the air

I’m pleased to say that I am making good progress on my main website. I’m using Joomla to power my site since it gives me the flexibility to have dynamic content without the need to know extensive and complex programming. In addition, the layouts work out ok and are over-kill, in my opinion, for a personal website but do give me the option to add more creative content down the road. Currently, my site is under development and you can “test-run” the site here. I am changing it continuously and some links may or may not work. There is quite a bit of content that is still under development and most of the “stuff” on it are from the default Joomla installation.

Joomla is very powerful and time consuming. It is easy to use, but it does require significant tinkering and you will need the use of Photoshop or some other image editing software if you wish to customize it to your preference. There are hundreds of themes available for Joomla and many of them are not free. Given the amount of work that goes into making each theme, I can understand why most people charge for their creations. The theme I have chosen is not my most favorite theme, but it is a theme that is functional. It has forced me to learn Photoshop and I have been able to make crude, yet acceptable, images/logos for my site. I do want to answer a few questions that have been raised by my friends.

What is the AG company?

The AG Company is simply the name of my company that I hope to float one day. As of right now, it serves as a showcase of all my electronic media. The AG Company is not a real company and it is not something I am ready to invest in. I started the name “The AG Company” back in 1994 when I was given my first personal computer. I used the name as my folder that contained all my literary works. Since 2000, my “company” has been introduced to the web in one form or another. Hence, the AG company is nothing more than a personal gallery that showcases my works.

What will my site have?

The site will serve as a personal homepage. It will host my resume, my creations with Adobe Flash and hopefully some of my Photoshop creations. Over the past few years, many of my relatives have been imploring me to put pictures that I have taken with my digital camera online. So far, I have resisted mainly due to the fact that I am not fond of any site that has advertising on the same page as my pictures. Hence, I have stayed away from Flickr and other image hosting sites. The next best thing is, obviously, to make my own site and upload the pictures there. Other than that, I don’t have any other thing planned out. Down the road, I may add more content to the site, but for now, my only concern is to get the basics up. One last note, my site will also have information about me and my “work” related to academia.

When will the site launch officially and will I allow users to register?

My goal is to launch the site “officially” by the end of May. However, I am constantly working on it and it would be acceptable if the site launched near the end of January. The reason why I am giving myself a large window is so that I have ample time to customize the site to my preferences and enjoy the work in the process. I’m not very good with Joomla right now so I spend alot of time just learning things and moving forward. With the addition of classes, I am sure to have less time to work on both this blog and my website. Nevertheless, my goal is always to have at least one post per day on this blog; that way I can maintain some consistency in my life.

I am not sure if I will allow random users to register for my site. If I ever incorporate content that merits membership, then I may include the ability to have users register for my site. Till then, it is my intent to assign usernames at my discretion if it is required. This is a feature that I am not experienced with and as I learn more about it, I will revisit my tentative decision. Besides, there is no need to register for my site. I believe in everything being free and without advertisements.

I encourage everyone to visit my site and give me some feedback. Although the contact form on my site does not work, you can always send me feedback using the contact form on my blog.

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