Charles A Upsdell

Website Design

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Portfolio: Designs

I’ve been designing websites since 1998. The oldest sites have tended to be more primitive, because needs were simpler then, and because I built the sites when browsers were much cruder and the Internet much slower. Over the years, however, I’ve redesigned some of the oldest sites to make them more ca­pa­ble, and at the same time I’ve made them easier to use and more attractive.

This page lists:

This page also connects to:

Amateur Sports Sites : if you’re interested in an amateur sports site, see my sports sites portfolio.

Websites I’ve Designed 

Here are websites I have designed, some active, some inactive:

Active Websites 

Elements of Design

There are five key elements in my designs:

1 I design each website for a client’s unique needs.

2 I design each site to be easy to use.

3 I design each site to be functional, but at­trac­tive, by fo­cus­ing on es­sen­tials, keeping things simple.

4 I design each site for both existing and future brow­sers by adhering strictly to coding stan­dards.

5 I design each site to work well with all brow­sers in use, though it may look nicer with better brow­sers.

These sites are active and flourishing:

2003–Present:

Calendar: a multilingual calendar for any year, mainly written in Perl, but also in xHTML, CSS, and Java­Script. Based on a si­mi­lar MS-DOS calendar program that I created in 1980, written in C. En­hanced often, heavily redesigned in 2021.

1999–Present:

Security News: a web-based newsletter that gives news about security fixes for common PC soft­ware. 4 pages. Redesigned several times, updated weekly. This site honours the O/S dark mode. Note: Javascript must be enabled for the site to work fully.

1998–Present:

Alma A Upsdell Family Tree: a personal genealogical site. 12,821 family members. Re­designed four times, updated once or twice annually. This site honours the O/S dark mode. Note: Javascript must be enabled for the site to work fully.

Browser News: a web-based newsletter that offers news about browsers and web design, links to browsers old and new, design resources, and internet stats. 98 pages. Re­designed several times, growing frequently, updated daily. Note: Javascript must be enabled for the site to work fully.

Charles A Upsdell Website Design: my business site. Re­designed several times. Note: Javascript must be enabled for the site to work fully. Trying to go to a non-existant www.​upsdell.ca page will produce a custom 404 error page. Custom error pages include:

Saint Edward the Confessor Anglican Church: a church site. 49 pages. Enhanced several times.

Inactive Websites 

These sites are inactive: none are being updated, except perhaps to bring them more in line with current coding practices; some sites are fragments of previously deployed sites.

The oldest sites were designed to work well with primitive browsers which are now extinct; those sites, therefore, do not make use of features offered only by modern browsers.

Created in 2009:

Mississauga North Stars 2009-2011: local hockey teams. 79 pages. Small Perl programs enable administrators to do some site administration. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for some pages to work.

Created in 2008:

Georgetown Eagles Baseball Teams 2008-2009: local élite baseball teams. 55 pages. Small Perl programs enable administrators to do some site administration. Note : Java­Script must be enabled for some pages to work.

Created in 2007:

NCOHA Predators: a site for a youth hockey association, the North Central Ontario Hockey Associa­tion, which fields 8 élite teams. 290 pages. Small Perl programs enable administrators to do some site administration. Terminated in 2013.

Ontario Lightning Hockey Clubs: a site for an élite youth hockey association. Termi­nated in 2008 due to the client’s failure to pay. 63 pages. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices.

Toronto Titans Minor Bantam AAA Hockey 2007/2008: a local élite boys’ hockey team. 25 pages. Caution : this site is no longer updated, since the 2007/2008 season is over; some links may have broken since then. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices.

Created in 2006:

Stiritz.net: a professional photographer’s photo gal­leries. 15 pages. Enhanced in 2008. Note : JavaScript must be enabled. Note : the client specified the look and feel of each page, right down to the finest detail, so I cannot claim credit for the site’s appearance. Note : the client did minor main­tenance on the site, so infelicities may have crept in.

Mississauga Terriers Peewee AA Hockey 2006/2007: a local boys’ hockey team. 9 pages. Note : this is a very low budget site, so it lacks many features found in other sports sites. Note : this site is no long­er updated, since the 2006/2007 season is over; some links may have broken in the meanwhile.

Created in 2002:

Erindale Cardinals 2003: a baseball team. 31 pages. Note : Internet Explorer 8 seems to have a bug which can make pages display incorrectly. Note : this site is no longer updated, since the 2003 season is long over; some links may have broken since then. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices. See also: Erindale Blue Jays 2001 and 2002.

Created in 2000:

International Lawyers’ Group: a lawyers’ association. 90+ pages. After Dec 2009, updates were done by a Swiss designer under the auspices of a Swiss lawyer, so my involvement with the site ceased. Sometime later the site was abandoned.

Mississauga Majors Baseball Teams 2000-2013: local élite baseball teams. 580 pages. Perl programs gene­rate map pages and enable managers to do some site admi­nistration. Heavily redesigned twice. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for some pages to work, beginning in 2007.

Created in 1999:

John Adams: a Toronto City Councillor. Was 130+ pages. Note : this site is no longer accessible, as Mr. Adams let his site expire after opting not to run in the 2000 election: only a copy of the home page is accessible, and links are no longer active.

North American Decal: a graphic arts company that offers OEM, fleet, and promotional graphic ser­vices. Was 12 pages. Note : this site was later redesigned by someone else; the link goes to a copy of the last version I made.

WebSightServices: a website integrator. Was 11 pages. Note : the company shut down during the .com collapse. Note : the home page takes a very long time to load for those with dial-up connections, since it has a huge graphic selected by the client.

Concept Sites and Pages I’ve Created 

Here are concept sites and pages: creations to present design ideas. Because they are not production designs, links in the pages are often inactive, and links to external pages may have expired. The design of newer pages is better that that of older pages. Note : concept sites and pages are rarely, if ever, updated, so the newest pages may not work well with long obsolete browsers, and the very oldest pages may not work as well with the newest browsers.

Whence the Concept Pages?

Some may wonder why I made the concept pages.

1 I created some to show prospective clients how their sites might look. E.g. I design­ed Astrological Fore­casts for an astrologer to pro­mote his services: the concept page was a pro­pos­ed splash page.

2 I created some concept pages to explore design tech­ni­ques: creating concept pages enabled me to try out new ideas with no risk of breaking real sites. E.g., I refined a design for an old proposal (ERT) to per­fect a new way to create drop-down menus which I re­üsed in many later sites. E.g. I created The Elite Events 4 site to experiment with making a site which adapts to an O/S’s dark mode.

3 I created some concept pages to improve my design skills. E.g. I made Calendar to im­prove my skills in using the Perl language.

4 In one case I created a concept site as an initial step in developing a site: I made Gal­leria to demonstrate and test code for making a photo gallery: that code — but not the page design — became the core of the Stiritz.net photo gallery.

Created in 2023:

The Élite Events 4: a concept site for a business. Some pages are incomplete. This is a variant of The Élite Events 3 (see be­low), but is dark when the O/S is configured for dark mode. Note: ES5 Javascript must be enabled for the site to work.

The Élite Events 5: a concept site for a business. Some pages are incomplete. This is an experimental variant of The Élite Events 4, and also is dark when the O/S is configured for dark mode. Note: ES6 Javascript must be enabled for the site to work, so this site isn't compatible with Internet Explorer older than version 11.

Created in 2022; Heavily Modified in 2023:

The Élite Events 1: a concept site for a business. Some pages are incomplete. This is a variant of The Élite Events 2 and The Élite Events 4, using Dukas CF as the primary font, and is dark when the O/S is configured for dark mode. Note: ES5 Javascript must be enabled for the site to work.

The Élite Events 2: a concept site for a business. Some pages are incomplete. This is a variant of The Élite Events 1 and The Élite Events 4, using Oregon LDO as the primary font, and is dark when the O/S is configured for dark mode. Note: ES5 Javascript must be enabled for the site to work.

The Élite Events 3: a concept site for a business. Some pages are incomplete. This is an older variant of The Élite Events 4, using the generic serif font as the primary font, but is not dark when the O/S is configured for dark mode. Note: ES5 Javascript must be enabled for the site to work.

Created in 2011:

Mississauga North Baseball Association: a concept page for a youth baseball team. Links in this page are not active.

Mississauga Southwest Baseball Association: a concept page for a youth baseball team. Links in this page are not active.

Created in 2009, Updated in 2019:

Fraser Presbytery Site for Youths and Young Adults: a con­cept site for a church organiza­tion. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2008:

Barrie Colts: a concept page for a hockey association. Links in the page are not active. A 2011 design for a team site also exists.

Created in 2007:

Modern Access Systems: a rough concept site for an international vendor of access control systems. Links in this site are active, but only a few pages exist, so click­ing on many pages will go to pages which do not exist.

Mississauga Terriers Minor Bantam AA: a concept site for hockey team. Links in this site are not active. There is a more modern design, created in 2011, which looks similar with the leading-edge 2011 browsers.

Surplus Machine Tool: a concept site for a seller of used manufacturing equipment, machine tools, and metalworking machinery. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2006:

Coalition for Persons with Disabilities: a concept site for an organization working with the disabled; the concept site fixed problems described in a detailed critique. This is a re-make of an existing Dec. 2005 site. Links in this site are active.

Galleria: a concept site demonstrating a photo gallery. Links in this site are active. Note : this is made for modern browsers.

Created in 2003:

ERT Inc.: a concept page for an environmental investigation and remediation firm. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2003 site. Links in this site are not active. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it more in line with modern coding practices.

Ultek: a concept site for a internet host provider. This is a re-make of an existing Mar. 2003 site. Links in this site are not active. Updated in 2006 to fix an IE7 problem.

Created in 2002:

Qualikom: a concept site for a internet host provider. This is a re-make of an existing Mar. 2002 site. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2001:

Mississauga Chess Club: a concept site for a chess club. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

Pickwick Farm: a concept site for a farm. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

Saints Martha and Mary Parish: a concept site for a parish. Links in this site are active.

Volunteer Centre of Peel: a concept site for a city volunteer organization. This is a re-make of an existing June 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

Created in 2000:

Astrological Forecasts (1): a concept page for a site to be used to sell astrological forecasts. Links in the page are not active.

Astrological Forecasts (2): a concept splash page for a site to be used to sell astrological forecasts. Links in the page are not active.

Mancor Industries, Ltd.: a concept page for an industrial firm. This is a re-make of an existing Dec. 2000 site. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 1999:

Home Business Place: a concept page for a business portal. Links in this site are not active. Note: this is made for modern browsers.

Mother Teresa School: a concept site for a school. Links in this site are active. There is a more modern design, created in 2011, in which links are not active.

WoodFantasies: a concept page for a site to be used to sell handcrafted accessories to needle­work enthusiasts. Links in the page are not active.