Monday 23 August 2010

I think we're there

I certainly hope so. When I agreed, several months ago, to take responsibility for the Lions District web site I knew darn well that my knowledge of html was far beneath the level of the outgoing webmaster. All the same, I reasoned that I should be able to produce something that would (a) look not too amateurish, (b) work - with navigation that was simple - and (c) not require too much effort to keep up to date. Then I came across a snag. Once my predecessor had given me the necessary access codes to the host server, I found I could not get in to upload the new pages. I spent several weeks trying at various times; I emailed my predecessor (with no reply) and I telephoned the support line of the hosting company. I was cut off in mid-sentence but had been unable to understand what I was being told anyway as the person on the other end had such a strong Indian accent.

I mulled this over for a while before coming to the conclusion that the best way forward was by transferring to a different hosting server, one that I knew all about. Now the old server allowed sub-domains and several clubs had taken advantage of this. Most of those sites were hopelessly out of date - I suspect the clubs concerned had forgotten all about them - but there were a few that appeared to be live. Anyway, I emailed all the clubs involved, advising them that the facility was to be withdrawn at the end of July because a change of host server was needed and giving them three weeks or so to make different arrangements. I got a very quick - and very shirty - reply from one club. They have a fund raiser at the beginning of September and have advertised their web address for people to apply to take part in the run. I agreed to hold off the transfer until the end of August.

It was on Friday last week that I started the transfer process, thinking it would take a week to ten days. It took two hours. I then uploaded all the new pages and thought I was done. But for some reason, when I typed the address of the web site into my browser, the old site came up. I tried again and got the new site. The again (just to check) - and got the old one again. This went on for most of the weekend. I tried clearing both the cache and my history without it making any difference. Then I booted up the laptop and switched on my usual browser (Firefox). I got the new site! I switched to Explorer - and got the new site! But the tower PC, running Firefox (there's a problem with IE on that machine) kept switching between the old and the new. Until this morning. Every time I have tried today I have got the new site. I sincerely hope that is the end of it.

Oh yes - if you're interested, it's at www.lions105se.org.uk

4 comments:

#1Nana said...

Congratulations on your new site...that is quite an accomplishment!

Brighton Pensioner said...

Thank you, Nana.

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

It wouldn't open for me yesterday. It is a simple (for the user) but elegant site.
I like it. If I was your DG, I'd put you in for Ambassador of Good Will.

Brighton Pensioner said...

Wow! Thanks!