About

A rare image of Martini Example

name: Marin Exley

email: marinexley@protonmail.com

age: enough

nicknames: chevy, chevon, mars, xly, shitface

interests: technology, Apple, old computers, design

influences: in terms of design, I am influenced by Dieter Rams, Marc Newson, and Jony Ive. in terms of art, my influences are Beyonce, Bjork, and the early-2000s aesthetic.

hobbies: making this website, running OME, taking pictures

fun fact: hippo sweat is pink

computer: 2015 MacBook (12 inch Retina Display)

operating system: OS X, Unix, unix-like

> view my complete computer collection

In September 2014, I created Chromebooks as my personal Neocities site. Soon after that, the Network Neighborhood was formed. Chromebooks was then quickly repurposed to act as a web portal, a link to the rest of Neocities. However, work on Chromebooks slowed down over the next months. Chromebooks wasn’t updated again until June 2015, when a few minor changes were made, such as a darker color scheme and space-themed backgrounds.

After Chromebooks, a few other projects were in development, such as The Network Neighborhood and VHSearch, a neocities search engine. In November, Chromebooks was taken down temporarily.

A few days later, Chromebooks 2.0 was launched as a complete reboot, and recreated many of the old Chromebooks’ features. The original Chromebooks was made using Dreamweaver, and some of the markup was in need of being rewritten. 2.0 was made entirely by hand using Visual Studio Code. Chromebooks 2.1 to 2.3 added features that were planned for the original 2.0 release, as well as minor visual changes to the sites overall 90s-esque theme. In December, Chromebooks was renamed OpenBooks, and its code was made publicly available on Github under the MIT license.

In January 2016, OpenBooks XP, also known as OpenBooks 2.5, was launched featuring a visual overall. Many 90s style elements were updated with a more 2001 feel, and drop shadows were added to the pages while still remaining compatible with older browsers.

OpenBooks currently exists as a hub, linking to other parts of Neocities while hosting its own files as well, such as articles, images, and music.

On February 18th, 2016, OpenBooks 3.0 was launched after brief beta testing as OpenBooks 2.9. It featured an entirely new and original design. It also shifted to focusing more on OpenBook's original content rather than being a directory/web portal.

In April 2016, I left the Network Neighborhood, and OpenBooks ownership was transferred completely to Marin Exley (the organization). Soon after, I merged the two brands into OpenBooks-Marin Exley, or OME. OME is now the parent brand of all OpenBooks-related projects and everything else I create.

In May 2016, I returned to the Network Neighborhood as its interim president.