congratulate the bugman!

[bugman]

nah, it's not a new flash game...

but i got a job of sorts, redesigning the local chamber of commerce website

my civic-mindedness [and knowing how cheap people are here] means there's not much money in it, but it'll pay the rent for a month or two

here's their old site:

http://www.glendivechamber.com

here's the teaser i showed 'em to get the gig:

http://www.bookcrazy.com/sdb/gcc/ [note that only the links to a test version of the business directory and calendar work]

now i will have to ruin it all with the rest of their crappy old graphics and useless information, the old graphics in particular are an abomination

[the puppy connection is of course that it's my only os, the site will be done entirely with geany and mtpaint [gimp if i get more $$$]

[nitehawk]

Wow,..
Your stuff sure beats their old site, alright! Heck,...almost makes ME want to up and move there!!! (and I live in the sunny "SunShine State").....

[ttuuxxx]

congrads
good work, don't forget the meta data, like yellowstone. hunting, fishing, getaway etc, so they get some sort of google site ranking. Other than that great start. good luck. Also all the sies that will be liked to that new site your making make sure you get glendivechamber.com links put on their sites as well, it will increase your ranking. The original site was terrible for ranking, You can charge extra for meta and links
Also you could of used kompozer or bluefish if your a code junky,
bluefish is really light in size but all code. Would save you a lot of time, Kompozer is wysiwyg and its a lot better than composer in seamonkey suite or NVU.
Kompozer
http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/ttuuxxx/pr ... 0.7.10.pet

Bluefish
http://puppylinux.ca/puppyfiles/pet_pac ... -1.0.7.pet

ttuuxxx

[bugman]

nitehawk, you really do not want to live here, trust me

ttuuxxx, you know i won't forget the meta tags, i just wanted to give them a little taste of simple elegance for now, they'll go in soon

the most fun bit was the javascript calendar, automatically goes to the current month [noscript to january] with everything inside pre tags so they can update it easily [currently hosted off-site, formerly one loooooong page]

btw, i've never used an html coding app, i've always just done the text editor, geany has the color coding for typos, that's enough for me

i've got to tweak the colors a bit, even if i am gonna just stick their hideous old graphics on there--after converting gifs to jpgs and resizing them [some of them are enormous]

one idea i proposed that might bring extra $ is that the chamber could host single-page sites for small businesses--addresses, phone numbers, hours, services, menus, etc

we'll see--this is one of the most depressed regions in the nation, so bad that we even lost our macdonalds

how often does that happen?

[ttuuxxx]

nitehawk, you really do not want to live here, trust me

ttuuxxx, you know i won't forget the meta tags, i just wanted to give them a little taste of simple elegance for now, they'll go in soon

the most fun bit was the javascript calendar, automatically goes to the current month [noscript to january] with everything inside pre tags so they can update it easily [currently hosted off-site, formerly one loooooong page]

btw, i've never used an html coding app, i've always just done the text editor, geany has the color coding for typos, that's enough for me

i've got to tweak the colors a bit, even if i am gonna just stick their hideous old graphics on there--after converting gifs to jpgs and resizing them [some of them are enormous]

one idea i proposed that might bring extra $ is that the chamber could host single-page sites for small businesses--addresses, phone numbers, hours, services, menus, etc

we'll see--this is one of the most depressed regions in the nation, so bad that we even lost our macdonalds

how often does that happen?

Actually a few years back a Macdonalds in Quebec started a union, the first Macdonalds to ever have one, once Mcdonalds got a hold of that, that particular location was shutdown within a couple of months.But I guess thats for different reasons. Your area is like the Outback areas of Oz, where they've had drought for more than 5yrs, no grass to feed the horses/cows etc, cheap to buy, but no jobs.

Yes that single page site is a good idea, also what you could talk them into is a community bulletin board , this site has one, but its a forum, whats even better is one where you have to manually update it every month and get paid monthly, Then when you get tired of it, you can sell the a forum install like below, lol just copy the whole pages code and give that to them with name changes lol well maybe in six months sell the a whole new site. lol
http://www.eungella.com.au/Home.html

Oh well, well good luck
ttuuxxx

[rjbrewer]

Congrats. Bugman...classy looking start.

P.S.
Guess I'm not really surprised that my "final destination" will
be the waters beneath a railroad bridge in Montana...
life is full of surprises.

rjb

[Lobster]

Congratulations
Here is a local site I did for our area
http://tmxxine.com/tooting/

It is a wiki and sometimes calls the original site from archives at
thewaybackmachine
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
(The original pages were hosted at the British Library and then they decided to no longer host) so some parts are very slow

[Aitch]

Good Luck, Bugsie!

Having been involved with Local Authorities in UK, I hope your contract is honoured - here they use lawyers to wriggle out of anything not nailed down, & expect extras as a gift!!

Sites like that can be a lot of work, so hope your patience holds up OK

Maybe you'll be able to afford a few new toys?

Aitch

[Artie]

Glendive...Your Final Destination!

How ominous! How many people will go there when they know they'll never leave? Methinks a change of headline would be in order... this one freaked me out, it's like the title of a Twilight Zone episode...

Artie

[bugman]

as regards

Glendive...Your Final Destination!

mrs bugman and i had a running joke about 'glendive, city of the dead', due to its aging population, vast stretches of senior-zoned property, lengthy obituary columns

so you could have knocked us over with feathers when we saw that slogan

fortunately the chamber people hate it too--and it is history

i have however decided that learning to use the gimp should be on my dime and have spent all morning merrily experimenting--and there will be new graphics for the site, gratis

ttuuxxx--your reasoning is what got me the job, as their last webmaster pulled that sort of crap and was quickly given the boot

i hate 'graphics' per se; i don't mind illustrations but all information and linkage will remain in text format, but a few better pics of the badlands and bridge and such [with faded transparent edges!] might add appeal

rjbrewer, the office that handles id cards has info on how to get a card if you happen to live under a bridge--no kidding! not that you'd live long once winter got going . . .

lobster, yer site is dead--servage strikes again

aitch, bugman doesn't need toys, bugman needs FOOD [i got toys anyways, the local thrift threw out 20 pounds of computer parts yesterday!] and this is the kind of town where handshakes ARE the contract

[if only i can sneak a puppy mention in there--ah, meta tags . . . ]

[Slapdash]

Glendive...Your Final Destination!

George Carlin nailed it: all destinations are final. That's what it means. Destiny = final. And I'll have to agree.

But that's only a minor note.

[ttuuxxx]

as regards

Glendive...Your Final Destination!

ttuuxxx--your reasoning is what got me the job, as their last webmaster pulled that sort of crap and was quickly given the boot
]

Its not my reasoning bugman it the way of Business, when I went for my diploma in Web Development/Management. My teachers were web pro's in real life, one was a PHP/CMS guru, another was a graphic/webmaster designer, another another was a deeply into business management. All of them were teaching part-time and working for themselves in there own perspective fields.
One thing they all stressed was, if you wanted to survive in the business, you need to first provide the clients needs in the quickest amount of time, You host and maintain the clients websites, that solve complex issues for clients who aren't trained to handle them.
Most of them hosted the sites and purchased the domain names at a full retail plus shipping price and sold back to the client at retail.
Then you have toppings, like when you buy a pizza, you pay extra for bacon or extra cheese right? Thats how you sell other parts, Web developers try there best to keep the client on top of new and emerging technologies. It gives them and the clients the 'Wow' factor.
Most sites are maintained by webmasters and yes they do get a monthly check for it, but its the business they are in, and thats how it works. Once I finished school, I didn't feel good about the whole thing so I never actually worked for anyone web related. Oh well do and think the way you will, just because you say its so, doesn't mean it is so. It isn't crap, its just the name of the game.
ttuuxxx

[01micko]

Belated Congrats Bugman,

I admire your effort all hand coded Nice. (My unfinished site is too, see sig if you like).

Gimp is not too hard to learn, time consuming, yes, soooo many options!

You sound like you are THE guru (computer wise, maybe otherwise, I've no idea ) of Glendive. Should open some more doors.

All the best!

[bugman]

You host and maintain the clients websites, that solve complex issues for clients who aren't trained to handle them.
Most of them hosted the sites and purchased the domain names at a full retail plus shipping price and sold back to the client at retail.

i am doing everything that needs to be updated [calendar, paddlefish catch count[ within pre tags and will be explaining how to change and upload the pages so there will be no maintenance--the chamber cannot afford it

i will get no extra money for this, but i will have a good reputation, which is essential in a town of 5000 people

the original web designer is the registrant for the domain which has made all of this a logistical nightmare--that's another thing i'm helping them to undo

i also explained that all of the re-coding [by hand] will take longer than i'd estimated--i hadn't realized how atrocious the original stuff was, ie--

Code: Select all

<st1:place w:st="on">
 <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Montana</st1:PlaceName>
 <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Martial</st1:PlaceName>
 <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Arts</st1:PlaceName>
 <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Academy</st1:PlaceType>
</st1:place>

wtf?

no extra charge, just a little patience required, the response was to tell me that they liked my idea of doing small pages for offline businesses, which will bring in more $ for both myself and the chamber in a legitimate fashion

not to be harsh on ya or anything, but i hate being upsold and will not do it to others

[bugman]

I admire your effort all hand coded Nice. (My unfinished site is too, see sig if you like).

hand coding rules! plus i made it so you get a less-attractive but fully functional page with dillo and probably even lynx [need to install lynx]

Gimp is not too hard to learn, time consuming, yes, soooo many options!

there's lots of online help, not sure how much i actually WANT to know...

[ttuuxxx]

I found an extra closed p tag, around line 42.
# <span>&nbsp;<a href="contact_us.html" class=menu>Contact&nbsp;Us</a>&nbsp;</span>
# </p> <-------No need for it, It wasn't open.
ttuuxxx

[01micko]

Bugman

Lynx, as I understand, is text only, however, "Links" (it's on the puppy repo) is text and limited gui, I tried both...

[bugman]

I found an extra closed p tag, around line 42.
# <span>&nbsp;<a href="contact_us.html" class=menu>Contact&nbsp;Us</a>&nbsp;</span>
# </p> <-------No need for it, It wasn't open.
ttuuxxx

yeah, the validator gives me that too

except the tag IS open at line 15, it's the java script in between that produces the error

not sure what to do about it, and it seems to work okay...

maybe i don't need a p at all, i might look into that later

[EDIT--pulling the p tags at 15 and 42 corrects the error, centering the div gets the effect, i should check all my css to make sure it's not overly complicated as that is a bad habit of mine--when in doubt, add more classes!]

[bugman]

Bugman

Lynx, as I understand, is text only, however, "Links" (it's on the puppy repo) is text and limited gui, I tried both...

lynx is what i mean, i want the thing to work from the command line

[01micko]

Ok!

I used Lynx ages go in Mandrake, Links recently on my 486, running 'blueflops', a minimal distro, 2 floppies, posted to forum ok, yeah getting off topic, keep up your nice work!