lofton.net

Over in the menu area on the right of the standard theme is a drop down that allows you to change the design of the site. I created several designs based on the same html code to show the power and flexibility of using CSS for web design. I got the idea of course from csszengarden.com, which was the inspiration for me to finally get into using CSS back in 2001. Prior to that I was a wizard with table based design. I dabbled with CSS, but the differences between browsers was maddening. Upon finding csszengarden.com and going through several of the linked supporting sites I learned the secrets of browser quirks and standards mode and how to force them to use standards mode. It was awesome to be free of the constraints of tables. I laugh now because there are number of web designers who want to bring back tables or rather refuse to give them up.

Tables are for tabular content. If you have a series of stats, a set of values that need to add up or similar data then a table is perfectly Ok. For layouts however, I remember the frustration of tables not being able to have different vertical dividers. If you had a table with two rows and the first row had 2 columns and the second had 3 columns, then one of the cells in the first row had to span two of the columns in the second. You could get around this by adding more columns or the taboo of table inside of tables, but it was a mess. There were a number of other table snafus that one had to deal with between browsers as well. So when I hear of someone advocating the benefit of table layouts, I just shake my head.

So I thought I’d take a look to see what lofton domains might be available. Wow, pretty much everything is gone. I started doing web design in 96 and I should have registered the .com back then. It just did not occur to me to register a domain for my personal or professional needs. By the time I decided to register a domain the .com was gone. So I took the lofton.net domain in 2000. Since then, I check every now and again to see if lofton.com might be back on the market. I know it will never be available, but I check anyway. This time I thought I’d look into jimlofton.com. Gone! What’s worse, is it looks like some old guy has taken it and is posting yearbook photos and/or reunion photos. He is also keeping track of classmates who are deceased. Seems kind of odd to do on your personal site. There does not seem to be a way to contact him on his site so I checked whois and it came back with west virginia mailing address and a verizon email.

So here is the dilemma… Is it likely that someone may mistake this guy for me? On one hand I don’t think so, but because the guy has no info on the site it’s possible. The least he could do is put a regional location so that folks will know they have the West Virginia Jim Lofton and not the Chicago Jim Lofton. Actually there are two James Lofton’s in Chicago… I don’t know the other guy. I’m the Jim Lofton who started his career as a graphic designer and went to UIC and later Depaul. That should straighten things out… no? If you haven’t registered your name or have a domain that identifies you uniquely from all the other yous out there, you may want to check into that now.