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27 Apr 10 - 03:39 PM (#2895443) Subject: Tech: Running a Website? (HTML Practice Grande From: wysiwyg 1. Who among regular Catters is a web-techie for a website? Where, if we may look? (I do-- www.stpaulswellsboro.org/) 2. Do you maintain a section in yours where you practice tricks before making them publicly viewable? (I do) 3. What title have you got? (Mine is, informally speaking, Webgeezerette) ~Susan |
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27 Apr 10 - 04:32 PM (#2895473) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website? (HTML Practice Grande From: treewind Just a few....... Treewind My own site Micro-Robotics my day job Mary Humphreys and Anahata Fendragon a ceilidh band English Rebellion another ceilidh band Ethel's cats another ceilidh band Four Hand Band Mary and me playing ceilidhs as a duo Pig Dyke Molly a dance team Mayflower Folk Music an almost defunct club in Cambridge Uveitis Information Group something my sister is involved in Sutton Folk Club Towan Cottage Holiday lets in Cornwall "Do you maintain a section in yours where you practice tricks before making them publicly viewable?" Mine are all created and viewable on my home computer, including server side stuff (there's a copy of apache running locally) so everything gets viewed and checked before uploading. All hand coded PHP/HTML, and Pig Dyke uses a MySQL database, for the pictures and for a lot of stuff you can't see without logging in as a team member. You'll be wishing you hadn't asked now... Anahata |
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27 Apr 10 - 05:33 PM (#2895502) Subject: AnyClone Help Request From: wysiwyg Clone: Pls close parens in my thread title and delte request, thanks. ----------------------done. Joeclone---------- === Not at all! I will go see your stuff soon. Our site also is all hand-coded. Mostly with HTML learned here. The original design (3 columns I can fill) was done as a college kid's project, but the newer bells and whistles are mine and I can create new pages in that format quite easily, and have done so. (A good place to learn.) Our process is that I get input and then go to work, calling upon an HTML consultant (he's paid) as needed-- like when I break a table. :~) New material goes thru a review process and right now I'm recruiting a team of folks to review each page periodically and suggest improvements. Also recruiting photogs and soliciting material to upload. With me, one step ahead, always learning the newer stuff first. It's internship-level stuff, as far as the HTML itself goes. But in toto it's not just a website internship-- it puts my professional marketing and other stuff to use as well. ~Susan |
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28 Apr 10 - 04:48 AM (#2895766) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website? (HTML Practice Grande From: buddhuu I maintain a few client sites on a freelance basis, and work on a site as part of the day job. None of those are relevant to music, so I won't bore you with them (and believe me, they are boring). I keep meaning to do a site for our weekly session, but time hasn't allowed so far. I run a community site, but I just use a hosted blog platform for the sake of time saving. When I do proper sites I work in hand-coded XHTML and CSS. I'm not a fan of Dreamweaver or similar as I hate smartarse software that thinks it knows better than I do what code I want in my page. I avoid non-essential crap that bloats file sizes and stretches download times. Nothing worse than waiting a minute for a Flash site to load only to find that it wasn't worth the wasted time. My main job is Internet marketing - mainly natural search optimisation - so if any of you have problems getting your music/session sites into Google, give me a shout... for free advice, that is - I'm not touting for business! |
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28 Apr 10 - 05:18 AM (#2895783) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Ground) From: GUEST, Sminky I'm a web programmer in Local Government, so as well as producing highly boring static web pages, I also create even more highly boring interactive applications. We have test and beta servers on which we test stuff before making them live. My official title is Software/System Engineer which is entirely meaningless. |
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28 Apr 10 - 05:34 AM (#2895794) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Ground) From: SteveMansfield The LeSession website is mine, encompassing My abc notation tutorial, the FAQ for the old uk.music.folk newsgroup,, kept live these days primarily for historical/archival reasons my rauschpfeife sub-site, spreading the love for extremely loud Renaissance wind instruments, and loads more stuff - have a look round. Also under my wing is the Phoenix ceilidhs of Horwich, Lancashire and Flash In The Pan, the finest ceilidh band ever formed by some of the musicians of The Powderkegs Border Morris. Mainly hand-coded, and very little scripting stuff going on to be honest. I'll never win any design awards but hopefully the content makes up for it :) You might want to Google around the subject of the usage of a small text file called robots.txt, which you put in the root of your site and should be observed by all search engines etc. to not index certain files/directories, thus giving your experimentation a certain amount of privacy (don't rely on it for your credit card number though). The name came from the 'Grand Session de Manchester' French dance/music sessions we ran over 10 years ago - the sessions are long gone but the domain name lives on ... |
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28 Apr 10 - 07:46 AM (#2895845) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Ground) From: A Wandering Minstrel Like Sminky I am a content manager for a local government website, which is probably just as boring as his. We use a content management software which allows us to set up pages and check before we download. I also run a Fan / chat site for my favourite author. I generally prep stuff for that offline. |
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28 Apr 10 - 01:44 PM (#2896084) Subject: AnyClone Help Request-- My Bad From: wysiwyg Boring site URLs are just as useful (to me) as music ones-- I like to look at your coding, if you don't mind sharing. ==== Did most of you "back" your way into this because no one else was doing it? Or did you train? If both-- which was more useful at the start, and which is more useful to you now? Thanks, ~Susan |
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29 Apr 10 - 07:55 AM (#2896583) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: A Wandering Minstrel Well if you insist, my day job is www.rbwm.gov.uk. My official title is Digital Services Development officer (!) I originally trained with Dreamweaver and Visual office tools which are useful for fixing HTML errors if the content manager breaks. |
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29 Apr 10 - 11:01 AM (#2896692) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg AWM-- "that's NOT in my job description, madam!" LOLOLOL.... ~S~ |
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29 Apr 10 - 11:30 AM (#2896715) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: Green Man If you want an easy way to create and maintain a website PM me. |
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29 Apr 10 - 12:40 PM (#2896742) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: Desert Dancer I am a jack of all trades (and master of none) who is becoming more and more of a web specialist because it's the most saleable of my skills... I was originally involved in the "information architecture" (as in, someone else did the actual coding) of a website for Tucson Friends of Traditional Music (tftm.org, now sadly neglected). With an admin. asst. job at the University of Arizona I got into doing it all myself. Self-taught. Several sites I didn't start from scratch, but upgrade the code and maintain the content. How best to learn depends on how you best learn... lately, I'm feeling like the more I know the harder it's getting. I think that's because I know more of what's possible, and what's possible often isn't particularly easy. I use Dreamweaver + hand-coding (Dreamweaver has some handy shortcuts, and I always have hands on the code). The Drupal (and others) content management system (with a web interface for php-MySQL functioning) is a great thing for having something that non-techies can maintain content for. But, someone has to build it and keep the back-end up to date. The TFTM folks are mostly using some blog host for the pretty part of the site - a similar idea, but more limited in its functioning. 1) eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/moran/ 2) www.biochem.arizona.edu/ochman/ 3) flyendo.arl.arizona.edu this one's the fanciest in functioning - hand-coded php with MySQL 4) amadeus.biosci.arizona.edu/~bjn/flyendo/DENTRY/de_start.php (password-protected) 5) eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/moran/private/index.htm (password-protected) 6) www.genomics.arizona.edu/553/ (defunct) 7) cis.arl.arizona.edu 8) cis.arl.arizona.edu/PERT/ 9) insects.web.arizona.edu 10) insects2.web.arizona.edu (Drupal CMS-based site in development) 11) ag.arizona.edu/ento/ 12) ag.arizona.edu/ento/faculty/stock/index.htm 13) cals.arizona.edu/ento/courses/ento310/index.htm 14) ag.arizona.edu/classes/ento415/ 15) cals.arizona.edu/ento/courses/ento446_546/index.htm 16) www.tftm.org ~ Becky in Tucson |
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29 Apr 10 - 12:42 PM (#2896746) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: Desert Dancer About testing - if you have an html file, you can open it with your browser to test it. Very simple. You just need to have your directories of file arranged as they will be on your server so all your links work. It is useful to have access to multiple browsers and earlier versions to see possible incompatibilities... |
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30 Apr 10 - 06:09 PM (#2897585) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg I hope to look at all the sites folks were kind enough to link, when work on our site resumes Tuesday. Your design and coding will be an invaluable aid to discussions with folks around our parish-- who are interested in how sites "happen--" and I will PM with any questions unless they seem to be of general interest. I would point out that this thread was not begun as a help request, and I am not looking for free site help; we pay a tech individual to fix anything I screw up that I cannot unscrew, and for major new tricks, bells, and whistles. We have been very happy with his work, and so far folks seem pleased with what I can do. Personally, I the input to keep pages simple/fast-loading will be a huge help to some conversations we have been having-- that has always been my aim and will remain so: Many of the folks who use our site have old equipment or poor internet service, and/or are new to surfworld and want it all very simple but not DUMB. (refresh for weekend Catters) ~Susan |
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30 Apr 10 - 08:38 PM (#2897687) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: buddhuu "the input to keep pages simple/fast-loading will be a huge help to some conversations we have been having-- that has always been my aim and will remain so: Many of the folks who use our site have old equipment or poor internet service, and/or are new to surfworld and want it all very simple but not DUMB." Looks like you're on the right track. Simple is great. Look at Mudcat - it is stone-age, but it is FULL of information that Google can index easily. Search for any folk related stuff and Mudcat comes up. That "the medium is the message" approach that seem to be the template for most new websites built now is crap. Websites should be designed to get information to those who want it, not to indulge the egos of web designers who just finished working through Teach Yourself Flash for Wankers. |
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30 Apr 10 - 10:59 PM (#2897778) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg One of the bells and whistles under consideration is auto-news. Ah'm agin it! Cuz as soon as we pick a source, we are taking a side. Ah'm agin THAT. ~S~ |
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02 May 10 - 12:49 PM (#2898617) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg refresh |
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05 May 10 - 01:04 PM (#2900662) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg It's been a busy week at our website-- archiving and deleting some unused photos; renaming and reallocating about 5 pages; drafting copy for two of them as re-purposed. I am starting to think that it might be a very good idea ask our tech consultant to make the site map, when I finish working with the parish to re-organize all this-- another pair of eyes and another person seeing the structure, fresh, for himself, might spot some organizational issues and weaknesses I'm likely to miss from being so close to the detail work. I'd be interested in hearing how your various websites' administration is handled-- not the tech side per se but the decision-making environment that governs content, marketing emphasis, etc. Our particular process has evolved into a dynamic and interesting one, and I believe it differs from most churches' web presences. The initial site was in 2004-05 planned by a parish committee, and they worked together to draft most of the initial sections. These drafts were then given to a IT-major uni student and his supervisor to design for a term project; once the committee approved a final design plan, the site was boosted up to a host. When he graduated I took over the updating (using HTML learned here), and added a number of pages. Some of these were immediately visible to the public, and some were left dormant awaiting the development of parish programs and volunteer leadership. Then I had some strokes and while the parish advanced, and the people got more internet-savvy, I languished. And so did the site. That was when the present tech consultant was contracted to do annual calendar updates. Now that I can pick up the reins again, there is a whole new group of volunteer leaders to share the excitement about using the website to communicate our programs and services. As I start revamping each section, I recruit one or two of these newcomers who work with each program. I interview them and work with them to draft the page that will deal with their area of interest. They also become contact people for photos, ongoing info, and feedback from the folks active in that area. They see all this in a development section of the site. As "their" sections are approved by the head guy, the new pages go "live." These partners are each asked to focus on their own program area, though the other areas in dev. are visible to them as well. They work well with each other and with me-- if they see something in another area that needs attention, it's great to know they have a good sense of the bigger picture and have positive communications skills with me and with one another. This whole process is monitored and discussed with the head guy-- the busy rector of the parish-- who is administratively responsible for the programs and for all parish communications, including the website. So he and I shape he initial interviews and areas to emphasize, and then he ultimately approves every page before it goes "live." He also approves policy, and works with the various committees and governance leaders in the parish to keep all of the work as participatory as possible. I like this process, and it is a lot less cumbersome than it may sound. It meets a shard goal of keeping the website's processes within the parish's shared-decision-making framework. And it lets me keep shining a light back onto the organization to show them how a keen observer sees the best of their efforts. (People so often lose sight of their best!) It is good to do this work in a way that encourages them in that fashion. ~Susan |
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07 May 10 - 08:38 AM (#2901983) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: Mr Red Mr Red's hash code generator if you want to hide text from spambots (like e-mail addresses) type the text in the box and click where it says click. Copy & paste into your HTML page (in a text editor). Spambots look for text (unless you are important enough for eyeballs) and ignore hash codes AFAIK, because millions of websites take a lot of trawling and text is fast. It has worked for me for over 2 years now. the text below (from that page) is in hash codes but you see plain text in a browser:- change this to the text you want to encode |
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15 May 10 - 04:11 AM (#2907359) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg Post lost.... forgot to copy to clipboard, aaarghh! MUCH eye candy and brainfood in the links above-- yummy!-- I'm halfway through. Thanks-- I (and the household pub dog) owe you! ~Susan |
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16 May 10 - 11:02 AM (#2908013) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg (refresh for UKers) What I did (the lost post detailed) was-- I sent 3 of the above URLs to the other three people making the upper-level decisions, and marked several others for my own "tech learning" to have a looksee at your coding. An item we have been doing that I can recommend-- learned from Catter LilyFestre who is a superb photographer: Free photo montage service and storage thereof at OneTrueMedia.com. Paid account can add soundfile you upload, but they have free soundfiles as well and the montage can be embedded. You can take a cut off your CD (in the paid mode) and then run that sound under photos of your choice-- you, your audience, your philosophies, whatever you want your website to "say." Pls PM for YouTube link if desired. ~Susan |
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16 May 10 - 12:37 PM (#2908051) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg Hashspeak: PS, thanks Mr. Red! ~S~ |
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24 May 10 - 10:32 AM (#2913125) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg I'm getting a lot of local pressure to use new bells and whistles instead of handcoding..... tho I am sure I am on the right track and everyone sez they like what we have been doing. [???] I'm calling myself "Web Geezer" because on this side of the pond they would not understand "Web Git." Webmudgeoness? My head hurts. ~Susan |
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24 May 10 - 12:21 PM (#2913191) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: treewind What's wrong with "webmistress" ? |
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24 May 10 - 12:27 PM (#2913196) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: pavane Have a look at the banner on my site www.greenhedges.com - try the links which are underneath the header, as it scrolls. All hand-coded HTML. Also uses codes instead of letters for emails as suggested above. or my daughter's cake site www.sianscakes.co.uk - there is a Morris cake there complete with my concertina and melodeon. |
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24 May 10 - 01:54 PM (#2913252) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg TW-- Because "webmistress" is probably not quite the right message for the rector's wife to proclaim. :~) ~S~ |
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30 Jun 10 - 10:21 AM (#2937276) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg Newest learning experiment and recent projects here: http://www.stpaulswellsboro.org/showme.html Not liking the RSS thingie on that page as much as I'd hoped, tho-- may go Facebook or Myspace. Am I correct that Myspace allows more music presence? ~Susan |
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30 Jun 10 - 07:05 PM (#2937563) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: Bert Hi Susan, Examples of my work are at www.bertsolutions.com www.johnnymudd.com and www.frsw.org. I used to do all of my website building by typing the html directly into Notepad but I've recently found an editor which I like, that doesn't presume that it knows what I want better than I do. http://www.htmlvalidator.com/ They have a free 'lite' version which is what I am using. |
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03 Jul 10 - 01:35 PM (#2939215) Subject: RE: Tech: Running a Website (HTML Practice Grande) From: wysiwyg Thanks, Bert. There isn't a day I've worked on our parish website that I haven't thought of the creative ways Max interlinked Mudcat all around itself to make an interesting journey through the content and features. When I wander around the parish website, it's a little like being in the church building itself! ~Susan |