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Site History
This web site has been around in numerous forms since 1995.
Scary, huh? Well, it has changed and mutated a lot over that time. It may be close to reaching sentience by now... Of course, back in 1995 the entire site amounted to 50kb including pictures and it was called John's Page of stuff. Not particularly original, but goes to show that the internet was always about sharing interests. At least, it was until spam and draconian copyright laws came along like one wet blanket. Now only the good bits of the internet are about sharing interests.
By the year 2000, the site was renamed to Suteki, and appeared on it's own url! Specifically, http://suteki.vision.net.au. Not much there now, but there you go. Suteki seemed a pretty cool name to me. It's Japanese, and can mean: Lovely; dreamy; beautiful; great; fantastic; superb; cool; capital. Nice, huh?
I started to get serious about my writing, and by 2006 the site became http://johnanthonycurran.com. It's always been the result of raw html coding, complete with all the speedy loading and occasional bug that involves. In 2010 I changed to an xml-based system that should make updates and site management much easier.
Site Technology
This web site has been coded using Notepad++, which is basically a nice text editor. The site is XML, transformed via a single XSL template. Styling is done by CSS files. The initial plan was it would stop there, that the site would be presented as XML. It would look just the same as it does to you now, but the XML processing would be done on your browser. But it didn't work out that way.
There's still too much that needs javascript. Specifically, Google Adsense, Google Analytics... even the little script I have that puts the random quote in the top left corner. So each time I change the site by adding an XML entry, I render the site with AltovaXML 2010, and upload the resulting files to the dite. It's an extra step, but it means I can do javascript.
Rendering with AltovaXML isn't too much of a pain, as I've written a script to handle the task for me!
Site Hosting
It would be nice if I could to run this site from the central computer of the alien spacecraft hidden beneath the Tasmanian plateau, but I'm told I can't let anyone know it exists. Apparantly the world isn't ready for it, or something. It's probably just as well... quantum superstrings are tricky to connect to ethernet. So! Instead, this site is running on the server farm at http://asmith.id.au by the kind graces of one Andrew Smith. He's also the fellow you have to thank for http://tracktype.org, also known as http://freedb2.org.
Writing
I've completed three full-length science fiction novels, and several short stores. Thus far, I've had the same level of success landing a publisher as Terry Pratchett, Iain Banks and JK Rowlings... except that after years of trying they eventually succeeded. I haven't as yet, which is one of the reasons I've gone ahead and started publishing myself! Check out the available stuff under the Books section.
I figured writing fantasy might help, so my current work is a magical realism fantasy novel. In theory this is an easy change, because I primarily write about characters and story, not technology or unusual ideas.
That said, writing fantasy is taking longer than I anticipated. The work is half finished, and I;m considering shelving it to try a current day fiction instead. or maybe another science fiction. we'll see.
About The Author
| Name: | My name is John Anthony Curran. According to Google, there's a few of us around. |
| Gender: | Definitely Male |
| Age: | 42. Life, the universe and everything. |
| Eyes: | Two |
| Availability: | Single |
| Coat: | My favorite one is black microfibre. Thin and light, but very warm in winter. |
| Temperament: | Independant old softie. Cynical, with a sense of humour. |
| Intelligence: | Intelligent enough not to say. |
| Ideal for: | Quiet nights in. |
| Average Cost: | Somewhere from free to not-all-the-money-in-the-world, depending on the purchaser. |
| Breed: | Where in the blazes did I get this questionaire from?! |
| Interests: | Besides writing, I enjoy messing with computers, watching movies and anime, gardening, and reading! I've been caught picnicking on frozen, pitch black mountain tops at midnight waiting for comets. |
Contact The Author
Ah, You've found the bit where I give you an email address you can use to contact me! You can reach me with webmail [ât] johnanthonycurran.com. That's not a clickable link, because if it were the evil data-collecting robots trawling the internet would deluge me with spam. But being a nice human you can figure it out. I have confidence in you!