About

I've broken down this page a bit for easier reading. I'm not sure anyone really reads it, but if you're interested, it's here.

History

I have been designing websites for more than seven years, and sometimes I forget that not everyone is aware of all the slang and terminology that I use. For anyone who is confused, a "collective" is very simple. It's basically a small website that directs visitors to all the websites that a particular person runs. For instance, I run over 20 websites of many genres--personal, blog, fansite, fanlisting, clique--and that gets to be quite a lot. What URL do I give someone if they want to see what I can do? Instead of giving them a million websites they may or may not be compatible with, I create a collective, sometimes called a "jump" site. Basically, it's a jumping board--a list of all the websites I run. I give someone one URL, and they can easily access any of my websites. Nifty, yes?

Sweet Madness, the website you're currently visiting, is my collective. Exaclty who am I, you may be asking? My name is Melissa, and I'm not ashamed of my geekiness. And yes, I am a geek. I've decided that once you run enough websites to warrent a collective, you've pretty much entered geekdom in all its glory. I'm not a top level geek yet, but I can try.

This site has been around in some form or another for more than three years. It hopped from freeserver to freeserver until I was able to purchase my a place of my own on the web. Sweet Madness is hosted by Fishontheglass.com, which is hosted by the truly great Dreamhost.com. If you're interested in buying a domain from DreamHost, be sure to tell them fishontheglass.com sent you *grins*

The Name

Where did the name "Sweet Madness" come from? It is a phrase that comes from one of my favorite books of all time, "Jane Eyre." It reoccurs in "The Eyre Affair," the first Thursday Next novel. So the title connects two of the best books of all time. Also, I think it reflects the craziness and addiction I feel in relation to my websites... it's definately a sweet sort of madness.

This website has made several transitions since its conception more than three years ago. It's first name was "FroggLeaping," a cutesy play on words, since I have an affinity for frogs and this is my jump site. After awhile, I outgrew the name, and found it didn't reflect me, my sites, or my style anymore.

For a brief period in early 2004 this website moonlighted as "Assimilate This," but that title passed quickly. From there, it changed into Sweet Madness and has stayed as such since.

Current Layout

Name: Life is a Balance
Version: 11
Featuring: Keith Urban *sighs dreamily*
Inspired by: The Keith Urban concert I went to. And loved.
Made with: created with Fireworks and Paint Shop Pro; coded entirely by hand in Notepad
Layers: 22
Fonts used: Trebuchet MS for text, Oldstyle Small caps & Texas Hero
Additional thank-yous: Kim for giving me copies of the pictures. The concert was amazing, and having photos of it is awesome.
Additional details: I've been itching to do a Keith Urban layout for a while now, and the concert pictures proved to be an excellent opportunity. I actually wanted to do a layout for my personal website, but this particular one doesn't provide enough room to properly house my personal site. It is, however, rather perfect for my collective. So, viola, here it is. I really love it, because it's so simple and just really rather lovely.

Site Resources

Here are all the scripts, porgrams and all that rot that make this website possible.

DreamHost.com [Hosting]
FishOnTheGlass.com [Hosting]
GreyMatter [Updates blog]
NL-Convert [PHP optimization]
NL-Random [Random quotes/banners]
Fireworks [Graphics]
Paint Shop Pro [Graphics]
Dreamweaver [Testing/coding]
Notepad [Coding]
CuteFTP [Uploading]
SiteMeter [Tracking]

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