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New Domains Registered and other changes
We now have three domain names registed www.pcurtis.co.uk and http://www.uniquelynz.com . The Uniquely New Zealand site and www.pcurtis.com now have separat content but with cross links on the navigation bars so that the change is almost transparent. Most of the pages covering our personal activities have been withdrawn from the main sites. These actions will hopefully reduce traffic on the main site which has been rising rapidly and has now exceeded 750 Mbytes per month (up from under 200 Mbytes/month a year ago) and we are seeing up to 650 independent visits a day. This huge increase is not reflected in our existing counters which only record visits to the entry pages because our lower level pages are receiving visitors directly via Search engines - more are visiting from NZ than the UK! Even so the simple counters showed we passed 6,500 hits in early July 1999, 10,000 in November 1999, 20,000 in November 2000, 30,000 in August 2001, 50,000 in August 2002, 66,000 in August 2003 and 82,000 in August 2004.
The principles laid out in the Small Firms pages have been applied to more sites for small firms see: Theale Fireplaces The Craven Bed and Breakfast and a new site is under development for an up and coming artist, Katrina Richards.
The increasing consultancy works means we are becoming much more rigorous about standards and every time a page is updated it is being checked against the new HTML 4.01 standards and a validator link/image added at the bottom of the page. The pages are also being updated to use linked Cascading Style Sheets and have a slightly improved navigation bar.
Improved Navigation and Graphics, a Site Search and Additional Coverage
A number of changes have been made to improve navigation round the site and adddional areas are being covered.
- A new Navigation Bar: There are a set of links to the main sections of the site across the top. The colours reflect the style of each section of the site.
- Java popup Windows: We are standardising on a Java based function to allow pictures to "popup" in a window when an icon is clicked. This function minimises open windows and brings new pictures to the foreground automatically. A study of visitors shows that under 5% of visitors do not have Java or have Java deliberately disabled - they will only see the small icon.
- Site Search: A site search has been added as part of the Main Navigation Bar
- Travel page: A new Travel page added becausea a lot of our older pages covering our travels were getting lost so we have added this page so they are still accessable.
- Video page: A page covering our Video Camera and Editor added which will be of interest to both those seeking a digital video camera and computer based editing system and those who wonder how we get the pictures for the web site.
- Peter's Home Winemaking page: This, like many other pages, resulted from friends asking for information. It takes little extra effort to write things up in a way that is general interest and to serve as documentation for our own purposes. A major objective of the site is to save ourselves and others reinventing wheels.
- Maori culture A series of pages covering Maori culture have been added to the Uniquely New Zealand section.
"Small Firms" section added to the site
Small Firms Section: This new section of our site is directed in particular towards supporting small firms who need a presence on the Web. It also covers other aspects of the computing needs of a small business - networks, backups, disaster recovery etc. I believe there is a very real need for such information - I see many examples of the same problems and the same mistakes being made in small businesses.
A number of new pages (6 to date) have been writen to augment those in the Howto Series of Technical Articles out of which this section has grown. I am also considering offering just enough consultancy to get them up and running so that they can become self sufficient and be able to carry on using the level of technical support provided on our site.
Domain Name "pcurtis.com" Registered
We have now registered the domain name pcurtis.com so the web site URL is now http://www.pcurtis.com and we can be contacted by email by anything in front of the @ and the domain name. The CompuServe mailbox at pcurtis@csi.com will be kept for a month or two - the CompuServe web space has been so unreliable that we have had warning splashes to use our other sites for months and only the entry pages are ever updated. We will keep http://www.corinna1.freeserve.co.uk as a mirror site although the site has now outgrown the 15 mbytes limit and the Uniquely NZ section on Freeserve is without images.
"Uniquely New Zealand" section added to Site
"Uniquely New Zealand" A new section of the site is being developed which will be a Touring and Camping Guide enabling one to get to the places a "Package" can thankfully not reach. It will concentrate on the things that make New Zealand special and what has shaped the country, its people and their leisure activities. The simpler the lifestyle one is prepared to adopt the closer you will be able to get to the real New Zealand and the better one can experience it's scenary, wildlife and sports. It will include our experiences of activities such as sailing, fishing and camping which are fundamental to the Kiwi way of life. It will initially draw on our the inputs to previous years newsletters, the picture galleries and the series of "Letters from the Antipodes" we periodically Emailed to friends this year. We plan to cover in some detail the various options for Transport and Accommodation from Hotels and Motels through cabins to campervans and tents including costed listings of the additional kit required and advice on the best sources.
Site Traffic Increases
The site traffic has increased dramatically in the last year. The first two years averaged only a hit a day but last summer the traffic started to increase with 1000 hits being reached in June and 2000 was reaced during the Christmas period. This had risen to 4000 hits just before we returned from New Zealand in late March. We added some intellegent counters to monitor various parts of the sites in the Autumn to gain some understanding of the reasons for the increase. Much of the traffic comes via the Freeserve Gateway which features high on the outputs from a number of major search engines for people looking for information on Freeserve. The Freeserve support team are also pointing people towards our site. The other major site traffic is for Pauline's Open University Pages which again cover the free ISPs and latest on FirstClass as well as being used by her own and other M206 students. We get some very gratifying feedback via Email on both the technical articles and the OU pages and there are an increasing number of links on other peoples sites as well as referenced in Conferences and Newsgroups.
Changes to Email and Web sites
We have been experimenting with some of the free ISP services such as Freeserve from Dixons. Freeserve is much faster and more reliable than CompuServe and gives 15 Mbytes of web space. Our site is now fully mirrored at http://www.corinna1.freeserve.co.uk and extensions will use the extra web space now available. CompuServe has been so unreliable that you should bookmark the new site immediately. The Technical Howto Articles series has been extended considerably and covers Freeserve and a competitor Telinco in some detail and there are articles on changing and Using multiple ISPs.
Pauline's OU Pages added to the Site
A major new section of the site Pauline's OU Pages hass been set up to support her Open University Teaching on M206, B889 and T843. It provides easy access to the material used in her presentations, resources for tutors and students, an introduction to or experiences with OU and Related Software on our Home Computing System including a detailed "diary" of our Installation, Configuration, Utilisation and Assessment of the relevant software. We cover our Experiences with a small Laptop which allows us access to the same Communications we have at home whilst we are traveling on our Narrowboat Corinna. Our experiences have led to several articles being added to Peter's existing series of "How to" technical articles.
We become Mobile
We have obtained a tiny Toshiba Libretto Laptop computer and a Motorola CELLect PCMCIA card which connects it to our mobile phone. This gives us not only the full connectivity on the boat that we sought but provides full Internet Access, Fax, EMail, Compuserve and OU FirstClass anywhere in the world which supports a GSM phone and has a 12, 110 or 240 volt supply. We are no longer constained to home for Pauline's OU teaching on the latest courses where even the marking is electronic. Have a look at our Experiences going Mobile.
Pauline Starts Teaching the New OU M206 Course
Computing: An Object Oriented Approach
Pauline will be teaching the new Open University Course M206 which is completely "electronic" and makes extensive use of the Internet for delivery and marking. This has meant upgrades to our machine and we have a new objective of full connectivity on the boat. Details of the Course are on the OU Site for M206. We are planning a new section on our site to support her work.
Technical "How To" Articles Section added to the Site
A series of Technical "How to" Articles have been added to the site. An Index to the series of articles written on how to set up and support various activities has been added. The articles mostly originated in Diary of a Home Page as detailed documentation of various steps in setting up the computer, it's software, it's communications and the site itself. Recent reports cover favourable experiences with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, the Active DeskTop, Upgrading machines and installing OSR2.
The North East Waterways Trip Report Posted
At the beginning of May we set off on a major trip in Corinna to explore the Northerly parts of the Canal system we have never had time to reach even "weekending". We first went via Stratford and Gloucester to Sharpness then back via Gloucester up the Severn and the Staffs and Worcester to join up with the owners club for a big "ring" taking us from Red Bull down the tidal Trent, up the tidal Ouse to York and Ripon - the furthest North part of the connected system. Our return took us onto the Aire and Calder as far as the start of the Rochdale, on to Huddersfield then back over the Leeds and Liverpool to Manchester before returning home. The complete trip came close to 1200 miles and took 3 months. A report covering The Northeast Waterways is available with maps showing the journey.
NZ Picture Gallery Opens
- Site triples in size
We have put some of the more spectacular pictures from the 22 films Pauline took in New Zealand into North and S outhIsland Picture Galleries now they have been digitised onto CD ROM. There is also a Report of the Trip concentrating on South Island.
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