Webmaster Stuff

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Webmaster Stuff

99 ⁴⁴/₁₀₀% of the people who hit my web sites would probably care less about this stuff, but for the ⁵⁶/₁₀₀% of you who are left, here are some of the hows and whys behind how my web sites work.

Date	Changes
Credits It only seems fitting to give credit those others, whether individuals or companies, whose assistance has helped me to put my web sites together.
	This web site was created on a Macintosh, and the font "Helvetica" used in the navigation graphics is licensed through Apple Computer, Inc. In fact, I love the Mac so much that I have devoted an entire page to it.
	My web sites and mailing lists are hosted by Associate.com, which offers free hosting to Christian ministries.
	Most of the graphics used on this site were either created or modified with GraphicConverter, which has just about as many features as I can figure out how to use.
	My primary web browser is iCab, which is only available for the Macintosh. It's small and fast, has advanced options like pop-up blocking and tabs, and, most usefully for me, a built-in HTML checker, which enables me to test my code very quickly.
	My HTML editor of choice is PageSpinner. It's a shareware editor for the Macintosh, which comes with lots of helpful features, such as the autocreation of different HTML elements, but, most critically for me, it gives me complete control over the code, rather than creating a bunch of extra garbage my pages don't need. It also has a built-in HTML checker which is even tougher than the one which comes with iCab on many issues.
Principles
	I don't believe in "locking out" users from my web sites just because they don't happen to use a particular web browser or plug-in which I want to use. Therefore, I try to code my sites to be navigable and accessible to people, no matter what hardware, operating system, or browser they use to access the web. I do use some features which are not supported by all browsers, but I try to code them in such a way that the code will "fail gracefully", leaving the web site useable for that browser. This logo shows my support for the Viewable With Any Browser Campaign.
	I don't want my web sites to become places for spammers to harvest E-mail addresses and start spamming my friends and other people people who have provided resources, so I have removed as many "mailto:" links from my sites as possible. Where I can, I link to a person or organisation's web site, rather than giving their E-mail address directly.
Vendors As you have probably noticed, I have a fair number of links to buy books, CDs, videos, software, and other products on my sites. I should probably admit right up front that the income from these links is fairly small and intermittent, and I'm a long way from being able to rely on my web sites to pay the rent, but it does give me the occasional pocket money, and, more importantly, it makes the kind of items which interest me (which, I admit, tend to be on the obscure side) easily available to others who share my tastes. If you wish to add these vendors to your own web site, I explain how to sign up for each one.
	Amazon.com has to be the largest and best-known of all online retailers. They were the pioneers of the strategy of paying commissions to webmaster for putting up links to their sites. They sell books, CDs, videos, software, and computers, all of which I link to somewhere on my web sites, as well as tons of other stuff which I don't link to. The commission you get is normally a percentage of the selling price of the item, and varies based on the type of item, how much your total sales are in the current quarter, and whether people buy an item you link to directly, or browse around Amazon's site and buy something else instead. The way to sign up for an associate ID on Amazon.com is to look at the bottom of the home page for a link which says "Join Associates." Click on that, answer all the questions, and eventually you should end up with an Amazon Associate ID. Amazon.com has pages which will build links for you, but for a basic text link, as I use, you can copy the link and, simply by changing the ASIN (a 10-digit code which refers to a specific item, which is normally the ISBN for books, and a code assigned by Amazon.com for other products), you can create a link directly to any product which Amazon.com offers. Note: For many computers and software packages, Amazon.com is only permitted to ship to addresses in the United States.
	Amazon.ca is the Canadian version of Amazon.com. Even though the systems work almost identically, you need to sign up separately to get an Associate ID for Amazon.ca. Just as with Amazon.com, look at the bottom of the home page for a link which says "Join Associates." Note: For many software packages, Amazon.ca is only permitted to ship to addresses in Canada.
	Amazon.co.uk is the British version of Amazon.com. Even though the systems work almost identically, you need to sign up separately to get an Associate ID for Amazon.co.uk. Just as with Amazon.com, look at the bottom of the home page for a link which says "Join Associates." If you are planning to sign up with Amazon, I encourage you to sign up for all three English sites. (There are also Amazon sites in other languages, and if you can navigate those sites, by all means sign up for them, too.) Possibly because so many webmasters sign up only for Amazon.com, and thus comparatively few web sites serve the European market, I consistently get higher sales through Amazon.co.uk. This is especially important when it comes to DVDs, since the TV encoding system is different in the United Kingdom than it is in North America, not to mention that they are in different DVD "regions", so it is fairly complicated for a British resident to watch American DVDs. Note: For many software packages, Amazon.co.uk is only permitted to ship to addresses in the European Union and certain other European countries.
	ChristianBook.com also sells books, music, software, and videos, as well as other material, such as T-shirts, and, believe it or not, ties. To sign up for their affiliate program, the link is at the bottom of the home page, and simply says "Affiliates." Unfortunately, you can't hack together links to Christianbook.com the way you can with Amazon. You have to create each link to a book (or video, or CD, or whatever) within the Christianbook.com link builder. It's not difficult, but of course you do need to be online to do it. Also, if, like me, you are picky about the code on your sites, then you will need to replace a couple of ampersands (&) in the code which ChristianBook.com gives you with the HTML entity code for an ampersand (which is "&") in order for your code to pass the more strict HTML checkers.
History Lots of web sites have "What's new" pages to help users locate material as it changes. I chose to take the perspective of a history of my web sites, as it never ceases to amaze me how long I've kept all these projects going.
20080901	I posted the July and August issues of CAMsoc Update (although I had actually sent out the July issue by mail earlier. I also posted an update to the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project.
20080724	I posted updates to the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Church Related Software Index, the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, and the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) section.
20080616	I have decided to take down the film reviews section from personal site, in order to focus more on computer stuff.
20080609	I submitted a "patch batch" of updates to the Christian Fandom site, removing all references to AbeBooks.com from the generic pages and the SF section.
20080531	I posted the April and May issues of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) section. I have removed links to Abebooks.com from CAMsoc Update, the Christian Computing Bibliography, and the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, because AbeBooks have changed their affiliate tracking system to a company with which I have sworn never to to business again.
20080311	I posted updates to the Christian Computing Bibliography and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and began migrating reviews out of Over The Shoulder to the blog on my profile at Xianz.com.
20080301	I (finally!) posted the January issue of CAMsoc Update.
20080112	I posted the December issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project.
20071215	I posted the November issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index, the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and the PCs page of my personal site.
20071101	I posted the October issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index, the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and the PCs page of my personal site.
20071215	I posted the November issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index and the PCs page of my personal site.
20071012	I have created a profile (including a blog) on Xianz.com, a Christian social networking site.
20071002	I posted the September issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index, Christian Computing Bibliography, and Christian Telecommunications Toolkit. I also finished removing the links to TowerRecords.com from the Films and Music sections of my personal site, and updated my Christian page.
20070910	I posted the August issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index. I also updated my Christian page.
20070801	I posted the July issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project.
20070730	I posted an update to the security section of the PCs page.
20070628	I posted the May-June issue of CAMsoc Update, and updates to the Church Related Software Index and Christian Telecommunications Toolkit.
20070627	I posted an update to the security section of the PCs page.
20070430	I posted the March-April issue of CAMsoc Update.
20070425	I did a long-overdue revision of the Links page on the CAMsoc site, adding new links, and removing dead ones. I also updated the Christian Computer Users Groups page.
20070328	I went through the back issues of CAMsoc Update and the Christian Computing Bibliography, updating the links to Amazon.co.uk into a new format.
20070301	I posted the January-February issue of CAMsoc Update.
20070224	I decided to remove the "rank" pages from the Bookdex, because I have finally given in and admitted that I'll never have the time to keep the book rankings up to date. (There are simply too many reviews!) I have also continued working through back issues of Over The Shoulder, replacing reviews which are duplicated elsewhere on my sites with links to where each review is located.
20070217	I added a new page to my personal site covering Books on Temptation, and I continued working through back issues of Over The Shoulder, replacing reviews which are duplicated elsewhere on my sites with links to where each review is located. I also fixed the buttons in the fiction section, so that the buttons for my stories have the correct background colour.
2006	I posted the final issue of Over The Shoulder, with a new graphic and links to John Keith's new book, and started the process of working through back issues, removing reviews which are duplicated elsewhere on my sites, and replacing them with links to where each review is located. Once I have worked through all of the back issues, and made sure that all of the reviews are available elsewhere, I'll be taking the Over The Shoulder site down. I continued to publish CAMsoc Update on a bimonthly basis, and and continued to update the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Church Related Software Index and the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and added some new reviews to the Films section of my personal site. I also recalculated the voting and revised the Recommended Reading List on the Christian Fandom site according to the latest voting results, in addition to adding more reviews. I went through the Films and music sections of my personal site, removing links to TowerRecords.com, which has gone into bankruptcy, and links to Chapter.Indigo.ca, which has changed affiliate programs yet again. I also updated the C.S. Lewis page, replacing links to editions of the Cosmic Trilogy which have gone out of print with links to new editions.
2005	My father died in January, which took a lot of the wind out of my sails, and my online efforts haven't really recovered. I did continue to add content to the Christian Fandom site, and have been stepping up my efforts to recruit others to help out with the task. I had been updating the ConSecration site early in the year, up until the con chair asked me to replace the ConSecration site with a notice telling people that the convention has been cancelled. I took a fairly major revision of the VCON site live, and then stepped down as VCON webmaster because I just couldn't keep up with the load. I also announced that I would no longer be producing Over The Shoulder, and will eventually take the site down once I have migrated the various reviews onto other sites. I did continue work (slowly) on CAMsoc Update, and updated the Church Related Software Index, Christian Computing Bibliography, Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit as various news stories provided material for those sites. I also added in code for Google's AdSense service to many of the CAMsoc pages, to see if it's possible to gain a little more income through advertising than through commissions on sales. I posted a major revamp of my personal site, with a completely redesigned navigation system, now using a variation on the system I've put into place on the CAMsoc, site (because the old buttons were starting to look pretty grotty, and there are so many pages [and hence buttons] on the site that I felt the need to group them into sections to make the menu look a bit less cluttered.) I also added a new Writer section, which includes my Bibliography and Essays (renamed from "Opinions") pages, along with a new Fiction section, gathering together some of my fiction which has been available on other sites, as well as some stuff which, as far as I can remember, I haven't posted anywhere before. Also new is a Not the Greg you're looking for page, for linking to the web sites of other Greg Slades on the Internet as I find them.
2004	I continued to add content to CAMsoc Update, Over The Shoulder, the Christian Computing Bibliography, and the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, my personal site, and the Christian Fandom site, and announced my newest project, the Church Related Software Index. As if that wasn't enough, I took on the responsibility of helping out the web site for VCON, the local science fiction convention, made a major revamp of the navigation system for most of the CAMsoc web sites, added a new Special Interest Groups (SIGs) section, and got permission to put up a mirror of Don Clifton's old SpiritWare site, containing Bible software for the Atari ST. Ron Oakes, the owner of the Christian Fandom site, ran Xenu's Link Sleuth on the Christian Fandom site, finding hundreds of problems. He also ran it on my sites, also finding several hundred broken links on them. I also changed my "public" E-mail address to my new account on Bluebottle.com, because MyRealBox had stopped filtering, and the volume of spam I was getting was driving me nuts.
2003	Due to the huge volume of spam going around the Internet, I decided to change all the "mailto:" buttons on all my web pages to point to my MyRealBox account, because it had spam filtering on it. I learned from the Christian Webmasters site how to code web pages to make use of Mozilla's "Site Navigation Bar" and used PageSpinner's "Find and Replace in Folder..." script to update all my pages. I also discovered that the script seems to have trouble in folders with more than a couple of hundred files. I continued to update CAMsoc Update, Over The Shoulder, the Christian Computing Bibliography, and the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and my personal site. I also sent off a bundle of updated pages for the Christian Fandom site. Then I discovered that PageSpinner has a built-in HTML checker a bit more detailed than iCab's, including the insight that the reason the W3C's HTML checker doesn't like my pages is that I've been using an HTML 4.0 DOCTYPE header, but I'm really coding in 3.2. So, I'll be using the 3.2 DOCTYPE header from now on.
2002	I returned from Hong Kong, and spent the next few months frantically patching up all the errors which had crept into my assorted web projects. I finally finished the first draft of the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, relaunched CAMsoc Update and Over The Shoulder, and launched a new project, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project. I also started to rework my personal site, putting a picture on each major page, and revising the navigation buttons to match the picture on the page to which each button points, rather than using the same photo on each button.
2000	Shortly after I arrived in Hong Kong for a two-year work project, Doug Wade handed over responsibility for maintaining the Christian Macintosh Users Group web site, and it was moved to a new server. (The domain registry was moved to the new server as well, so even though the files are physically in a different place, the URL is the same.) In that process, the CAMsoc web projects and mailing list were dropped, so I had to consolidate everything on Associate.com with no notice. Because I was so busy in Hong Kong, I had no time to fix any of the broken links which were caused by the move, or simply developed over time as other sites moved or went down. (Because I anticipated not having much free time, I put CAMsoc Update on hiatus, merged the SF-CHRISTIAN mailing list and web site into the Christian Fandom mailing list and web site, and handed the back issues of Over The Shoulder over to Melanie Duncan at the Bookdragon Review to host in my absence.)
1999	I discovered iCab and its built-in HTML checker, and put in a great deal of effort fixing the numerous HTML errors on my web sites. Also, a pricing change at xc.org forced me to reconsider my hosting options, so I moved the CAMsoc Update mailing list to the server hosted by the Christian Macintosh Users Group, at the same time, I consolidated the CAMsoc web projects on the CMUG server. (At the time, Doug Wade and I had dreams of building an online database combining CMUG's list of Christian software for the Macintosh with the software vendor information I had already collected for my Church Related Software Update and the fax/E-mail directory which formed Appendix C of the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit. I also launched a mailing list called SF-CHRISTIAN (on science fiction and Christianity) and associated web site, as well as the first version of my personal web site on Associate.com, and cancelled the Public Domain Bible Project due to lack of participation.
1998	I started posting CAMsoc Update as a webzine, and putting back issues into HTML format, as well as sending it out by mailing list. I also launched the Christian Computing Bibliography on the CAMsoc site, and started a book review webzine called Over The Shoulder on Associate.com.
1996	I had a chance to work on a Mac regularly for the first time in years, and discovered Mac Format magazine and its cover CDs with spiffy shareware, including PageSpinner, the HTML editor which I have used ever since. (Before this, I coded my web pages – and gopher pages before that – in text editors or word processors which could save in ASCII format.)
1995	I relaunched CAMsoc (now the "Computer Aided Ministry Society.") The College of Biblical and Family Studies at Abilene Christian University provided free gopher space (and later web space) for me to put up the first online version of the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, and free mailing list services to restart CAMsoc Update without having to spend any money. (The cost of copying and mailing the newsletter, combined with a lack of participation from members, was what sank the first attempt.) Later in the year, I was given a mail forwarding account and mailing list services on what was originally called CrossConnect, and then MAFxc, and currently simply XC, and moved the CAMsoc Update mailing list (but not the web sites) to the XC server.
1991	CAMsoc hosted the first (and only) annual Computers In The Church Conference (CITCCON '91.)
1990	To save money, CAMsoc Update ceased publication as a separate newsletter, and was replaced with a CAMsoc page in Church Bytes: The Christian Computing Magazine. Mark Henter was elected President of CAMsoc, we opened a "community account" for CAMsoc at a bank, and talk began of launching a CAMsoc chapter in Calgary. I flew to Calgary to speak to a group of interested people, but the chapter never did get off the ground. I also launched the Public Domain Bible Project, an effort to create a modern translation of the Bible which would be royalty-free, and thus could be used in free Bible programs. (At that time, free Bible programs only came with the KJV text.)
1988	Tyson Schoeber and I started CAMsoc (as the "Computer Aided Ministry Society of Canada"), and prepared the first issue of CAMsoc Update to hand out from our booth at the Consumer's Computer Show.

Webmaster Stuff

Credits

Principles

Vendors

History