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Frequently Asked Questions - Last Updated: 02/04/04
The Comic
- What's you update schedule?
- I initially tried for a twice a week update schedule, but I couldn't do it. Now I try to update once every week on Friday. However, I'm kind of lazy, busy a lot, and have poor time management skills, so I guarantee nothing. As for the news posts, well, we're constantly adding new posts, so check back periodically. The new news posts appear at the top, so it won't take too long to figure out if a new one has been added or not.
- What does Life of Convenience mean?
- Some people want to be rich and famous, to life lives with no no worries. Personally, I think that would be boring. I don't mind having to earn money to live, and having to manage it, but I'd like to be able to take a few unpaid weeks off, or quit my job, without having to worry about losing my house. I want to be able to afford the finer things, but don't mind having to work for them abit. thus not a life of luxury, but a life of convenience. And yes, it was the original title of Kevin Smith's film Clerks, and I always thought it was a good title. However, I'm not stealing it any more than Save Ferris stole from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
- Do your friends ever get upset with you over what you do with them in your comic?
- So far, no. I tried to be very clear with everyone when I started this that while the characters would be based on them, they weren't actually them. How I present a character, or what I show them doing, is in no way meant to reflect on the real person. That's one reason I wanted to name all of the characters something other than the real person's name, and why everyone posts to this site under an alias, to create a sense of separation between them and their on-line persona. That's why I post as Jay and not Jeremiah. Jay is based on me, but he's not actually me. So far the only person who hasn't gone along with this is Tim, who insisted I use his real name. Then again, Tim - who I'm convinced has several people living inside his head - is what I'd call a born performer, and is more used to being someone he isn't than the rest of us.
- How do you make the strips?
- I've used a variety of methods so far, as I'm still trying to find my groove, so to speak. Once I do I'll probably put together one of those "making the strip" pages that some strips have.
The Blog
- I like your comic, but your posts annoy the piss out of me! I mean, really, what the hell are you thinking?
- Wow, you like the comic? Cool.
- Why are all of the times on the news posts in Pacific time (PST)? I though you were in Maine, wouldn't that be Eastern time (EST)?
- You are correct sir! Yeah, anyway, the posts are made through a script that formats the posts (allowing my non-HTML literate friends to make posts) and saves them with the date and time in the file name. The date and time recorded are those of the server the page is hosted on. The server is owner and operated by Dreamhost.com, which is located in California, thus the times are PST.
The Site
- Why is this site called "Idle, ME"?
- Idle, ME (ME is the US postal code for Maine) is a fictional town I created to set my comic in. The name Idle doesn't really have any significance, I just like it for some reason, so everything I do seems to end up being called Idle something.
- Ok, I'll buy it, so what's the purpose of this site?
- Well, first and foremost it's a showcase for the web comic I do (with a lot of help) called "Life of Convenience". Second, it's a way to communicate with the world, a way to share my thoughts, feelings, interests, and art with any who care to take a look. It's also something interesting and collaborative to do with my friends, who help to make this site far more varied and interesting than I ever could by myself.
- When I load up your page, sometimes it looks terrible, with things scattered everywhere and on top of each other, and other times it looks fine. Why is that?
- You're probably seeing the site through a couple different internet browsers. I've designed this site using a combination of tables and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for layout. CSS does some wonderful things, but at present has several drawbacks. One of those disadvantages is that some browsers don't support CSS very well. Of the browsers I've used Apple's Safari browser seems to me to have the best CSS support at the moment. Internet Explorer's support is ok, better than Netscape's, but I have other reasons for disliking IE (poor standards support, lack of modern browser features like tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking) so I don't really recommend it. Mozilla has made drastic improvements lately and is definately worth a try to see if you like it. I especially recommend the Firebird version. Opera is a fine browser with several annoying quirks, and the free version has a permanent ad in the upper right of the window (and the Mac version doesn't seem nearly as good as the Windows version). Basically, if you're using Mac OS X I highly recommend Safari, if you're using Windows I'd give Mozilla Firebird a try, and if you're a Linux user I personally like Konquerer if you're using KDE, and Mozilla Firebird if you're using Gnome. No matter what browser you're using, make sure you have the most recent version. All of the browsers I've mentioned are free, or have free versions, and can be found and downloaded from Download.com.
- How did you make a workable archive? Did you have to learn PHP?
- I'm still trying to learn PHP myself, but I can't take credit for the archive/post/update system on this site. I wish I could, it's quite a good bit of programming and it's perfect for my needs. No, the credit needs to go to DJ (a.k.a. ComradeF) from The-Misc.com who wrote the script I use, which is based on a simpler and less full-featured script written by Keef at RabidComics.com. DJ seems like a cool guy (heck, he wrote a great script then made it free for anyone to download and use, which is very cool), I've e-mailed him a few times and he's always been quick to answer and helpful, so if you need a script like this load up his site and check him out. Tell him I sent ya. I haven't had any dealings with Keef, but I'll bet he's a cool guy too, so if you need something like this but simpler, give his site a hit and check it out (of course, it is free, so adjust your expectations accordingly).
- Who are you hosted by?
- I'm currently hosted by Dreamhost.com. If you're looking for hosting, give them a good hard look, they've got some great plans at great prices, a relatively simple to use yet powerful web panel, and an extensive help section. If you decide to go with them, I'd appreciate it if you told them I sent you (or, even easier, click the link up there and then sign up). Or at least let me know about it so I'll know I've done some good for someone. Or not, whatever.
- How do you make your pages? Do you use Notepad, or a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor?
- I don't use a WYSIWYG editor, as they tend to create messy, bloated pages and give you less control that you get when hand coding. However, I don't use a straight up text editor (such as Notepad) either. At first I used an HTML editor someone gave me a copy of called CoffeeCup HTML Editor. It's a simple but very useful program that comes with an extensive help system, and a lot of extras such as simple Javascripts (not the most well written, but they work, and it's a good place to start). Now I use two programs, Macromedia Dreamweaver (the best of the "big" editors in my opinion) primarily, with Taco HTML (a free Mac OS X HTML editor) for some things that Dreamweaver tends to complicate (stylesheet editing, or simple text entry like this).
- Why do you use an HTML editor?
- For several reasons. First and foremost, the color-coding. All of my HTML tags show up blue, links show up green, comments are highlighted for easy searching, etc. This makes it a lot easier to edit large files. The second reason is for convenience. I can't remember everything, and sometimes I forget exactly what tags go with each other, or which one to use where. For example, does "bgcolor" or "background-color" go in the body tag? It's bgcolor, but sometimes I get mixed up. Using an HTML editor I can look up things like that, I can even have it create the skeleton for tables and such, saving me a lot of time and repetitive typing. If you're interested in web design, I strongly suggest you learn to hand code HTML, and that you at least try out a few HTML editors. And definitely avoid all WYSIWYG editors - short of something like Macromedia Dreamweaver - at all costs, and shun Microsoft Frontpage like a plague victim.
Misc.
- What does the world need now?
- Love, sweet love.
- Is this really the end?
- Not at all. More will be added as it comes up, so keep checking back for updates. If you have a question you'd like answered, don't hesitate to ask, the forum, guest book, and e-mail links all work, so fire away. See? I still care.
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