Colophon

Some backend and implementation details about this site. Current as of November 1, 2023.

• WordPress is used for the backend CMS, and has been since Nov. 16, 2006. CMS systems used prior to that point were (in reverse order): TypePad, MovableType, and NewsPro (which no longer has a web presence; its successor Coranto does, but doesn’t appear to still be in active development).
  • Theme: GeneratePress.
  • Plugins:
    • Akismet: Comment spam protection.
    • Classic Editor: Keeping it simple so I don’t have to use the new Gutenberg WYSIWYG editor.
    • Classic Widgets: Again, avoiding Gutenberg.
    • CP Media Player: More full-featured media support.
    • Disable Emojis (GDPR Friendly): Removes WordPress’s replace-emoji-with-images JavaScript bloat in favor of actual emoji.
    • Docket Cache: WordPress-recommended persistent object cashing for improved performance.
    • DX Out of Date: Displays an “out of date” alert on posts over a certain age (in my case, two years).
    • Easy Markdown: Enabling Markdown support without JetPack.
    • Posted Today: Adds a shortcode to generate lists of posts published on a date in earlier years.
    • Relevanssi: A more full-featured site search engine.
    • Share on Mastodon: For easily sharing posts to my Mastodon account.
    • Term Management Tools: Improves tag and category management options.
    • VS Meta Description: Customizes the meta description tag for the site and individual pages.
    • WP-Optimize: Improving performance with caching, image compression, and more.
• Posts are written/edited and sent to WordPress using the following tools:
  • Markdown: The text-based formatting language in which all posts are written.
  • MarsEdit: Blog post publishing from macOS.

The Archives

My own personal WayBack Machine. I’ve been active online since 1991, when I first got access to email and command-line FTP and Usenet access through the VAX systems at the University of Alaska Anchorage during my first, abortive attempt at higher education, and have had my own website online since 1995, in the very early days of the web. Here and there as I redesigned or moved from one ISP to another I saved archives of my site at the time, and have kept those archives online as a testament to those early days.

Keep in mind, these sites were designed in earlier years for earlier browsers, so some aspects may be somewhat broken on modern browsers.

• February 27, 1996: “Netscape 2.0 Enhanced.”
• February 14, 1997: Redesigned. Featured one of the first incarnations of a Gigs Music Theatre site, though it’s just a single page here.
• April 21, 1997: A few months later. A little less content, as I started to focus on expanding the Gig’s page. Design is the same.
• March 30, 1998: Same design, but the Gig’s page has evolved into a full-fledged site by this point.
• July 5, 2002: Four years later, and the last time I did a full site archive.