An idea to start some activity in the Website Design Forum

boyelroy11

boyelroy11

New member
Well, let me start by saying that I am no web designer, programmer, or any such person. I dabble in Wordpress, and that's about it. I was excited, however to see this forum show up, as I thought I might be able to glean some info from the geniuses on here :) At this point, however there isn't much to learn here...

I thought as a way to start some discussion, we could do a thread that would basically be a repository for member websites. A lot of you have great sites, and finding them can be tedious if you don't remember whose was where, etc. I propose any member that has a website for their display (or other hobbies?) just post it. That way we can associate your username and website, and have them all in one spot. Just as we rely on each other's displays for a creative impetus on our own, we can peruse other websites for ideas to use/modify/borrow and put on our own pages.

Anyone think this sounds like a good idea?

Edit (2/8/12): Okay, a couple of positives responses and Dave had added his, so let's make this happen.

www.williamschristmaslights.com

Bruce
 
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Having looked (unsuccessfully) for such an archived thread, I figured it either wasn't allowed, wasn't suggested yet, or I was just blind.
Given a choice, I'd prefer to do business with comrades here.
Good idea, boyelroy.
 
I'll chime in... I think its a great idea. Whenever I read a post by someone I usually go their web page to see there home. I have them scattered arround different reference documents in hope ill remember them later.
 
Okay.... I'm running Dirk's Lights as a link out of http://diychristmas.org where I also have the DIGWDF store, among other things like a backup/alternate chat room, and a PDF-version of the Wiki...

:lol:

(I just know I'm gonna get banned from DIYC sometime soon... I just KNOW it....)
 
boyelroy11 said:
... we could do a thread that would basically be a repository for member websites.
Click to expand...

I have two sites that might be of interest to the DIYC crowd:

  • PacificaLights wherein all the gory details about my light show are stored. This site runs under Joomla 1.5.22 on a circa 2007 Mac Mini under Snow Leopard. (Why is it a dot-info domain? Godaddy had dot-infos on sale that week.)
  • DMCole.net is my blog on fiddling around with microprocessors and LEDs. I have a bunch of content that is almost finished and in the next couple of weeks hope to get it published. This one runs on Wordpress 3.3.1 also on the MM.

HTH.

\dmc
 
Nothing real special about my site, but I would love some suggestions to make it better.
 
My Christmas website is: http://ChristmasOnQuietHills.com/

I did host it from home on a SheevaPlug, but recently migrated it to running on my linode.com hosting account. It uses wordpress which is tracked in git for easy updating, maintenance, and tracking of my changes.
 
Well its good to see something happening in here. I'm the one that asked if it could be added and was really glad to see that it was.

Here is the link to my very basic web site. Its running on a web server in my home so i dont have a really IP yet and at the price the phone company whats I'm not sure i will

http://hallsvillelights.no-ip.org/
 
This is probably an appropriate place to post this...

One of the most difficult elements I've encountered in operating a web site is the challenge to keep it "current" and "interesting." To do that, one should continually add or replace content, and it's very, very hard to come up with "new" stuff to make the site change much. There are only so many "how-tos" you can add. Only so many photos that are worth anything. Only so many captions you can create. Add to that the fact that the process of editing a web site is such a putsy task, it can easily become a huge time-sink which only takes time away from making your new displays or rewiring existing ones.

Content management software can sometimes help, and most web hosts provide a modicum of such software applications, but to really change the look and feel of the site, you have to dig a lot deeper than that; usually the whole layout (style sheets, etc.) needs to be changed, too.

I'm horribly guilty for not having kept Dirk's Lights up to date. I haven't added anything to my web site in probably a couple years -- other than perhaps using it to put a video or other file there so I could link to it from a posting here at DIYC. At the conclusion of each lighting season I have good intentions... "Gee, I should update the web site..." but the memory of spending hours and hours of photo editing, multiple text revisions as new content is generated and the resulting multiple edits one has to make on multiple pages comes to mind and the urge to update it quickly evaporates.

I'd love to hear suggestions from folks who have a solution to this dilemma... or is it just me??? :shock:
 
Thanks, Wayne. It is a freebie Joomla animated template. I have replaced many of the icons to be more representative of the DIYC community.
 
dirknerkle said:
or is it just me??? :shock:
Click to expand...

Not just you. It's one of the reasons I only posted my Christmas site here. It's the most current. I have one for my personal tinkering, the family, and our Jeep adventures. The last update on each of those respectively is March 22, 2011, July 21st, 2011, and April 23rd, 2009!

I'd love to hear ideas to make this easier. One of the things that amazes me isn't websites in general, but documentation. Don (djulien) comes to mind with his projects and excellent documentation!
 
I too am guilty of not keeping my site updated enough. It seems that life gets in the way of things and the site falls through the cracks way too easy.
I built my site with DreamWeaver but I am hoping to change it over to Joomla this year and make it a more CMS site so that I can keep it updated better.
But we all know how tough it can be to maintain sites when we have so many other things to do everyday.
I had even hoped to put a storage section on my site for folks to share sequencing but that too is on the back burner at the moment.

Anybody here figured out how to get 33 hours in a 24 hour day yet?

Bill
 
I spent the weekend finding a host and learning about websites and learning about ftp and completely failing to grasp joomla. Stumbled onto Kompozer and got started. Only have a few links and contact working but so far so good. Soon I'll add a little place to leave comments and finish the links and the pages the links will point to. As I build this seasons pieces I'll upload the photos and descriptions and flesh it all out. I live in a small town and last seasons 24 renard channels were a huge hit. I stood in the seasonal section at Menard's a couple weeks after Christmas and eavesdropped as a small group talked about that Christmas light house in my town. I didn't let on that it was my house. Anyway about the website and this being a small town the local paper is always on the lookout for a nice happy story and maybe that nice newspaper lady will plug my site in an article. If 24 channels were a big hit then 120 channels should be like a rock concert and a Billy Graham event combined. The website should get everyone the information they need to come see the show and make it an even bigger success. Crossing my fingers.
 
I stumbled onto Kompozer a while ago as well. Its a great offline tool. Good Start on your site.

docchop said:
I spent the weekend finding a host and learning about websites and learning about ftp and completely failing to grasp joomla. Stumbled onto Kompozer and got started. Only have a few links and contact working but so far so good. Soon I'll add a little place to leave comments and finish the links and the pages the links will point to. As I build this seasons pieces I'll upload the photos and descriptions and flesh it all out. I live in a small town and last seasons 24 renard channels were a huge hit. I stood in the seasonal section at Menard's a couple weeks after Christmas and eavesdropped as a small group talked about that Christmas light house in my town. I didn't let on that it was my house. Anyway about the website and this being a small town the local paper is always on the lookout for a nice happy story and maybe that nice newspaper lady will plug my site in an article. If 24 channels were a big hit then 120 channels should be like a rock concert and a Billy Graham event combined. The website should get everyone the information they need to come see the show and make it an even bigger success. Crossing my fingers.
Click to expand...
 
Well I’m a complete newbie when it comes to most of this stuff. A year and a half ago I had no idea how to weld, solder a board, how to make lights flash let alone how to create and maintain a website. However what I lacked in knowledge, I made up for in ambition. I asked a lot of silly questions and this great community of folks helped me out!

2011 was my first year with blinky flashy versus the standard static display.

As for my website, I bought a book about WordPress, I like NASCAR so I went to Go Daddy for hosting and jumped in. Probably not the best choices but for a guy who knew nothing about web design and hosting it worked. I owe A LOT to Mat er daddy for helping me get the site to look the way I wanted it; thanks again Mat! (believe me he had the patience of Jobe and the skill of a highly trained surgeon)

I agree with Dirk, I have the best of intentions about updating the site but updates seem to fall to the bottom of the list; then off.

I’d like to learn more about how to make my site better and build upon the skills I’ve developed.

Now that I’ve given all my caveats, please visit www.MangroveLights.com

All comments, suggestions, criticism and critiques welcome!
 
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