Site History

I have been designing web sites for almost a decade; going back to when GeoCities was the cool place to be online. My online career began with a personal web site and some very basic HTML. Over the years, as the web languages become more advanced, the page design changed. Forums and photo galleries have come and gone and now the focus of site is the Mindless Chatter blog. Formerly located at Lone-Palm.net, a reference to a Jimmy Buffett song by the same name, Mindless Chatter is a collection of various rants, stories, opinions and mindlessness collected for your viewing pleasure. As the internet progresses, so will I, my web site, and my design style.

What you find below is basically the ghosts’ of website past. It’s pretty much every form this site has taken since it’s inception in 2001. Design trends have come and gone and as you can see I have done everything possible to avoid them. No glossy Web 2.0 garbage here! Boo ya!

Evolution of Mindless Chatter, or Whatever this Site is Called

2001: Lone Palm Creations is born
Lone Palm Creations was born during the summer before I went away to college. The Lone Palm name came from a song by Jimmy Buffett. The idea was that I would create a graphic/web design business to make money while at school. Except I never really did anything with it.

2002: Lone Palm Creations version 2.0
For some reason I thought that wood was cool when this version went live. Looking back at this site, I wonder how it was that this piece of handy work landed me the Bryan Hall gig. Maybe they liked wood too? Maybe I was just very convincing in the interview. I dunno.

2003: Mindless Chatter takes over
Yellows and blues and oranges oh my! The first version of the Mindless Chatter blog was very… bright. Though, it was a momentous moment as the blog-o-sphere has never been the same. Well not really, but at least that last sentence makes it seem like it was an important event.

2004: Lone Palm and more yellow
Lone Palm Creations gave way to the simpler Lone Palm in this redesign. This also marked the first time that random rotating title images came into play. Man PHP is cool!

2005: Lone-Palm.net feels a little green
The simple Lone Palm fell for to the slightly more difficult Lone-Palm.net and moved to the dark side.

2006: Justin Cox’s Mindless Chatter rises like a phoenix
Leaving Lone Palm — and all it’s different versions — in the dust, Justin Cox’s Mindless Chatter was born. Also left in the dust was antiquated HTML. The new age of CSS based web design and blogging arrived with this version of Mindless Chatter. This is where you start to get jealous.

2007: All Corked Up
2006 may have started the new age of web design for Mindless Chatter, but 2007 made it a reality. The limits of CSS and XHTML were pushed and resulted in a design that received recognition from CSS Tux: The Best Dressed Sites on the Web. Corked had been a dream for years and in 2007 it was made a reality.

2008 Part 1: Simply Boring
The beginning of 2008 saw the simplest design Justin Cox’s Mindless Chatter had ever seen. The idea was to have a simple, clean look so that the focus could be on the words. It might have been the color pattern, or maybe it was the overall layout, but something just never felt right. This site design only lasted a few short months.

2008 Part 2: Striped Shower
Inspiration hit while looking at the shower curtain and few days later a new design was completed. Striped was all about whacky colors and was the closest to a crappy Web 2.0 design that this site ever got. Lasting even less than Simply Boring, this design went the way of the dinosaur after just five weeks.

2008 Part 3: Corked 2.0 - The Return of Corked
After accidentally deleting all of the files related to the wonderful Corked design, I figured it was shelved for good. But after a very long journey, a completely re-envisioned Corked was born. Doing it’s forefather proud, Corked was featured at both CSS Drive and We Love WP.

[ Graphic to Come ]