Website Committee Report for March 2009
The new website design is beginning to take shape as technical problems are being dealt with. The ability to add and manipulate HTML pages has "simplified" the process of transcribing information from the old site to the new, since most of the main pages from the old site were written in HTML. One example that you can check out is the Links page which has been transposed from the old to the new. We have also enhanced this page with graphical links to randomly selected sites from the previous "list" method. The list of links still remains and all the links seem to be working properly. Please report any non-working links to the webmaster. A couple of new links have been added, as listed in KIT. Any others that would be of use or interest to our members would be graciously accepted for inclusion in this page.
We have added the new board pictures, plus "the board at work" pictures as well as a listing of all the committee chairs and committee members as listed in KIT. I wasn't sure about adding all that personal information to the website, but it is all in KIT and KIT is available on the web, so there is nothing new about that information being disseminated. All of this information is posted on the new site and a link to this page is placed on the old site. It was getting too cumbersome to keep trying to place information on both pages (the old and the new), so we have decided to place links to the new page and eventually, when we transition to the new site, the older archived pages will be referenced with links. This will seemingly be a complex process because links back to the new site will need to be constructed as we make the changeover.
Work is continuing to transfer information from the old site to the new and a few technical problems are being encountered and dealt with. One example would be the .pdf files of KIT. There is currently a technical glitch with getting those files transferred into the new site outline but we are sure it will be fixable with a little figuring. It is like so many other things with computers - the solution is often simple, but finding the solution is often a long journey.
Bill has been doing some work on analyzing the old site to see what needs to be changed and what should be archived, etc. This is a work in progress, but it is progressing well.
April comments, in addition to the ones above:
As soon as I figure out how, I think I will be making the switch for the new site to be accessed upon logging in to www.rtam.mb.ca Currently, the old site is accessed by that address and the new site is a link on the home page of the old site. Since all new postings and changes will be made to the new site, it only makes sense to access the new site first. My only technical concern right now is that if I do this, I need to make sure that all the old site stuff is accessible to anyone needing information form there. Eventually all of the material will be accessible from the new site, either in new format or as a link to the old pages. It is all a matter of linking pages properly, and if a universal change is made, like changing the home page, all the links in the old site referring to that page will be non-functioning, so I need to figure out a way to prevent that from happening in this transition stage.