Show HN: My Windows XP portfolio with working Game Boy and iPod | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: My Windows XP portfolio with working Game Boy and iPod

mitchivin.com

71 pointsmitchivin35 comments

I posted my portfolio here about a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45154609) and while there was a big response, it was very mixed! It'll probably be similar this time, but regardless of your thoughts about the concept, I think I've done a pretty good job creating one of the most nostalgic corners of the internet, especially with the latest additions.

It'll always be up for debate whether this is an effective way to get noticed as opposed to a standard, quick and easy portfolio, but I'll die on the hill that this is way more fun for both parties, every day of the week.

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Nice job. I saw a portfolio designed as a Mac OS 9 interface a while back, but I think one of the best ones I’ve ever seen was one that modeled a sort of 3D, “UNIX‑esque” operating system [1].

A small bit of feedback: the progress bar during boot is a little too smooth. If you want to be accurate, it should technically move in ticks, where each tick corresponds to one of the segments.

[1] - https://joeyderuiter.me

it's been mentioned a few times so ill take a look into it. from memory i think it was a choice but i'll go back and reaccess the loading bar smoothness :)

and yeah there's some really cool one's out there!

This is so sick. Laughed hard when the iPod wheel worked as expected with my mouse and I was able to get Bomfunk MC's playing. Great stuff!

thanks boss! one of the first songs I ever heard/saw the video for. Never left me haha

I mean... I like it. I remember your post from last time where, apparently, I got the top comment.

It looks like you've dealt with the UX issues I ran into previously (e.g., back/forward behaviour), but I did almost immediately spot a different oddity in your portfolio...

When you click on "My Projects" and then use the left nav to switch between "All", "Image", "Web", etc., it highlights the relevant projects rather than filtering out the irrelevant projects... which does feel a bit weird. I guess I understand it give you only have four projects in there but that's perhaps the other issue: I'd really like to see more projects than you're showing off here.

But, I mean, I still like it - I really like it. It's a lot more characterful than the vast majority of other portfolios I've seen and the attention to detail is very strong overall.

Again, something I said last time that I'll repeat here: if you were applying for a design or UX role with this I'd certainly interview you. I'd have to be unhinged not to.

(And, FWIW, I thought I gave you fairly balanced feedback, but clearly managed to piss a few people off so maybe, again, we'll both be in for another roasting - or at least a rather mixed bag of comments. Regardless, I wish you the absolute best.)

haha welcome back, your feedback last time was 100% fair and balanced - I used it along with the other comments in that thread to resolve the issues I felt deserved attention and the things you mentioned fell into that category, so I appreciate it!

in regards to the new my projects bug, thats honestly something I noticed myself just recently too and its a result of changing which projects I have up. at one point they all had at least 1 project they were filtering - that is something I will be sorting out!

Im getting back to fleshing out the projects now, I've been spending time working on some other stuff - i needed a break after the amount of time that went into this originally haha. but im aiming to circle back now and polish up/add to the copy/projects

haha! Im fully prepared for some roasts but this time i'm 9 months more experienced in dealing with it. Thanks so much for the thoughtful feedback, I really appreciate it and its even better coming from someone who saw the original version.

That's cool - I'm glad it was useful. I also should say, I like the fact you've come back after a decent chunk of time and posted it again with changes. It's very rare that happens with Show HNs, but it's really nice to see the progress on something over time and I'm not sure I would have run across this again unless you'd posted.

ahah thanks for making the effort to comment again

in the same way, it's been cool getting feedback from the same person after those changes/time has passed

You've nailed the feel. Ignore the nay sayers!

thanks mate! it was countless hours of obession & frustration back in the days of Sonnet 3.5

For sure! Im a big advocate for anything outside the box haha

This is amazing, really takes me back. I love the interaction on the website and how you can move around the windows.

thank you!

I just took a look and it's really great, it feels like going back in time.

Thanks dude!

I love it. But I'm missing the Game Boy cheat code to unlock the goodies...

check the bar above the gameboy when it asks you for the code :)

Immediately the wallpaper looks AI generated, and for me that immediately removes any trust in "graphic design" and "attention to detail. But the rest is cool

Aside from the fact that Graphic Designer is barely if ever mentioned on the site, I don't think you understand what Graphic Design is

A little dodgy that the game boy is only available on desktop?

Pretty cool though.

I don't know if dodgy is the word I would use

https://mitchivin.github.io/gameboy/

I really enjoyed this, thanks for taking me back in time!

Awesome. Props for the iPod clickwheel. I miss my Classic!

haha thanks! turns out it isn't as easy as searching for a standard audio file for the sound (being a machine sound i guess/think?) so I had to find someone doing ASMR and cut it up hahah

Not to criticize your work too harshly, but you specifically call out that this showcases attention to detail, and it's actually very inaccurate to the actual Windows XP, for anyone who's ever used it before. The UI elements are all haphazardly sized relative to each other, there are alpha-fade ins/outs, the loading bar in the boot screen animates smoothly when the real thing popped along block-by-block, fonts are antialiased when they shouldn't be, hover-over dropdown menus appear/disappear instantly when moused over, the fake scanlines are just a pixel grid overlay, the selection box on the desktop is filled but should be a dotted outline... these are just the few I saw and I haven't used XP in years.

no offensive taken dude, great eye you have and at some point i'll go through and see if I can address each of these things

aside from the pixel grid effect - thats just there for fun and I like it

I enjoyed the pixel grid

I agree with you, but also I feel that that's way too much work for a portfolio site, and this is good enough for me.

XP had cleartype no?

That Windows XP loading bar brings me back. Great job.

thanks boss!

So friggin’ cool. I think it’s really fun and when you can instantly entice people to click around and explore then you have already succeeded.

That was the idea! I can't stand here and say that it's made me completely stable in my freelance career but it defintely got some eyeball's on me that would have no clue who I otherwise was

I liked it so much, gave me nostalgia.

I commented on the original post and I still don't understand the point of a "Visual Designer" basically reimplementing Windows XP in the browser. What are you trying to show off?

Also, it seems very buggy with the visuals. I see weird artifacts.

I have control bugs. Like, if I drag around a window using my trackpad, I can't seem to 'drop' the window; the state doesn't change and I'm stuck with a window attached to my mouse cursor.

I agree that I'm not sure what value I'd see, as an employer, in a "visual designer" whose CV rips off something else's visual design. Much of the design doesn't belong to you (never mind the ROMs used in the Game Boy emulator) so my alarm bells about how much you respect IP would be going off ("this guy's gonna get us sued").

Now, on the other hand, if this were a display of some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills, I'd understand more, but then the title OP has given themselves seems off.

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