End of June, and we've been too busy to do much with the website. Just a bit of editing here and there. We've been working on several other projects more fun than plain old web stuff. We are actually looking forward to the end of this season for more reasons than we can go into here.
We have finally made a decision to work with a new webmaster for the revamp of raftwet. This will be a hard thing as new people come aboard and the oldies move over for new technology and new strategies. Working with them has shown us that everything old is new again, so we're really not doing anything brand new. Just more efficient.
Some improvements will be in place this year as we are anxious to test them. Others are still waiting for approval. All in all, this might make us excited again to work on the site with more enthusiasm.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Saturday, June 9, 2007
RAFTWET
Cleaning a closet... that's the metaphor that appropriately describes what we're doing here. We're throwing away the junk. You know the old saying,"If you haven't used it in a year, then throw it away or donate it..."
Cleaning up the raftwet website is kind of like that. Much of our content over the years has been copied by other websites, so cleaning up means checking for dead links or links that have changed, adding new content and doing more research. Fixing code errors and trying to keep a uniform sense has been difficult because of my chronic ADD. I just keep getting distracted. While most websites stay with one template, one css file; I find that I want several looks within the site. There just seems to be so much info that needs to be organized and how can I pigeon-hole it into just one look?
I'm already missing the old website with it's crazy layout and even wilder navigation. It seemed so unrestrained and primitive reflecting the early days of the net and our marketing attempts. But, the public keeps demanding simplicity with lots of info and bells and whistles and interaction and novelty and media and on and on and on.
What I find though is most of us who surf the net for information want it quick. Sure, the site that has the cool flash intro is fun to look at, maybe once or twice, then it gets tedious and old rather quickly. In fact, most of us click off the flash intros to get to the meat of the info in the site. Because, the reality is that we are really too busy to waste time when we're trying to reserve rafting trips or family vacations. Sure, we'll spend hours doing research, but we want it quickly and to the point.
Cleaning up the raftwet website is kind of like that. Much of our content over the years has been copied by other websites, so cleaning up means checking for dead links or links that have changed, adding new content and doing more research. Fixing code errors and trying to keep a uniform sense has been difficult because of my chronic ADD. I just keep getting distracted. While most websites stay with one template, one css file; I find that I want several looks within the site. There just seems to be so much info that needs to be organized and how can I pigeon-hole it into just one look?
I'm already missing the old website with it's crazy layout and even wilder navigation. It seemed so unrestrained and primitive reflecting the early days of the net and our marketing attempts. But, the public keeps demanding simplicity with lots of info and bells and whistles and interaction and novelty and media and on and on and on.
What I find though is most of us who surf the net for information want it quick. Sure, the site that has the cool flash intro is fun to look at, maybe once or twice, then it gets tedious and old rather quickly. In fact, most of us click off the flash intros to get to the meat of the info in the site. Because, the reality is that we are really too busy to waste time when we're trying to reserve rafting trips or family vacations. Sure, we'll spend hours doing research, but we want it quickly and to the point.
Friday, June 1, 2007
New Stuff
Well, we uploaded several new pages using two new templates and two new css files. Do I love it? No. I'm already tired of the "new look." But, it is definitely more organized. Today, we added back some photos. The zen of pure code was taking over the joy of the visual experience. So, we added back in the pictures. Then we looked at the code. Yuck. It really junked up my nice clean structure. But, oh, I forgot... we are trying to sell river trips...
Speaking of clean code... learning script has been interesting... especially the Linden script for Second Life. It's getting easier and easier to look at script and filter out the junk and actually see the commands and action. Fun stuff. Now if I can apply this to real life script, I might be able to do something cool on the raftwet site.
A colleague of mine is a master programmer. He works on real life scripts. I'm scared of him. He has told me how scarey script can get, and I now know what he's talking about. It is scarey... the power of the action and commands that can "tell" something to do something that seems quite magical. I'm totally intrigued... lots of late night learning to do next.
Speaking of clean code... learning script has been interesting... especially the Linden script for Second Life. It's getting easier and easier to look at script and filter out the junk and actually see the commands and action. Fun stuff. Now if I can apply this to real life script, I might be able to do something cool on the raftwet site.
A colleague of mine is a master programmer. He works on real life scripts. I'm scared of him. He has told me how scarey script can get, and I now know what he's talking about. It is scarey... the power of the action and commands that can "tell" something to do something that seems quite magical. I'm totally intrigued... lots of late night learning to do next.
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