Thursday 21 October 1999
I must say that I tried to make a new version of this site. I worked very hard for several weeks to make the changes in the html structure, but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. I came up with a style sheet with which to substitute all the font-related information and some other formatting in these pages, but the war of the browsers is far from over in that respect. The pages showed up absolutely beautiful in one of the main browsers, but horribly in the other. So the best thing to do while the two of them come to terms is to keep the long and archaic “font” tag in hand. But then, I had to violate the html structure code not to repeat the same instruction again and again and to keep the file size to a minimum. I tested them in several browsers and no problems surfaced, so I hope they show well in yours too. If not, let me know immediately.
Then, I tried to change the layout, and although it looked good, I still favor dark moods, so I stick to this one for a while. Instead, I added a few things (that you will have to discover) that I hope will make this site more useful and enjoyable.
More things are still to come, so stay tuned.
Sunday 05 September 1999
I thought this site needed a few more changes. Thus, here they are. I have settled in the new server already, so new plans are on the way. Nevertheless (and “regretfully”), I have some other things to care about in the coming months, so if you come here after a while and find there haven’t been significant changes, know that for centuries sailors and ships have hated the Sargasso Sea.
Wednesday 28 July 1999
At last I have “found” a good server with enough web space and free of advertisement where to put my images and all. Thus, I have added some new galleries and content to Third Apex to Fractovia for you enjoyment.
Monday 12 July 1999
Tripod changed its Terms of Service, this time to be more down-to-earth and compatible with us users. I won’t change all my main pages back to their server, though, but it has given me some additional secondary space in which to put back the Free Stuff section. So now we have the Fractal Picture Sets for LoneWolf’s Calendar and the temporary True Mandel v2.0 page back online.
I’ve also prepared an Alternate alt.binaries.pictures.fractals FAQ as a way to update the official FAQ (not of my authoring) and help newcomers learn the basics of fractal image generation. It is an independent publication not necessarily approved by the Pseudo-Cyber-Council of the abpf (whoever they are), but I judge it more useful and informative than the other. My thanks to those who sent in suggestions and observations.
Tuesday 06 July 1999
The Fractal Division music section has been renamed Fraktæphonia. The whole site –Third Apex to Fractovia, Fraktæphonia, and all past and future additions– will fall into Fractal Division.
Monday 05 July 1999
Well, I had to move my site from Tripod to this new server due to what I call irreconcilable differences on the way that company regards the content we the users put in their servers. I’m very proud of what I do (no matter if it’s celebrated or not) as to just give away my copyrights to some short-brained millionaires. As a result, I had to trim down the content of this web site to 5MB; so now there are only two picture galleries with 9 images each. I also had to eliminate the True Mandel 2.0 temporary home page, the Fractal Picture Sets, and tiled backgrounds. I expect to have them running again before summer ends once I find a trustworthy web hosting service in which to place my site and all its past a future content. In the meantime, thank you very much for your understanding and support.
Hugs, Juan Luis.
Saturday 08 May 1999
This is not another face-lift: this time is a complete rebuilding. Appendices such as the Mini(mandel)brot room are gone, although their images have been incorporated into Fractal Division’s other rooms and aisles. I’m rebuilding the fractal tile backgrounds page, so that’s why it’s temporarily off-line. In the meantime, I have been working very “hard” with the freeware page and the layout and graphics of this place. The mood is darker (back to where I started), but there’s nothing to fear. I think it’s more elegant (and makes me very happy), and hope you like the change.
Monday 05 April 1999
Another “face-lift”; this time more dramatic. At last I think I’m maturing as a web designer :-b Regretfully, I have not enough time for completion 🙂 I liked the previous version very much, but I have to admit it didn’t look so great in brightly illuminated spaces, nor the titles were so easy to read. That’s why I opted for a change not only of the front page, but of the whole place.
While I was doing so a new dilemma emerged: Is 600×600 a large resolution for the images? It seems to be large no more these days. Just when I was getting accustomed to that size myself as a compromise between a large image and a fast downloading one, there came news from a folk who thinks images smaller than 1024×768 (that being a “pretty” small one, too) are worth nothing. He complained that although there were several beautiful fractals in here, their too small sizes weren’t worth neither the effort, the time nor the visit; and of course, don’t forget about the compression ratio… uff! Is he right or wrong?
He is both right and wrong. That’s the conclusion I got to after pondering about it. The images are indeed small if you view them at 1600×1200 resolution (and I managed to get a glimpse of that in an elegant Silicon Graphics with a crispy and wonderful screen – regretfully, not of my property). I think most of us will prefer a larger size (useful to resolve the fine details of a fractal image), but again, there are other considerations to be made. The immediate ones are downloading rates and web space availability. Of course, the second one is the most critical. So, in order to have enough images for the visitor’s enjoyment in 15-20 MB, I will have to stick to the current resolution (and disrupting jpeg compression) for a while.
Back to what’s new… Besides the make-up, I added the second aisle to the Mini(mandel)brots room, which now has taken the shape of a separate place. So, now Fractal Division is subdivided into several interconnected sections spread in three different severs spanning several thousands kilometers, like a fractal interferometer 🙂
Monday 22 March 1999
Everything is new today. Well, I’m exaggerating: it’s just a face-lift. I’ve been working on this for the last couple of weeks, and finally it’s done. I hope you like it as much as I do. Feel free to let me know what you think.
“Fractura”, the long planned Spanish section, has been dropped out once again. It has proved to be too much work right now. But it’s not the only postponed section for I had plans to ad some new textual material, which will have to wait, possibly, until the summer.
Wednesday 10 March 1999
Most of the images I have been working on in the last few weeks are minibrots taken from different regions of the Mandelbrot Set. Thus, I decided to open an exhibition dedicated to those figures, which lately have deviated my attention from spirals and swirls. I have called it Mini(mandel)brots. The room will be composed of up to three permanent aisles (there is currently one) that will be updated as has been the norm with the other rooms so far.
Room One of Fractal Division has been refreshed with INFI images (for more information on that fractal generator, visit my Fractall Software page), while I’m still deciding what to do with the long-planned Spanish section. It has received a name at last – Fractura (it just means “fracture”, well suited for fractals 🙂 – and some content, but still almost empty.
Saturday 27 February 1999
I have added some interesting things to Fractal Division. There are some free tiled backgrounds you can get and use in your web page. I also moved in the three fractal picture sets for LoneWolf’s Calendar. They are also free, but their use is restricted to the calendar only. All these (and some more) can be found in the Free Stuff section.
Saturday 20 February 1999
I’ve been playing around with the page’s layout, colors, fonts and so on, but there haven’t been significant changes lately. Maybe next time. I have been very busy this last few weeks and it seems the next ones will be very similar, in terms of work to do.
I have added 13 new images to “Room One”, all of them taken from the Mandelbrot set, and rendered with INFI (eleven of them) and Tiera-Zon (the other two). It was also wrongly titled “Room Seven”; that error has been corrected. My very special thanks to Larry, the “Supersaint”, who is also one of my WebTV regular visitors, for letting me know.
The Fractal Division Slide Show has gone away, too. I have been running out of web space continuously, so I had to do some cleaning, and make room for new acquisitions. In its place is this What’s New? page you’re currently reading, and a Spanish section that is under construction.
I have a new Guestbook from GuestWorld, for those of you interested in putting your “Johnny was here”. Previous version’s signers (from both the old guestbook and answering machine) were Linda “Gumbycat” Allison, J.P. Louvet, Ivonne Sánchez, Reinaldo Henrique de Lima, Sofía, Sean Patrick, Ingrid, Maxwell, Steve Patterson, Maria Kjaergaard and Solarman. My thanks to all of them too.
My thanks also to David Robinson and Dan Hillman for their recent comments on my fractals, and their interest in a Spanish version of Fractal Division.
And before going away, I like to congratulate two special friends who have achieved important goals lately:
- Terry Wright – his beautiful fractals have gotten the attention of the folks at MOCA (the Museum Of Computer Art).
- Maria Kjaergaard – for coming out at last (with the help of her son Jacob) with a web site for her electrifying images that has been roaming the alt.binaries.pictures.fractals newsgroup for so long.
Keep fractaling! Hugs, Juan Luis.