Greetings.
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This month's Agenda:
1. Admin Area - Animals Module
I have finally transitioned all of my sites to an admin
area, and almost all of them to the newest version. This
is exciting news, because it gives you the ability to make
real-time changes to your site. Let me give you some background
to the evolution of the admin area.
When I started working on web sites in 2003-2004, I had
around 10 clients. I noticed that the ones who wanted to
list their goats online, generally wanted to list the same
information -- Name, Breed, Sex, DOB, Sire, Dam, Price and
a picture. So, I put together an html table that had that
information, and whenever I was sent a new goat, I just copied
and pasted the table and filled in the blanks.
The process
was not too difficult to do, but did involve downloading
the email that my client sent, making the changes to the
web site on my local computer, saving the picture at
a size that was appropriate for the web and then uploading
the picture to the pictures folder and the page to the
correct page folder. If my clients sent the information in
a format that would allow me to copy and paste into Dreamweaver
(my web design program), the process of adding 5 goats
would probably take 15-20 minutes. If their format was
incomplete or difficult to decipher, it could take 30 minutes.
Then, when they wanted me to delete a record, move a record
higher on the page, add information to or change a record,
or move a record to the sales page, it took time. Some sites
had alternating images (the first on the right, the second
on the left, the third on the right and so on), so when I
removed a record, I had to replace it with one that had the
image on the correct side. Sometimes, this didn't jive with
how the client wanted the list ordered, and updating sites
became a very time consuming job. Some sites also wanted
all of the does grouped together with the other does, and
wanted to have a page that only showed the wethers. It took
a lot of time to make changes. At the time, I estimated that
if I had 30 clients who were actively wanting changes, I
could no longer accept new clients.
So, I needed to make it easier. Since
the format was pretty acceptable, I decided to create a database
for each site, and on that database, I could enter in goat
records through a web form and then have them output in the
manner of my client's choosing. Different sites could have
the same input pages, but different outputs so that the sites
weren't all looking identical. Thus, began the Animals module
of the admin area. it cost me an extra $130 per site per
year to have a database and a database connection, but the
time savings was evident right at the beginning. Over the
next 2 years, I modified the Animals module of the admin
area so that it became easier to use. I started to realize
that, if it was easy to use, I could make it available to
my clients to make changes and additions. When I got a few
new clients who wanted me to design the site and then let
them make changes to it, I offered them the admin area.
The biggest problem was that when a client uploaded a picture,
the picture stayed the same size. When I was resizing images,
I would routinely resize an image from 2 MB (2000 KB) down
to around 20 KB. This drastic reduction still left the image
with a good enough quality for web viewing, but didn't choke
dial-up internet users. But, when my clients uploaded pictures,
they did not know how to resize images. Subsequently, some
pages took forever to load (imagine having 15 pictures at
2 MB each - a visitor was having to download 30 MB of pictures,
which could take well over 90 minutes on dial-up!
So, I got a new server. Although this server increased my
internal hosting costs considerably, it gave me the ability
to put whatever programs I wanted on it. One of the programs
was a program that resized images. This eliminated the page
download time problem. Another program was a simple html
editor. Before, it you wanted to put in paragraph text with
spaces and formatting, you had to know html. With the editor,
you could format text without a problem.
I continued to refine the Animals module, making it as easy
to use as I could. Many times, during phone conversations
with my clients where I showed them how to use it, I realized
there were points of confusion, so I took the steps to fix
those. Now, it is a fairly smooth system -- but I will continue
to make it better.
2. Content Types
The next step was to make it so that more of the site was
editable. So, I came up with the content system. Essentially,
the content system is made up of interchangeable content
types - interchangeable in the sense that you can pick them
up and drop them at a different point in the page.
By this time, I had over 50 clients, so I had a good idea
what people would want to put on their sites. I knew that
most often, people wanted to add free flowing text to make
announcements like, "We have just updated our Sales page"
or "We just returned from the county fair with a bunch of
ribbons". Some people wanted to add pictures and text that
showed the results of the fair or showed pictures of some
of the people they had sold goats to.
So, I came up with a few content types. The first was text.
This was already widely used in the Animal module, so would
be very familiar.
The next was pictures. This
was more difficult, because people had different picture
sizes and sometimes wanted more than one picture on a row.
So, I came up with the 1, 2 and 3 picture format.
Next newsletter, I will discuss the content types that allow
you to couple image and text and give some ideas.
3. Future Projects
I just completed a list of the 50 projects I want to do
in the next 12 months. Of those projects, most are in the
admin area. Here is a list of some of the things to be looking
forward to.
- Make it so that you can hyperlink the images added under
the 1 Image content type. This is particularly useful if
you are linking to a goat association and want to use their
logo to link. While I normally caution my animal sites
against providing external links, I am also starting to
use the content system for more generic sites that would
have more reason to provide external links.
- Allow my clients to add new pages and sections. I already
have the capability in the admin area where I can add new
pages using my "Super Admin" login, but I want to streamline
it so that you can add new pages and sections without having
to email me. There are some barriers in the way of getting
it to work without errors, but this is one of the things
that I am going to focus on in the next month to get to
work.
- Some of my clients want to add animal records from the
animal module in with the content. The way the site is
set up right now, this is impossible to do (since the code
for the modules are both in their own individual containers).
I plan to introduce an Animal content type (which might
actually eliminate the Animal module and just allow you
to add through the content module).
- I want to make it easier for you to sort and filter
your animals - both in the admin area and on the site.
So, if you just want to see the wethers or does or animals
on the sales page, I need to make that easier. I used to
have it where that was an option, but with the latest system,
that became harder to manage, so I need to write some code
to bring back the sorting.
- Some people would like to put a slide show on their site.
So, I have been working on doing one. I currently have
the code for one on my test site (BoerGoatWebDesign.com -
click on slide show). If there is anyone who wants to test
out a slide show on your site, let me know and I will add
the module.
- For some other projects, I want to make it so that you
can edit your contact forms. As you probably know, whenever
someone fills out a contact form on your site, one copy
goes to you by email, and one gets filed in the database.
The one that gets filed is merely a backup copy in case
you lose all of your contact data. In the future, I want
to make it so you can delete forms that you do not need,
and can add notes to the ones that you need. Perhaps even
make it so you can sort the forms alphabetically by the
sender's last name, and can get an accurate count of how
many forms have been filled out on your site in the past
month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, etc.
- My biggest project is to create a sales site that creates
a database of all of the goats that my clients have for
sale. Every time you add or change a goat for sale, a record
will also go to this site. This will create another way
for you to advertise your goats. People will be able to
go to that site and find goats near them. I am pretty excited
about this project, because it will be a value-added service
for my clients. I will allow my clients to opt-out of the
service (if you don't want to have your goats listed next
to other people's goats), but I think that it will generate
a number of sales for all of my sites.
- Finally, and this is long overdue, I am going to create
help files for the admin area. I will have little help
icons that open up a page on an external site to give detailed
explanations of all of the facets of the admin area. I
used to have a long email that I sent out to clients that
listed the "how-to" of using the admin area, but in the
past 18 months, I have made so many improvements, the help
file got out of date. By having it online, I can change
it whenever I make changes to the admin area.
4. Location Change
As many of you know (but will be a surprise to some), designing
web sites is not my full-time job. I am an Active Duty Soldier.
I started designing sites during free time in Kuwait in
2003, and continued doing sites when I moved north to Baghdad,
where I was until the end of 2004. My contact with my earliest
clients was entirely through email (most of whom did not
know I was in Iraq at the time).
For the past 3 years, the Army blessed me by sending me
to get a PhD. The work for the PhD was very difficult and
time consuming (and not yet complete, by the way), but the
time allowed me to grow my business. The two tasks actually
worked hand in hand, because many of the things in the admin
area stemmed from projects in the computer classes I was
taking at school. Additionally, a lot of the work I have
done on the site coding has helped with development of the
tools for my dissertation study.
When my time at school was complete, I was supposed to go
to a curriculum development and teaching job for the Army,
but at the last minute (the day before the movers came),
the Army decided to send me to Korea.
And so, here I am, north of Seoul, South Korea, working
on this newsletter. What does this mean to my business? Well,
not much. I obviously wouldn't have gone to the lengths of
writing this whole newsletter (including future projects)
if I thought the business was in jeopardy. To the contrary.
For the year that I am in Korea, I will actually have an
abundance of time to make these big projects a reality. On
a weekend like today, I have all day to work on a project,
and I expect to knock out 3-5 of the 50 things on my list
between today and tomorrow. South Korea boasts the largest
proportion of internet users per capita, so having access
to high speed internet is not a problem. I have not had a
day since I arrived that I could not check email or go online.
I have continued site development and improvement as if I
were at home. Before I came here, I asked several clients
to be patient and I would make a change to their site near
the end of the month - and if you were one of those sites,
those changes should come.
The biggest problem I am going to have in Korea is the time
zone problem. I can call to the States for around 2 cents
per minute - which is a pretty good rate, but the window
of time that I can call (and you will be awake) has shrunk.
Still, I will work out time periods where I can make phone
calls if needed. This time period will probably coincide
with my early mornings, or your weekend mornings. There is
a 14 hour difference between Korea and the central states
like Texas and Missouri. So, if I call in the morning at
6 AM my time, it is 4 PM in Dallas. Likewise, if I call at
10 PM my time, it is 4 AM in Dallas. So, my window of calls
will likely be between 9 AM and Noon Central time and 5 PM
and 9 PM. If you need me to call at a different time, just
give me a few days notice and I can try to adjust my schedule
to accommodate calls. Also, it looks like I am going to get
a state-side phone number that I can check on Skype. More
details when I get that. Essentially, you will be able to
call that to get in touch with me (your normal long distance
rates will apply). The benefit to that is that I should have
voice-mail on that phone. Also, note that I added
a new telephone number that goes through Skype and will go
to my Skype voicemail if I am unavailable.
One change you will see soon is a support system in your
admin area. This will generate a support ticket that I can
handle - or could be handled by my support staff (I have
a few people who are going to help out while I am gone and
will probably stay on the payroll when I get back).
So,
I am going to try to cut back on direct email questions
so that we can make sure your updates are made. There will
be an email address created that you can use to send emergency
support pronlems - for instance if your site is down and
you can't access the support portal. This email address
will be one that gets forwarded to me and any other people
I designated I am going to set up generic emails for support
and sales that will also go to my support personnel.
OK, I know this was a long email - probably an indication
that I need to be doing this more often.
5. Special
I am not running any advertised specials right now, but
might have something later in the spring. For the new customers,
this is where I let you know about specials I might be advertising
- so you can pass those along to any friends you know who
might be thinking about getting a web site.
That's all for now.
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