-to-back weeks, thanks to a work schedule on my intended week that doesn’t permit a trip – I’d need to have either two days off together, or a day off followed by a shift that starts at noon. So I’m going this week instead, then it will be three weeks before I go again.

And it looks like my weather will be unsuitable for outdoor photography once again, with rain predicted. So we say *sigh* as I once again have to come up with alternate plans.

Meanwhile, I want to see a “Blue Screen of Death” come up on one of our self-checkouts at work. Considering that the Fastlanes seemed to be crashing left and right yesterday, and run Microsoft Windows, I wouldn’t put it past them to BSoD eventually. I just want to be there when they do it so I can laugh (and take a couple of pictures).

And then I’m still working on the site redesign/refurbishment. I’ve got tags on the site now in Life and Times and Photography that mark some images as being available under the GNU Free Documentation License. Those images that are available under the GFDL are the ones I also have uploaded to Wikipedia, which requires that images be licensed under GFDL, another free license, or put in the public domain. I certainly don’t want to put my images into the public domain (no way will I ever do that), but GFDL is a fair compromise. So now these images will be marked on here, and I’m still working to implement this. Right now, 23 images are marked like this in Life and Times.

And now, I’ve piddled enough. Off to DC!

Categories: DC trips, Schumin Web meta, Walmart

2 minute read

November 11, 2005, 1:24 AM

So far, I’ve refurbished two sections of the site: the Journal (which you’re looking at), and the Online Store. The Journal’s update is one I’m quite pleased with, as it adds some functionality that wasn’t there before. For one thing, I added “permalinks” for the entries, linked as “Link to or print this article”. Those are at the bottom of each entry. For an example, here’s a link to the recent Journal entry entitled A fun day was had by all…

Notice how it’s on one page there by itself. And print it – it doesn’t run off the side of the page. It is all neatly fitted in there. At least that’s what it did on my printer.

Another fun feature I added was what I’ve heard called “bookmarks” and “anchors”. It’s used on FAQs and things like that where if you click the link, it skips you to a spot on the page. Here’s an example of this in action, click this link to the Journal entry Talk about threatening-looking weather… from August 2005.

Continue reading…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

November 5, 2005, 8:21 PM

I am taking a break from hunting for a moment to speak to you now. For the last hour, I’ve been hunting for the CD that contains the original for this image of a Wheelock MT horn/strobe. I want to use it for the photo feature. Why I can’t find it, I don’t know. I obviously knew where the CD was on June 14, when I uploaded it to Wikipedia. As I mentioned, I don’t know why I cannot find it. I’ve practically turned this place upside down looking for it, too. It’s got to be around here somewhere.

And by the way, if you’re reading this, and that photo of the MT is in the photo feature, that means I found it.

Categories: Photography, Schumin Web meta

2 minute read

November 4, 2005, 1:26 AM

Since March, as you may know, I’ve been running a photo feature on my main page. You may recall that this replaced the quote article that previously occupied that space. And ever since the photo feature was launched, I’ve only displayed vertical photos due to the vertical nature of the page’s design.

Now, however, I also want to display horizontal photos, since I have a whole bunch of those that I want to show on the main page, but the space as currently designed won’t allow it.

I want to make two versions of the main page – the current one for when a vertical photo is the feature, and a second one for use when a horizontal photo is the feature. In addition, I don’t want to make the photo feature a pain to update with two versions of the main page. That’s a lot of what killed the old quote. It had become a colossal pain in the butt to update because it was such a complicated process. So we’re trying to avoid that. Thus I don’t want to just simply have two versions of the main page saved and just upload the one I want. That adds an extra few steps to the process. Right now, it’s just some image work, one upload, and then an update using an online form.

Continue reading…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

October 21, 2005, 1:25 AM

I’m working on the preliminary stages of a site redesign, and as with every year, I start with writer’s block before suddenly getting inspiration.

This year, keeping in mind that the look I choose will be the one that the site wears for its ten-year anniversary, I have been looking at silver as a possible color. I’m not too keen on using gray as a main color, but I’m hoping to artsy it up a bit and add some more color to it to balance out the grayness of it – though silver is a nice color.

You know what this reminds me of? Going through all the color swatches in the paint department of Wal-Mart or Lowe’s looking for the proper color of paint for various paint jobs I’ve done in the past. After a while, you just start to get numb to it. This is how you can tell I’m not cut out to be a decorator. Blue is blue. This is blue. I also consider this to be simply blue. And after a while, they all kind of start to look the same. And this is also why it’s not a good idea to start obsessing over colors over an extended period. Short sessions are good before it gets mind-numbing.

Still, though, I’m not going to be able to tell you the difference between “Bondi Blue”, “Azure”, “Cerulean”, “Cornflower”, “Dodger”, “Denim”, etc. I lump them all into “blue” and say “that one”.

But the interior decor metaphor goes on, as I choose a color scheme to carry the site to the big 1-0 mark and pick something that isn’t going to make me want to retch when I see the finished product…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

October 14, 2005, 11:57 PM

Finally, my September 24 photo set is finished. Three weeks from shooting to completion. Of course, this means that now I don’t have to look at my photos from September 24 for a while. For let me tell you… when you do a photo set, particularly a large one like September 24 (121 photos plus 14 movies), trust me when I say you can get tired of looking at the photos.

But I’m quite proud of the set. I covered the Mobilization for Global Justice’s feeder march, I covered the ANSWER/UFPJ march, I covered the Freepers, plus I met up with Mom after it was all over.

Now the next photo set in the hopper is from my vacation to the beach. I’m also working on some anti-war stuff for Wikipedia, and some stuff about the Metro, also for Wikipedia.

I also have the 2005 redesign to think about, and I can tell you this – it’s getting later and later every year. The annual redesign was originally in September when I first started doing redesigns annually in 1999. Then it was moved up to July in 2001. Then 2004’s was in October. Now, since I have a backlog of photo sets, and since I generally like the way the Web site currently looks and operates, I’m thinking about doing a very minor redesign on the site, mainly to correct any shortcomings on this design that turned up in the year we’ve had it.

Categories: Anti-war, Schumin Web meta, World Bank

< 1 minute read

October 12, 2005, 12:39 PM

I am sending this from the middle of Dupont Circle on my cell phone! I am amused. Needless to say, typing like this is cumbersome, but it is something new.

Categories: Schumin Web meta

2 minute read

September 21, 2005, 8:33 AM

It’s September! Can you believe it? That means it’s almost redesign time again!

And, like last year, I go into this season once again wondering what the heck I’m going to do. Of course, last year, that turned out very well, turning my site, which still featured “College Life” and “Web Cam”, among other things making the site a college student kind of thing, and gave it a shift to being more an adult kind of thing. College Life was shifted off to its own subsection, Web Cam is gone, and more emphasis was placed on my Journal and Life and Times.

All throughout last year, Life and Times was a bit of a “lost” section, though, housing the Journal as well as a few mostly-transplanted photo sets, but with no strong purpose. It was just a mess. The redesign repositioned it, plus with the introduction of the hybrid photo set style (narratives with photo sets), it gained a reason to live.

Continue reading…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

September 17, 2005, 7:13 PM

What can I say? Sometimes simple, well-intended things yield up unexpected results. Why do I bring this up? I was reading my Discussion Forums, and one thread went into state fairs and such. A link was provided to the Web site for the Haddam Neck Fair in Haddam Neck, Connecticut. The address of haddamneckfair.com, due to the way the domain name is formatted, coupled with my forum’s built-in swear filter, caused the URL to be rendered like this:

had[expletive deleted]eckfair.com

I knew that the swear filter would render certain words (the famous seven-plus-three, plus a few others) as “[expletive deleted]” when displayed on-screen, but I never thought it would filter out a URL like that. Still, that’s pretty efficient for the swear filter, even rendering the URL incorrectly in its mission to filter out the profanity I’ve told it to watch for – something no one expected it to do. After all, it took the “damn” right out of haddamneckfair.com.

I ended up fixing the problem by taking “damn” out of the swear filter. I rationalized it on the forums by saying, “I figure we’re all old enough for ‘damn’ on here, and since it’s interfering with legitimate activity, I’m going to let it through.”

That was quite a strange thing to happen, though.

Categories: Language, Schumin Web meta