[20747] in APO-L
Welcome to Our Grand Re-Opening
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Reuben 'Fuzz' Hochstedler)
Sun Aug 1 23:00:30 1999
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 21:59:47 -0500
Reply-To: Reuben 'Fuzz' Hochstedler <hochstrd@CS.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU>
From: Reuben 'Fuzz' Hochstedler <hochstrd@CS.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
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As most of you are aware, at some point during the 1999 July 4th
weekend, APhiO WebHQ, the site which used to exist at
http://www.apo.org/, suddenly, didn't. This was shortly followed by
much wailing and gnashing of teeth on APO-L.
But fear not! What was APhiO WebHQ is now back at
http://www.aphio.org/. The unintended down time has had the benefit
of giving us the impetus to at least start getting a number of
changes under way. Here's a list:
1. It's unofficial, baby! Getting to shed officiality can be very
liberating. No longer are we obligated to do what should be done with
the official web site of Alpha Phi Omega (USA). Now we can choose
what projects and additions we as the volunteers working on the site
want to do. It's much more motivating, trust me.
2. New name is aphio.org. We needed a new name since APhiO WebHQ had
a ring of officiality to it (see above). So after much deliberation,
I decided to go with the obvious.
3. Over due face lift. Let's see, the basic look 'n' feel of the old
site hadn't changed since the summer of 1995. You do the math. We've
got a new look 'n' feel that is the design of our self-appointed UI
cop, Charles "elf" Wilson. I like it, and I think most of you will
too. And don't worry, it wasn't designed to only look good on a
specific browser, or class of browsers, or with a specific window
size or set of colors. We're a non-discriminatory kind of fraternity,
our web sites should be that way too.
Now all that being said, the new look hasn't spread to the whole site
yet. That'll be one of our major goals over the next few months. So
be prepared for some UI shock as you move through the site in the
mean time.
4. Broken CGIs. Our move to a new hosting provider had the
unfortunate consequence of breaking all of our CGIs. I managed to get
most of them working without much effort (Perl binaries had a
different path). Unfortunately, our guest book guru, Jason Ross, has
been away from home for the last two weeks on business and hasn't
been able to do the same for the guest book. So, it'll be closed
temporarily until he declares it sea-worthy.
5. Closed areas due to unofficiality. Unfortunately, some of the
content on APhiO WebHQ was only appropriate because it was the
official site of APhiO (USA). As a result Service Center, as it was
maintained by the National Service Committee, will be closed. I
expect that its content will reappear on the official site soon. We
hope to reopen Service Center on aphio.org, but with an entirely
different function than it used to serve, but it could be quite a
while before we get there.
The About APhiO section which was largely made up of official
documents, will not be completely closed. Parts of it will be while
we reorganize it into more of an archive and alternate format
offering kind of place. Steven Crawford, our document librarian just
loves his palm pilot... and having a copy of the bylaws on it. Now,
while standard disclaimers will apply since it's an unofficial site,
and we will point you to the official site for a "sanctioned" copy of
the bylaws, etc., we hope that you will find this section both
convenient and useful.
6. More collaborative environment. Now this kind of change is
completely behind the scenes and unseen by the average visitor. But
changes along this front already include a new form-based log entry
system. My major goal for the site over the next few months will be
to move the database that powers Organization (what was Structure)
off of my PowerBook and onto the server. Changing databases like that
of course gives one the opportunity to really improve things, which I
plan to do. This of course would mean more instantaneous updates of
data in that area since our data scavenger Randy Finder will be able
to enter the changes directly himself, as I will be removed as the
unnecessary middle man.
Well hey, you've done enough reading about the site already. Why
don't you head on over to http://www.aphio.org/ and take a look for
yourself? Oh, and please send all comments to webmaster@aphio.org.
In LFS and on the WWW,
Reuben "Fuzz" Hochstedler <hochstrd@cs.rose-hulman.edu>
APhiO Stream Team Leader (and proud owner of the aphio.org domain
name)
P.S. This message is also stored at
http://www.aphio.org/front_office/editorials/19990801.html
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