Header Images
Thanks to yet another effort of our code monkeys, the header banners on Tawawa’s three main pages now sport portraits of students who participated in this site from its early days and who still contribute to it.
Each time you load — or reload, for that matter — one of these pages, the server pulls a random image from the stack. Currently there are seven pictures in rotation, but there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be more. Send them along if you’ve got images that should, could or might be included. We’ll pass them on to the monkeys.
Comments
Glad you like it.
What works the magic isn’t “custom html” but a little script named Image Rotator, which runs on the server. Typepad may or may not give you permission to play with their servers; my understanding of the whole service is that you use it when you don’t want to do your own coding. Still, you could do something similar in JavaScript, but it would be more complicated and less elegant.
I’ve been thinking about holding a contest in which readers are encouraged to send in Tawawa header graphics they created themselves, and then we’d put the best submissions in rotation. Perfect occasion for you to show off your mad design skillz. =)
Just in case anyone wants to see the the whole banner series on a single page.
Maurice :: January 20, 2004
Hmm, nifty!
Actually that script sounds fairly easy to implement. Maybe I’ll make some alternate banners for my site, too. Then I’ll be just as l33t as you tawawa guys. ;)
pketh :: January 21, 2004
I see, the typepad folks also recommended javascript, but it wouldn’t be possible unless I upgraded my account to allow such tinkering :(
aww well.
My curiosity would be piqued by a tamawa design contest, any prizes? :)
Well, if you’ve got the tinkering itch and the Typepad folks don’t allow you to scratch it, then maybe it’s time to move on and go somewhere else.
Prizes in the upcoming Tawawa Header Design Contest? Hmm. See, I have a horrible confession to make about contests and prizes and stuff. I once — and this is really horrible, you’re sitting down, right? — I once held a contest in which the first student to post a comment to another weblog, to link their name back to Tawawa, and to click on that link to make it register in our server stats was going to receive a bar of Swiss chocolate.
There were two winners, and the second winner gracefully and rightly declined the prize — I mean, the prize was a bribe, the contest itself was an exercise in link whoring, and then there’s the tooth decay and obesity induced by the chocolate. Pretty bad stuff, all of it, and made me suffer from contest holder’s remorse.
So I stopped offering prizes.
You may say this is different since it’s a straight contest and people should be rewarded for excellent work. Fair point, but I’m through with prizes. I’m unreasonable like that.
But. You’d be secure in the knowledge that some of the best things down here in this fallen world are their own reward, you’d get a credit link from the banner page and you’d have your work right up there on the Tawawa main page headers.
Also: I know the Tawawa logo is a bit hard to read — but not that hard. It isn’t Tamawa. And then there’s Nils, who spells it “Tawara”, which is wrong too. For offenders who spell “Tawawa” wrong, we usually crank up the spanking machine all the way to the “Severe” setting.
Maurice — yes, it’s very easy. Step two in the instructions is fairly muddled, though, and I found I had to enter the full path even with the script and the images in the same folder.
pketh :: January 22, 2004
just kiddin’ bout the prizes - no argument here that a good deed is it’s own reward :) . Whoops! I didn’t know it wasn’t ‘tamawa’, I’m gonna change that now ….
arg
Maurice :: January 25, 2004
Btw.
Does Tawawa mean anything?
Or am I missing the obvious here?
(hopes that question doesn’t trigger the spanking machine ;) )
As a Japanologist you probably are missing something, but then I’m told the word tawawa is rather obscure — so no spanking today (actually, the spanking machine is being repaired at the bicycle shop around the corner, so we couldn’t use it right now even if we wanted to).
Here’s the story behind the name.
I had a student once whose name was Tomoko. She was very quiet in class and never said much, but she wrote a good graduation thesis under my supervision.
After she graduated I learned from a sensei at the Department that she was an artist, that she wrote and illustrated childrens’ books. Shortly afterwards she contacted me, telling me about her book projects and asking if she could show me some of her work. She then came to my office with a portfolio and showed me a couple of originals.
She was looking for a publisher. I wasn’t much use in that respect since my connections to Japanese publishers are, er — somewhat limited. But I mentioned a project to her that had been brewing in the back of my mind for a while, an e-zine with student contributions. I suggested we could kick it off with a story of hers, so we scanned one of her pictures, photoshopped it a little and put it online as a test run.
The magazine never came into existence, although it morphed into the present weblog not quite a year ago, after I started toying with the idea of using Movable Type for a Composition course.
But before that, Tomoko and I were trying to come up with a name for the zine. At one point I suggested Hiroi, which she didn’t like very much, so she proposed Tawawa instead.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
She said, “Well, it’s like a tree that bears lots of fruit.”
I liked it. So when I was starting this site I contacted her and asked if it was OK to recycle the name, and she didn’t object. So here we are.
We’re not affiliated with the restaurant.
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that’s pretty damned sweet , I wish I could do something like that - I’m not sure my host (typepad.com) has the ability to do that without custom html (which you have to pay extra for), but I’ll still ask