Gazette Expansion Project: Help needed

[UnOrthOdOx]

What I need:

An easy to understand HTML building program. Made for idiots like me.

Webspace that allows me some control over what adds are up. My family reads this, I don't want any Pron adds.

Someone willing to help out with ideas and formatting.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Have ou tried signing up for a Geocities website or on eof the other free ones. The one I have is $9.99 a month but has 2 Gig of space and you have to write your html from scratch so I doubt it would work.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Can someone read this over and tell me what the linking stuff means?

http://www.homepagebuilders.com/gottadot_terms.htm

[adaMada]

UnOrthO,

I've tried many times to find a WYSIWUG HTML program (drag and drop for those who don't know the term) -- never been successful. I have one or two very nice free programs for manually typing HTML (makes things much easeir) with a few wizards for complex things if that's what you're looking for.

I've got some free space on Geocities, but it's not all that great (nice space, nasty restrictions on external linking) -- I just use it for limited DG stuff. Don't know of any great other ones, sadly. Will look around for one, though .

I'm willing to help out with ideas, formatting, HTML (to my limited knowledge), and anything else you need.

-- adaMada

[adaMada]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Can someone read this over and tell me what the linking stuff means?

http://www.homepagebuilders.com/gottadot_terms.htm

Taking one quick read through, and understanding that I know the tech terms but not the legal ones, it sounds like it would be fine for hosting a web page, but won't let you store pictures there and link to them directly from anther site, so it might not be perfect for the Gazette. On the other hand, if you just want to post the Gazette on the net, it sounds like it'd be fine .

-- adaMada

[UnOrthOdOx]

Hey, I know the legal crap but not the technical, so between us we should understand it...

I'll check with my AOL account tonight. Once upon a time they had free space for their members. Might as well use it.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Hey, I know the legal crap but not the technical, so between us we should understand it...

I'll check with my AOL account tonight. Once upon a time they had free space for their members. Might as well use it.

Ok . I guess we got it covered, then .

One thing I didn't make clear above -- you CAN store files on their server (such as images), but you HAVE to go to a web page on their server to access the files (you can't just directly reach the files -- if you could, you'd never have to see their ads). Their ad policy does seem to be pretty family friendly, however, and I didn't see the word 'pop-up' once, so it might not be a bad host.

-- adaMada

[Hot Mustard]

Hmm. Any idea what traffic would be like? I might consider hosting the Gazette for you, assuming we're just talking about a couple of pages with the odd image. I've got space with my provider that I'm not using, as well as my own webserver if it isn't big enough (I don't remember the limits).

What did you want to put together, technically? If you want to use a tool or learn HTML, that is fine, but if you'd rather just tell someone what you want, I've been working with this stuff for 7 years, so I could help you out.

[UnOrthOdOx]

dejon.

Traffic? I can only venture a rough guess. At the peak I had 100 or so subscribers. Now, many I would guess, looked at it and did not subscribe.

It comes out twice a week, so Wed/Thurs and Sat/Sun would be the highest traffic days. I would be surprised if more than 300 looked at it, however.

Space. Well, I don't know if we could backlog them or not because of space. Allot of updating will be required (twice/week total changes) And mostly text, but a few pictures here and there. Definately not each story. I am hesitant to have someone else do all of it, though, as it IS allot of work.

[Hot Mustard]

The traffic sounds fine. I work mostly remote from home right now, so time is not an issue for me. However, that said, I don't want you to get handcuffed if I have to fly somewhere for client side stuff.

I'm sure we could come up with something that allows you to build a new Gazette issue without assistance, and is immediately available on the site.

As you're not technical, this may go over your head, but we could build a simple database-driven news format, where the look and feel (main graphics, styling) is static, and the headings and articles are pulled out of a db. Then all you'd have to do is submit new issues via a form page or something, and they'd show up.

This is obviously more complex than is needed, but it allows you to maintain control w/o learning web stuff, and is pratically zero maintenance once built.

If you'd rather create the pages yourself and just send me the files to put up, that is fine too - I just like elegant solutions. (It's my job)

I'm not busy this week/weekend (I'm between contracts), but next week I've got stuff to work on, so if you're interested, let me know.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by dejon
I'm sure we could come up with something that allows you to build a new Gazette issue without assistance, and is immediately available on the site.

As you're not technical, this may go over your head, but we could build a simple database-driven news format, where the look and feel (main graphics, styling) is static, and the headings and articles are pulled out of a db. Then all you'd have to do is submit new issues via a form page or something, and they'd show up.

This is obviously more complex than is needed, but it allows you to maintain control w/o learning web stuff, and is pratically zero maintenance once built.

Ive actually done that exact thing for several websites, giving news to them in that manner. Just post it in the right place, and bang, it is on the newspage. I have only seen that for text, though.

However, this is not all that I want to do. I want to be able to incorperate pictures into it as well. Do you have a similar system that would let me add a picture of, say, a musketeer at the top of a story when we discover gunpowder?

[Hot Mustard]

No, but I could build it.

What kind of time frame are you looking at?

[UnOrthOdOx]

You let me know when it is ready, and I will supply you with content and/or you can show me your database.

For further discussion, contact me at SirUlias@AOL.com