Saturday, November 5, 2011
I continued to investigate templates and plug-ins today. I also spent some time looking at gmail apps. Gmail apps are free to organizations with ten or fewer employees. The museum just barely meets that criteria. The advantage of google apps is access to google docs, a calendar, etc. which can be stored on line in the "google cloud." Then they are accessible from anywhere. That is convenient and easy. The other neat thing about google apps is that you can share your documents and calendar with other people. So, the museum could potentially have an on-line calendar that everyone has access to and can update when a new event comes up. I talked to Joan, the office manager about this possibility. She said it is something they have talked about doing before, but it just has not happened. Now that their email host will be changing, it might be the perfect time to take the leap.
I continued to investigate templates and plug-ins today. I also spent some time looking at gmail apps. Gmail apps are free to organizations with ten or fewer employees. The museum just barely meets that criteria. The advantage of google apps is access to google docs, a calendar, etc. which can be stored on line in the "google cloud." Then they are accessible from anywhere. That is convenient and easy. The other neat thing about google apps is that you can share your documents and calendar with other people. So, the museum could potentially have an on-line calendar that everyone has access to and can update when a new event comes up. I talked to Joan, the office manager about this possibility. She said it is something they have talked about doing before, but it just has not happened. Now that their email host will be changing, it might be the perfect time to take the leap.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Today I continued to do preliminary work on the web site. The primary thing at this point is deciding the template or theme and whether we will use a splash page or not. A splash page is basically a front page on a website. Sometimes it's called a landing page. There is no navigation on that page, and you have to "click to enter." We have been looking at the websites of other museums. One of the things we have noticed is that many of them have a large image on the home page, and not much else. The current NEQM site is busy and as Connie says, it looks like a bulletin board. It has everything but the kitchen sink on it. Connie wants a home page that is smooth and focused. I agree with her.
If we don't use a splash page, we are going to use a plug-in on the home page. The plug-in will replace the header image and will be a slide show of some sort. We will also be using several different styles of pages. The overall look of them will be compatible with colors, fonts, etc. But they will have some variation such as the size of the header image -- it may be tall, short, medium, on non-existent.
So I pretty much spent the day checking out the options for plug-ins and templates. I identified the ones that I thought would work and started saving images, collecting themes and image sizes. I am also beginning to explore other options for email providers. I need to check with the domain host to see what their provisions are for email.
Today I continued to do preliminary work on the web site. The primary thing at this point is deciding the template or theme and whether we will use a splash page or not. A splash page is basically a front page on a website. Sometimes it's called a landing page. There is no navigation on that page, and you have to "click to enter." We have been looking at the websites of other museums. One of the things we have noticed is that many of them have a large image on the home page, and not much else. The current NEQM site is busy and as Connie says, it looks like a bulletin board. It has everything but the kitchen sink on it. Connie wants a home page that is smooth and focused. I agree with her.
If we don't use a splash page, we are going to use a plug-in on the home page. The plug-in will replace the header image and will be a slide show of some sort. We will also be using several different styles of pages. The overall look of them will be compatible with colors, fonts, etc. But they will have some variation such as the size of the header image -- it may be tall, short, medium, on non-existent.
So I pretty much spent the day checking out the options for plug-ins and templates. I identified the ones that I thought would work and started saving images, collecting themes and image sizes. I am also beginning to explore other options for email providers. I need to check with the domain host to see what their provisions are for email.
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