May 28, 2003
What's a Wiki?
By now most of you are probably familiar with a weblog. This week Colleen devotes an entry in Web Update to a variant on the weblog - a "wiki." What the heck is a wiki? It's kind of like a group weblog. Click through to read more.
Posted by RichM at
04:35 PM
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May 09, 2003
Backing Up Web Sites
By now most folks understand the importance of backing up critical files on your hard drive. But how about on your web server? Colleen writes about this today on Web Update, and includes a cautionary tale.
First, don't assume that your hosting company has a recent backup. Customers of a Dutch hosting firm recently learned this the hard way. If you're a Miller WebWorks client, it's easy to create backups of your site through the Account Control Center.
Once you log into the Web interface, select "Advanced." On the next screen, click on "Archive Manager." The Archive Manager lets you select a format for your backup (you can choose between Windows .zip file or Unix .tar format). It then compresses your site using that format and placing the archive in a folder called "backup" in your home directory.
Posted by RichM at
09:33 AM
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May 08, 2003
MT Plugins
The power of Open Source software is that the code is available to the entire developer community so they can tinker with it, improve it, and add customizations to make it dance - and then share it over the web. A remarkable example of this is the MT Plugins directory, where you can find openly distributed snippets of Perl code that add features to the Movable Type blogging system.
I kid with Colleen that you rarely encounter a unique problem in the world of web coding. A solution usually exists, and if it does, Google can usually find it. That's true for the widely used MT system. As I've tinkered with it and thought of new things I'd like to try, I've consistently been able to find an existing plugin that does the job.
For example, I wanted to include a weather report in Lawrence Online. Voila! How about an RSS news feed or an auto-updating graphic showing the national terrorist alert level for Triumph Over Terror. Found 'em! Hmmmm ... I wonder if it's possible to have a blog that pulls entries from several of my other blogs and includes them automatically as I update? Check out Princeton Tech News, which aggregates content from two other MT webblogs. Amazing stuff. This is why the folks from Microsoft are worried about Open Source.
Posted by RichM at
10:01 AM
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May 01, 2003
Heal Your Church Website
We host quite a few churches, Internet ministries and other non-profits, so I'm always on the lookout for useful web-building resources for churches. I recently found two really good ones.
The first is the Heal Your Church Web Site, which provides design tips for church and charity web sites. It's a great place to find resources, code (including a cool "Scripturizer" script) and useful insights. The site is created by Dean Peters, who reasons that "we have hundreds of years of beautiful sacred songs, art and literature as the result of the artistry that was once the Church's ... why can't we have the same for websites?"
The second is NetAssisted, a new site from Christian minister and web marketing expert Dr. Ralph Wilson (of Doctor EBiz fame). The site looks specifically at how non-profits can use Internet marketing to reach more people with their message. It looks like this may eventually morph into a paid service, but it's free for now. Great stuff.
