"Every little deal is a big deal."
Fishes Interview #7 with web e-fishy-anado John Allen, poet, artist, photographer, web site designer and programmer.
about the father's business - Fishes Interviews
Candid interviews with web site builders & designers "A series of interviews with online shop owners, artists, musicians and business owners, all are celebrities in my book. Level of web design, W3C Validation or CSS and HTML expertise is not as important as their hopes, dreams, struggles and accomplishments. "
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Welcome to the Fishes Candid Interviews | design by atfb, web design and custom graphics, photograph restoration, photograph enhancement and logo creation.
QUESTION: John , by now every one should be familiar with the fish image and the history. Would you, could you, identify yourself with a fish in the image and tell us why you did so.
Answer: I guess I would be one of the fish in the background going its own way.
QUESTION: If you don't mind, what do you do in "real life".
Answer: This is real life for me.
QUESTION: What site domains or sub domains constitute your site? Is this a personal site or business site? Please included links. You may if you wish also provide a few smallish screen shots if you like.
I don't really have a favorite when it comes to the commercial sites I've worked on. Once a site goes live I lose all interest in it. I enjoy the creative process and the teamwork that often accompanies a larger project, but once that ends it's just another site to me.
QUESTION: Where are you located? You don't have to provide me with details, just a overview, like country.
Answer: I live in the beautiful State of Michigan, USA. My home state is surrounded by the Great Lakes on all but one border. The Great Lakes hold 20% of all the freshwater in the world. Michigan has the longest coastline of any state, except for Alaska. All freshwater shorelines and beaches. This influences almost everything in Michigan - including our culture and our weather.
QUESTION: John, how did you settle on your domain name?
Answer: It's a play on my name - John R. Allen. It was first registered in 1996. I wanted something short and memorable. Two excellent things to keep in mind when choosing a domain name. It helped that it was also a play on words. I viewed the Internet as a new genre, so this was perfect.
QUESTION: What prompted you to build a web presence?
Answer: For the same reason that Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest - it was there.
QUESTION: John, I know you like to cook, but do you prefer to cook or dine out? Do you have a favorite restaurant?
Answer: I definitely prefer to cook. Unfortunately, I am usually cooking for one, which takes away quite a bit of the satisfaction in preparing a good meal. I much prefer to cook for a group in spite of the extra work involved. If I go to a restaurant I usually go to one of the better restaurants in town where a friend of mine is the head chef. This is a no-brainer on a first date. He always comes out and sits at my table to chat for awhile.
QUESTION: Since you have so many sites and subdomains, which provides you with the most satisfaction? Do you feel any of your sites are finished or do you still have grander goals? Elaboration is expected.
Answer: This is an easy one. My favorite site is my children's site. Mainly because I believe it brings pleasure to a lot of people of all ages. And, no, none of them are finished. I don't think any site is ever truly finished. There are always typos and misspellings to find and fix, copy to rewrite, new pictures to add, and on and on ad nauseam. If you ever do finish the site it will be time for a redesign. And then, the whole cycle starts again.
QUESTION: Are you a prankster? If not a prankster can you recall and recount any pranks you've played or been the victim of?
Answer: Not really. I'm more of a quipster. People rarely pull pranks on me. There are far easier targets out there that won't retaliate. :-)
QUESTION: What would you say is your favored method to discombobulate stress? Explain please.
Answer: This is a family site so I'll just leave that to your imagination.
QUESTION: John, what was your most glorious moment as it relates to your web site(s)? And if you can, what was the most disastrous moment?
Answer: That's a tough question. There have been many highlights. I guess the one that sticks in my mind best would be when www.jonra.com was featured in Shutterbug magazine as an example of a well-made CSS/HTML photographer's site. My worst moment is an easy one. It happened early in my web dev life. I was teaching myself to program CGI scripts with Perl. I had no understanding of either one and managed to bring down the web server for several hours. I almost got booted by my hosting company for that trick.
QUESTION: How do you balance your web building time and your life time? The yard work, house work and the laundry, do you get all done?
Answer: I don't. The yard is overgrown, the laundry only gets done when I run out of clean clothes, and the house is a pig sty.
QUESTION: Jonra, what are your dreams and aspirations? They don't have to relate to your website.
Answer: How about world peace? No? Too much like a beauty pageant contestant? Seriously, to become the person I see myself as in my head. The one other people only glimpse sporadically.
QUESTION: What would you say was the most difficult part of building your site? What would you say was the easiest part?
Answer: To me, easy is boring. So the easiest parts are the most boring and therefore the most difficult for me to work on. The more difficult and challenging something is the more satisfaction I can take when I finally solve it.
QUESTION: How do you feel about following the W3C validation recommendations?
Answer: Standards can be both welcome and intrusive. When I started out in 1995 browser incompatibilities were the biggest hassle any web developer had to deal with. It's marginally better today. What progress we've made has been mainly due to the W3C recommendations.
QUESTION: How much attention do you feel one should pay to web standards and accessibility issues?
Answer: More rather than less. I try to follow them as much as possible. However, the instant a standard or recommendation creates unnecessary work or gets between me and my audience it loses any interest for me.
QUESTION: You've so many talents and interests. What, John, occupies your mind the most, the artistic stuff or the technical side of things? Poetry or code?
Answer: I think they are inextricably linked. Writing good code can be as creative as any artistic pursuit. I really don't see any conflict between the two. I'm blessed or cursed, depending on your point of view, with an eclectic mind and personality (read "scatterbrained"). I'm fascinated by everything - from how an ant climbs over a blade of grass to how NASA manages to send a craft millions of miles to rendezvous with a comet.
QUESTION: If you had one bit of advice or a tidbit of knowledge to impart, what would it be?
Answer: Web sites are like plants. Once you have created it you still need to water and feed it on a regular basis. Don't get the idea that all you have to do is build the site and then forget about it.
QUESTION: John, if you could post two links to websites online, that you consider to be outstanding sites what would they be? They don't have to be outstanding due to validation, CSS or web standards just outstanding in that they are interesting, helpful and or contribute to the over all betterment of the web wide world.
Answer: I can't really pick out only two sites. I visit dozens of sites on a regular basis and I know far too many people with personal sites to pick one or two out without offending a friend.
QUESTION: What would you like to be remembered for? If you could make a profound difference in the web, what would it be?
Answer: What would I like to be remembered for? For being a good father. The second question is trickier. I guess the most profound thing for me would be to block the ambitions of some people to turn the 'Net into something controlled by the corporations. I stand with Tim-Berners-Lee for a 'Net of the people.
QUESTION: John, if you suddenly found yourself extremely wealthy, would you continue to build websites? Could you just give it up?
Answer: In a heartbeat. There are many, many, many other things I'd still like to do in life. Money would just make it easier.
QUESTION: Your new site, It's Our Net, is it near completion? I've noticed you have a google page rank of 7 on it's home page. How did you manage that? And how can I get one!
Answer: Not even close to done. This will be a long-term project. I've barely scratched the surface. I'd love to get it to the point where I could justify spending 40 hours per week working on that one site.
The PR is a mystery to me. I never expected it to last so long. It won't deserve a rating like that until there is far more useful content on the site. I'm certainly not going to complain, though.
QUESTION: Are there any questions you would have liked me to ask but I didn't? If so please do elaborate.
Answer: You were pretty thorough. About the only question that comes to mind is a standard interview question - "What's next for you?" For me, it's more of the same. Start on a redesign for a company that is changing its name, finish up a couple of paying projects which have dragged on for months while I wait on the clients, get caught up on my personal sites, and pursue the next project.
QUESTION: How do you feel about this interview and the process? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions to make?
Answer: This was great. You are doing an excellent job with these interviews.
I certainly would like to appreciate some of your cooking! The mere mention of food makes me sooooooooooooo hungry. Thank you for putting off the laundry and yard work a bit longer, your interview has been quite insightful.
