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I published my first North American site on March 1, 2000 (one of the first for distribution); over the years I had to rebuild it, like so many people, either because my idea of its aesthetics had evolved or, unfortunately, because the programs I used were abandoned or no longer adapted by the developers; the last times, I went through Adobe GoLive, then Muse, then Freeway Pro, and now Sparkle).
My 2006 site was the biggest site for a hi-fi distributor; it had taken me 9500 hours (madness...), and an investment of 27,000 cad for my fellow developer (whom this excess exhausted as much as me... he thought "branding", these sites of a few pages, for which he has a talent that I consider exceptional, whereas I thought "culture, information, sharing"...); his perfect layouts plus my unique menu system got me a call from the developers of the Louvre museum site in Paris, asking me to share the technique! The "tone" of the site was Art, which always interests me more than technique.
But all the visitors actually enjoying this colossal effort were… in Europe; they spent an average of one hour on the site (a record!), especially on the cultural pages!
North Americans (therefore "my market") spent a few minutes; the sequence of pages they visited: Index - Products - Special offers - bye bye! "Enough said"...
And then the final blow comes: in January 2010, Apple released the iPad; immediately, I perceive the relevance of this object, I order one, and disaster... Apple has rejected Javascript for iOS, my menu does not work on it!
But this menu was quite "essential"; I could have tried to change it then, but in fact I was discouraged... I didn't publish anything more that year.
And since I had launched my project to build the house in 2008, I was overwhelmed; it took me 10 years (!) to create the following site!
In September 2018, being very busy creating plans for my future home, my site was suddenly quite basic... a site with the "look" of the day, with minimalist information, and a "responsive" design adapted to iPhones...
But then again, the creators of the program (Freeway Pro) didn't update it for subsequent macOS...
Finally, in December 2022, taking advantage of my usual stay in Asia, I started creating this new site.
It took me hundreds of hours again, but I really enjoyed it, finding a balance between art, culture and... technology :)
I will add more details during the coming year; this blog page will keep you informed.
As always, despite all my care, it surely contains errors or omissions... thanks to my visitors for letting me know!
If you feel the need for a small screen version, write to me, I will consider adding it.
As it is, the site displays very well from an iPad mini to large screens, and I designed it with comfortable margins to allow zooming on atypical screens.
Good reading !
Pascal
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