milov.nl

Interaction design • webdevelopment • web art • photography

May 2003

fun with subdomains

For a while now, my site has supported custom subdomains... meaning people could type whatever.milov.nl and end up here. Never did anything with it other than redirect all subdomains to the main site - until this morning that is, when I came up with these two uses:

Quick-jump to iambald-number:
Typing 1, 2, ... 112 as a subdomain opens the matching iambald-page. Example: 24.milov.nl, 100.milov.nl, 112.milov.nl.

Colour view:
Want to quickly test what a particular hex or rgb colour value looks like? Try ffcc99.milov.nl, 990000.milov.nl, rgb(51,153,153).milov.nl or any other colour value as subdomain. Providing a handy way to link to or even bookmark one's favourite colours.

Update: even shorter rgb syntax: 250,100,50.milov.nl



Maarten wrote on 2003/05/22:
Kan je van die laatste ook een RSS feed opzetten? Dan kan ik zien wanneer m'n favouriete kleur is veranderd...


Calm_Pear wrote on 2003/05/22:
That's cool!


Tuuur wrote on 2003/05/23:
http://24.milov.nl is bookmarked here... great job!


P01 wrote on 2003/05/23:
The idea of using subdomain to provide short urls or webtools is great.

I don't see the point of the colour view tool :\ ( except of being a toy that suits perfectly the format allowed by subdomains ) compared to any paint program which have HSB,RGB,CMYK with some visual panels.

The iambald quick-jump is great.
Hope you'll find some other use soon. Why not using subdomains to customize an iambald entry ?


milov wrote on 2003/05/23:
> I don't see the point of the colour view tool
Having this now, I can't imagine a quicker way to test a colour value. I might not always have a paint program open, but I always have an address bar at the bottom of my screen, which I found myself using often not only for quick calculations (javascript:12*12, javascript:'howlongisthis'.length) but also for testing colours by typing about:<body bgcolor=#336699> -- which was a lot trickier to type than 336699.milov.nl :)

> Why not using subdomains to customize an iambald entry ?
Interesting suggestion! Perhaps a custom subdomain syntax as a way of defining a set of starting parameters for some generated pattern, animation or message. But then again, that could also be done by simply appending a ?param=whatever to the url.


sep wrote on 2003/05/23:
Very nice! I'm still (and always will be) amazed by your javascript skills. And 24 is so usefull to chose a nice color *bookmarked*


P01 wrote on 2003/05/23:
I'm not using the javascript: protocol that much, 'coz I always have a text editor or a paint pogramm open :p And have the calculator in my quikLaunch.

> But then again, that could also be done by simply appending a ?param=whatever to the url.

Definitly right, but sub-domains are less cryptic than a bunch of ?u=v&x=y.... can be used in a "funny" way, ( and bring a lot of traffic )
For those who don't already know http://milo.youaremyfriend.com/ ^__^


milov wrote on 2003/05/23:
LOL P01! That's a nice example of easy-to-grok subdomain syntax.
http://whoeveris.readingthis.youaremyfriend.com/

Anyway, I'm open to any suggestions for more subdomain tricks, so keep 'em coming.


huphtur wrote on 2003/05/23:
also very handy: http://html-color-codes.com/


Kid+A wrote on 2003/12/27:
Nice Javascript skills