col·o·phon - An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts about its publication. From Dictionary.com
Why a Colophon?
Because all the really cool kids have them, and because I believe some people may like to know more about what I use to maintain this site.
Why 'Neil's World'?
It's a really corny name, isn't it? I don't know, it was the first thing I could think of when I set up my blog on Blogger way, way back in January 2002. I've had a few other ideas for names but I've stuck with it, since change isn't always a good thing. Although I do babble on about computing and technology a lot (especially about blogging and Mozilla) this is still my personal space and I feel the name reflects that.
What's this running on?
This site lives on a server running RedHat Linux with the Apache web server, like many other sites out there. It also has PHP and Perl, both MySQL and PostgreSQL, and other goodies like that. The server itself is a shared server which sits in a datacentre in Leicester and is provided by DIYHost.
Most of the output of this site comes via Movable Type, which is a massively spiffy content management system centred around weblogging. While some may claim that other systems are better than MT, it has served me well for over three years now, and, at least at present, I see no reason to switch.
There are, however, a number of plugins which sit alongside MT to make it work better. These include MTMacro, MTCollect, MTSafeHref, MultiBlog, OnThisDay, RandomEntries, SmartyPants and WordCount, and probably a few others, alongside a whole raft of customised templates. As you can tell, I'm a bit of an MT junkie.
Who designed it?
Me. I'm not the world's best web designer but I do enjoy it. I'm an advocate for web standards and I try to include semantic code where possible (although I could do better). As such, I only use tables for tabular data - CSS controls the layout and XHTML provides the content. I even release my templates for the world to use under license. It's crafted in Metapad and looks best in Mozilla Firefox, but it should be fine in almost any browser.
Who is behind this site then?
Well me, again. As you might have guessed from the domain name, my name is Neil Turner, and at the time I was writing this I was a 21-year-old student studying at the University of Bradford in the UK. Although I'm from York, I now live in Bradford most of the time.
