jonathan stegall

I have Mac envy. Badly. A month or so ago, I had a hard drive crash that lost lots of important data. I’ve since gotten all the missing data back, but during the last month if Windows being unwilling to read the crashed drive, the time spent trying to get my PC to recognize a new drive, and then the time during which Windows wouldn’t let me slave the old drive to the new drive, I’ve had many thoughts. My most tempting thought has been, “Dude, I should just start over! I should get a Mac! It’s a perfect time, since I don’t have any data or programs.” At this point, I didn’t think it would be possible to affordably retrieve my data. By data, I mean, among other things:

• every website I’ve done, since the Geocities days (I admit, I did get rid of most of those years ago)
• the papers, notes, essays, thoughts, projects, source files, source code, planning documentation, and any number of other things from two college degrees (enough said)
• financial data (also enough said)
• approximately 5 gigs of music, some having been ripped from CDs that I own, but are so skipped that they will not play
• and other things

The reality check is that I can’t afford a new computer of any kind at the moment, but it was so tempting to think about. Today, I was reading one of the .NET blogs I’ve recently come across, and found that this guy’s a Mac user.

So overall, I’m really happy living in a Mac world. I have beautiful hardware running uncluttered UI, and I can still do the Windows stuff when I need to. I’m a happy camper.

So obviously, he’s a happy Mac user. I like reading this. There are parts of the .NET world that I really enjoy, and indeed some things about Microsoft that I really enjoy. I’m at the point in my career where, in the near future, I will be required to make some choices about where, as a web professional, I will go. I’ve considered PHP, as I know it fairly well and enjoy it; I’ve considered Ruby/ROR, and I do intend to learn this in the near future; I’ve considered Flash/Flex, JAVA, ColdFusion, Photoshop, and just being a web standards/XHTML/CSS guy. And, I’ve considered .NET. Microsoft is one of those companies that I don’t always know how I feel about.

But in any case, I really want whatever choice I make to be compatible with my Mac envy. I’ve decided that my next computer purchase will be an Apple. If Visual Studio runs part or most of my livelihood, I can run Windows on that Mac and have my Visual Studio, and that makes me happy. If I don’t go the .NET route, there doesn’t appear to be anything that I can’t do on the Apple OS, and that also makes me happy.

So, thanks Jeff, for increasing my Mac envy. But also, thanks for the sight of a .NET person who uses and enjoys using a Mac.

For the last few months, I’ve been spending as much of my rare free time as possible working on the complete redesign of the Underground Railroad. If anyone were to click that link, there would be no need to explain the need for such a redesign. That particular design is several years old, and dates back to a time when I had little technical knowledge and even less artistic knowledge. Now, I have at least some of both, and I hope for good results.

Essentially, I have written a CMS for this site, which strives to be portable, robust, and secure to the fullest possible extent. This step is close to complete at this time.

Currently, I’m attempting to finalize the design scheme that is present on the site, and ensure that it

1. Properly represents the values, ideas, theories, and passions that lie behind the Underground Railroad
2. Does the same for myself, as an artist and a designer
3. Mixes the two in an authentic, powerful way

Generally, as a designer I’m a big fan of simple, clean, maybe somewhat minimalistic design. If something doesn’t have a purpose for being there, it shouldn’t be there. This fits artistically, semantically, theoretically, and in countless other ways. I love cork’d, a list apart, and countless other designs, designers, and ideas that present effective communication in an artistic way.

That said, I think there’s an extreme to which minimalism can go. <rant>I see this a lot among advocates of web standards, and I find that to be unfortunate for advancing the cause of standards-based design. The web is about content, but so is design. Form follows function, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any form.</rant>

Anyway. This redesign that I’m working on is not particularly minimalistic. As I’ve been observing this, I’ve been thinking about its implications. I think it’s somewhat difficult for sites that are based on black to be minimalistic. Movie sites. Band sites. Sweet Flash sites. I know there are exceptions that are done very well, but of all the minimalistic sites that are done well, there aren’t very many black ones; and of all the black sites that are done well, there aren’t very many minimalistic ones. So, I’ve decided not to worry about it.

I have several concerns about the church. Many of them, I see in myself. Others, I see as human nature, regardless of whether or not I see them in myself. And some, I feel are very serious things to which I should attempt to say something. I attempt to give equal time to ranting about all of these.

I can’t speak to those outside the United States, but certainly here we like to compartmentalize our church experiences from the rest of our lives. Such as, I can’t do … because I’m in church.

Now the obvious issue that isn’t occurring to us when we say this is that if God can see us doing something in church, he can see it outside church, too. So, the point here is that we’re just not thinking. I don’t think anyone really thinks they’re fooling God, but they do think they’re fooling everyone else. Again, we’re not thinking about what is being verbalized.

But I think there’s more to it than just not thinking. There’s a deep trouble that we in the American church have, and maybe in the Western church as a whole, and this is a manifestation of it. I think this is a trouble that will lessen in general culture as culture emerges from its current state, and will lessen in the church as well, but slower. Like always, Europe and Canada will be years ahead of the United States.

I was fortunate to be able to attend a house church for the last few months I was in Florida, and this issue did not exist there. Immediately upon arriving in Atlanta, where we’re working in a much more traditional church, there it is again. My suspicion is that this is a common tendency, and that the more traditional, and structured, and building-oriented a church is, the easier it is to fall into the trap of putting God into church, the rest of our lives outside of church, and keeping the two from meeting.

Welcome to my first post. I have finally taken the leap, and gotten rid of my old portfolio site that I created for a Flash class. I have been intending to replace it forever for a very long time, with something more applicable to the things I’m passionate about on the web; and to include blogging. Plus, I don’t urgently need the portfolio, as I’m very happy in my current job situation and don’t really have time for freelance. I would like that to change, but I think by the time it does hell may have frozen over I’ll have the portfolio integrated with this blog.

So I’ve converted to the root of the site to WordPress. I have a bit of experience with WordPress, and have for the most part enjoyed it. In the near future, I’ll be making a theme, as it’s fairly pathetic for a web designer to go out and pick a prebuilt theme for his blog. Hopefully, the new theme will be arriving shortly.

In any case, this blog will be several things. I’m a web professional, and I love what I do. Much of what is said here will be indirectly or directly related to design, programming, culture, theory, etc. about new media in general and the web in particular… in it’s current state, past state, and/or what I see for its future state. And, obviously, it’ll have a portfolio of relevant work that I’ve done.

Plus, I attempt to be a follower of Jesus. Thus, this blog will also relate to spirituality, issues of faith and culture, media and faith, experience and theology, and ministry; and how these things occur in emerging and underground culture.

Anyway. I’m not a huge fan of lists, so I’ll also say that this blog is a record of my journey. I hope to be faithful with it, learn from it, and if possible, contribute something worthwhile to the web.

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…