All the time I have had this site, from 1997 onwards, I have been involved in building websites and web technology apps during the day, but when it came to having a personal site I had a problem (especially later once I was running a web agency). If I tried to do a site using my own code and technology, and under my own name, people would find it, expect it to be about the industry, or at the very least expect it to uphold standards and be a showcase. I would get so stuck into perfection I would spend more time on that than on content. I got enough of that from 6am to 8pm every day, I didn’t need more.

Even when I decided I should continue to have my old site, less about games and more about the stay-in-touch kind of things, me-and-my-toys.

I didn’t want it to be like work, or about work (this was probably a mistake for my own career, really). If I was going to spend more web time in my evening it would not involve coding, it would not involve design and I would not mess with it. It would be about content - content that interested just me, and that was fine with me.

And for a very long time I kept it totally separated from anything in my real life, nickname, no links, no real name, and nothing about work. I didn’t want to have to watch what I said or did. So I could get away with it.

Then the web changed, and the work-life boundaries blurred for everyone, and I decided it was silly to have that barrier. Now people turn up here knowing me from my professional persona, and I fear I cannot get away with this site anymore.

By blogging standards, it does everything wrong, it lacks focus and consistency, it has a very candid and direct tone, I might post 10 things one day then nothing for months, and, horror! a “sorry I havent posted anything” post. It jumps all over the place. No strategy, no coherence. I didn’t care, I’m not a blogger. This is for me and my 10 occasional readers, a “me and my stuff site” of the worst kind. Followed by about 20 friends on and off, when they wondered “What’s happened to iphi lately?”.  And usable for me when I need to send a link about a game nobody has heard about, because I watched it and collected links and quotes.

And on the side of technology and building it, I have gone for the frankenstein method - I messed with it live. The results shows entropy as applied to websites, a dozen half finished reorganisations and design changes, bits hanging out, bits fixed with staples. But it’s alive, even if all it can say is “gaaaah”.

Anyway, I will clean it up, and apologies to the 5 people who liked the old site fine as it was.