« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »
December 21, 2004
Community web developers
We are few in number. We are traditionally shy. We don't like to boast about our efforts. The warm glow you get when a new page is up and running or an email arrives from left field is enough. We are the current generation equivalent of tinkering in the potting shed at the bottom of the garden. Entrepeneurs, we are not!
I've got to admire Graham Kidd who runs the Community Web Developers Arena. This is a attempt at giving community web developers like myself a forum where they can chat, swap ideas or generally hang out. The site started off as a Yahoo group, which worked for a while but gradually decayed. It was never very active but was nevertheless a good way of finding out how other's tackled the problems we all face.
Graham took it over and tried to inject some life into it. He did his research and settled on Max Web portal, an off shoot of the asp forum package, Snitz. I've been using Snitz on our corporate intranet for about 3 years now, so can share some of the pain he has had getting the site up and running. Thus far, he's met with limited success. He's added new sections, many of which look thin at the moment, and about 8 forums on various topics. It deserves to succeed.
If you build not for profits sites no matter how big or small, then drop by, contribute and help this initiative grow.
Posted by weaver at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Movable Type upgrade
This blog is written using Movable Type. It's probably a bit of a heavyweight for what its used for here, with lots of bells and whistles, but as I grow into it, I'm sure that it'll meet my needs.
The guys that keep this product running have come in for some flak recently over comment spam and heavy server loads.
To give them credit, they have recognised the problem, done their homework and come up with an upgrade which I'm just about to implement. Not that I'm afflicted by comment spam yet as there is only 1 link from the outside world to this blog.. perhaps I should do something to rectify the situation...soon.... I promise.
Posted by weaver at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2004
Christmas quiz....
In the most recent newsletter is a Christmas quiz. I try and do something different each year. This year's is a 2 parter, slightly harder than previous years. If you need more, than an excellent UK based site is Quizardry which has over 200 Excel based quizzes available for free download, providing hours of fun over the festive period. Enjoy.
Posted by weaver at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
Parish Council Minutes
I've been publishing the Parish Council Minutes for about 3 and a half years now. Its a relatively painless job. I get a paper copy once they've been approved by the PC, usually about a month after the event. again thanks must go to Pete, who has been supplying me with the minutes from the start
The Parish Council: These community worthies are the largely unsung people who make a community tick. They look after all the minutae that ensures the village runs smoothly. Things would be much more difficult without them.
The minutes: These are a record of each meeting, usually taken by the parish clerk. They are then presented at the following meeting for approval. Once approved they then become a matter of public record. A copy is made available in the Info Links Office and the Library. Publishing on the web is done with the full approval of the Parish Council to enable the minutes to reach a wider audience and in the spirit of openness.
The web process: The Parish Council Minutes are usually 3 or 4 pages long. After scanning, save to word and correct any errors induced by the OCR part of the scanning process. From MS Word, I cut and paste into notepad to strip off all the code that word adds. Meanwhile in Dreamwevaer I copy the previous minutes page and rename for the current month. I then dump from notepad to the new page. The rest is just tidying up. Emphasising each section and ensuring the page flows smoothly. I also update the table used for attending councillors. Finally I publish the page, check it in 2 or 3 different browsers at 2 resolutions and then add links from the Council page and the updates page. The whole process takes between 2 and 3 hours.
Are they used? Well I'm really not sure. I know a District Councillor looked at the first couple but apart from one comment at a Village Hall function, I've never recieved any feedback at all. It doesn't help that I've never asked for any. personally, I think its worthwhile. The PC minutes web pages allow users, who might not otherwise be kept informed, to see what's happening within their community.
Perhaps an online survey in the new year will help to give me a better idea of what works and what doesn't work on the site. One to ponder over the Christmas break.
Posted by weaver at 05:14 PM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2004
Google Suggest
Google Suggest is yet another innovative idea from the Google thinktank. Its still in beta, like a lot of the google stuff, but fascinating nevertheless. Start typing and it offers suggestions as you go....and its fast, really fast.
Some bright guy has dissected the code to see how its done. Marvellous.
Posted by weaver at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2004
Christmas Carols
Here's a little Christmas Carol generator using lots of little elfs. You can also send a carol you make to a friend as an e-card. Excellent use of Flash.
There is also a nifty little snowflake generator. Check out the index page for some more interactive 'toys'
Posted by weaver at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)
CSS workshop
A neat little site that gives useful tips on crafting CSS solutions by a Czech web designer It includes a very useful colour scheme generator wheel. Impressive.
Posted by weaver at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
MACLA Christmas Dinner
Held our christmas dinner tonight. Numbers get less each year, but those that attended had a good time amongst friends. As usual, Butch, at the Star & Garter, did a fine spread with all the trimming we could wish for. Feeling quite satiated now........
Posted by weaver at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
How not to drink beer
Australia at its finest
Posted by weaver at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2004
Semantics and mark up
For all the geeks out there: A simple quiz and a fascinating discussion.
Posted by weaver at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
Progress......
Made some good progress tonight. Managed to get a diary application up and running on the Wedding site. Used a web blogging application called Wordpress . Simplicity itself to set up(under 5 minutes). Hope the happy couple like it.
Also managed to sort out the linking problem with the newsletter. I had been looking too deep for a solution. One of the authors of the application posted back on the forum with a partial solution which led straight to the full monty......
Happy days...
And tonight I'm adding a link to these ramblings on the index page of the macla site... Let's see if this stirs any interest.
Posted by weaver at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2004
Newsletter delivery
Our newsletter works for 4 reasons:
1. The community supports it by providing content.
2. The advertising pays for the printing.
3. Delivery is done by a small (25ish) army of volunteers
4. The community supports it by default as its 'free' at the point of sale (i.e. shoved through their door)
Today, a typically grey winter's day (although not too cold), was delivery day for the latest edition. As a team of 4, Martin was blitzed in under an hour, each delivering around 50 copies. Then I completed my local round in Meg of about 105 copies. In all, over 2600 copies are delivered around the local villages.
I often wonder what people do with it when they get it. Most probably chuck it straight in the bin. Some will read it to see if they or their interests are mentioned and then bin it and a few, just a few, will keep it, at least until the next one lands on their doormat. They will use it as a reference for local businesses and that hook is enouhg to keep the mag solvent.
As the businesses gain custom through the mag then they'll keep advertising. Ergo, an ongoing success story.
Now for a nice warm mince pie and a glass of mulled wine in front of the roaring log fire.......
Posted by weaver at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2004
A Time for Cricket
Mid-December feels like a funny time to be updating the Blankney Cricket Club pages for the 2004 season, but Pete Ford has done an excellent job in compliling the stats for all 3 teams, and I need to do him justice. It'll take about 4 hours work to get them ready for publishing so should finish tomorrow. I'll take the opportunity to do a bit of housekeeping on the cricket club pages at the same time.
Posted by weaver at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
A new face
Now you know who I am... Courtesy of Portrait Illustration
Posted by weaver at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
Alternates....
I've been using Firefox for a few months now (since ver 0.7) I've found it to be very stable and user friendly.
Tabbed browsing took a little getting used to but is a great boon to surfing. I haven't ditched IE as a couple of sites still need it and if truth be told, about 95% of visitors to this site still use it.
I've also downloaded Thunderbird to see if it can replace Outlook. Initial impressions are good......
Posted by weaver at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2004
Xmas Bling.......
You know what I mean. At this time of year as you drive around there are various house bedecked in more lights than Blackpool. Its absolutely wonderful brightening up a dull Britain at a dull time of the year. Now all we have to do is be careful not to bang into the car in front who has slowed to gawp in wonder at the excellent displays on show. A couple of fine examples can be found at the top end of Lincoln Road in the village.
Posted by weaver at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2004
20, 000 visits..........
Its been a long haul, just over 4 years, but the MACLA site has reached the landmark of 20,000 visits which works out at roughly 100 vists per week.
Although this is not an earth shattering number, I take a small amount of pride in getting this far. During the past 4 years, I've seen the site grow from about 20 pages with the first newsletter to over 500 today. A not inconsiderable feat.
I look at what the site contains now compared with the start and see that we have come along way. The 1881 census database came about from a family history query , I received early on. The numerous photo albums have all come from the members of the community who have contacted me offering their work for the site. Interaction has increased considerably with a guestbook, forum, events diary and now you can even comment on the items in the newsletter.
The macla site has outlived some of the other local sites. Sadly Nocton's site dropped off the web last year as did metheringham.info which aimed to provide local businesses with a customised web presence. Other have grown, Martin & Timberland's site for example and some, having served their purpose, have been and gone such as the highly successful and excellent Broadband for Metheringham Campaign Site. macla.co.uk has spawned some sites from pages it first hosted. The Swimming Pool Association's site and the LIVES site spring to mind.
Recently, I've eliminated almost all of the off site advertising. I've tidied up the navigation, putting all the options at the top. I've migrated away from M$ Front Page and its spurious code that it adds without telling you. I've upgraded the web hosting package that now allows 3 times the webspace and, for the first time, access to detailed stats without the need for some code on the home page. Once they've been running a few months I should get a better impression of the most and least popular pages.
What of the future. Well I've a couple of ideas I'm working on at the moment. The extra space allows for the inclusion of more photographs and I'm working on standardising the galleries, again allowing interaction through the addition of user comments. I've also been given the first half of a fascinating photo collection about local farming in the 1950s and 60s. Excellent stuff.
This blog will go live soon and the home page of the site will be rejigged to include more upfront information. (Must be careful not to make it too busy though - musn't dissuade outsiders that Meg is naught but a sleepy village.)
Longer term, I'd like to make the site web standards compliant - this will mean migrating the code to XHTML and CSS, separating content from presentation. The trouble is that too many of the current browsers have CSS quirks requiring numerous workarounds. More on this later.
So to mark the event, after thanking everyone in and outwith the community, I'm just off to give myself a pat on the back and down a pint of Black Sheep (or Two!)
Posted by weaver at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2004
A different wedding present.....
Perhaps one of my more inspirational ideas was to give a friend who is getting married in a few months a web site as a wedding present. I'd do all the work behind the scenes but give the happy couple the ability to publish their own wedding album(s), wedding diary and guest book.
Whether this will work or not will be down to the interest shown by Alice & Jim....
.... beats buying a gift they didn't really want anyway....
Posted by weaver at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2004
Image Gallery
I've spent some time looking for a decent image gallery script.
I've spent some time looking for a decent image gallery script. Amongst the ones I've tried are phpGallery (too simplistic) and the excellent Coppermine (its too heavy with all the bells and whistles) before finally settling on YaPig (don't ask!). It's lean and flexible enough for my needs. As the author isn't English, there's some spelling & grammar issues, but nothing that can't easily be fixed. The templates have been adjusted to match the rest of the site and I've migrated about 2/3 of the image galleries across. The bonus is that interaction is now possible through the addition of the comments/feedback area. Lets hope it doesn't get abused.
Tonight I went live with one, the 2004 Meg Feast parade, to gauge reaction. Let's see how it goes...
Posted by weaver at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2004
Zoomquilt
This is one those 'How did they do that' pages. You need the flash plugin and broadband (as the file is a 1.6M download).
Worth it though....
Posted by weaver at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)
MACLA Newsletter thoughts
I've just complete the web publishing of the latest newsletter. A marathon 41 articles. Well done to Pete, our editor, who has collated it all and done all the really hard work.
41 articles, shows that this is a thriving community. There has been some discussion about whether a quarterly newsletter is sufficient. A suggestion has been made that it moves to a monthly edition.
I have mixed feelings on this. The time to collate and prepare an edition is vast and is all done by one volunteer. The distribution is all done by volunteers. Advertising rates are based on 4 editions per year. The advertising pays for the printing costs.
However, we have a waiting list for advertisers. The newsletter is very popular, with people complaining if they don't get their 'free' copy. Using our current printing method, we can't add photographs or images to the finished newsletter.
I am not convinced that there would be sufficient content or advertisers to sustain a monthly edition but I think that there is some merit in giving consideration to moving from 4 to 6 edition per year(ie bi-monthly). This should only be undertaken if the editorial workload can be shared and the volunteers who distribute the newsletter are prepared to undertake the additional task. I also think we should look at moving to a printing method that supports B&W iamges, but only if the cost is not prohibitive.
The newsletter, which is delivered free to over 2500 hosueholds in the local community, was the reason that I started the community web site. Its web presentation has undergone several changes and with the last edition I discovered a script that would simplify the web publishing, give feedback on how popular the web version is and allow the commuinty to interact with it. The last one, community interaction, is particularly important, as it is the community that makes the site. Not me, my skills(or lack thereof!) but individuals and groups who take the time to contribute. Without them, ther would be no site, no newsletter and no MACLA.
Posted by weaver at 09:01 AM | Comments (1)
December 04, 2004
That didn't take long.....
Lycos seem to have had a change of heart over their controversial DDOS screensaver.
Read the bbc update
Posted by weaver at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2004
More on the Lycos screensaver
As predicted a few days ago, Lycos' controversial screensaver, that attacks spmmers own sites with a 'ddos', is starting to raise eyebrows
More here
Posted by weaver at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)