Missed Stories Added
Somehow I missed several short story submissions from May 31 to June 7 but have now added those.
I am going to try and set aside time every day to catch up on the rest, but 6 months worth of stories is going to take me a while.
Posted: Wednesday 1st December 2004, 7:37 PM
Back on Board
As many of you may have noticed, the site has not been updated in many months. Reason being I injured my neck and back severely and have been havin some trouble sitting let alone doing much web work.
Doc says I am still looking at a minimum of 3 months before full recovery, but I am finding I am able to do some work for short durations.
Enough of the excuses, I am way behind in adding peoles stories, and looking through I missed some submissions so am adding them first.
For those waiting to see their story in print, it will happen just not as quick as I would have hoped, but I will keep plugging away till I catch up.
As always thanks for your patience and continued support :-)
Posted: Wednesday 1st December 2004, 7:31 PM
Latest Stories Added
I have just complete ading the latest stories to WTMT a little behind schedule again. Same story as usual, not enough hours in the day to get everything done that I want to.
Next update will be on or around the 30th of this month, so please be patient if you submit a story.
Thanks folkes, till next time.
Posted: Saturday 19th June 2004, 9:55 PM
Thanks for your Patience
Ok, I have just finished the updating since May 14th, sorry for being so slow but I am under a very heavy work load at present.
18 new submissions have been added as of today, my appologies to those that have had to wait.
Due to some of my other sites requiring a lot of attention, I will now be doing the submission updates for Welcome to my Town twice per month.
Till next time Have a good one!
Posted: Monday 31st May 2004, 9:43 PM
WTMT Hits 200 Stories
Welcome to my Town has achieved a new milestone, 200 submitted and accepted short stories in its short life.
Acceptance is still sitting around the 70% mark and even with the finish of prizemoney the submissions continue to flow, all be it at a reduced rate.
A big big thank you to all the contributors past, present and future that have taken the time to tell us your wonderful stories. It's you that makes Welcome to my Town great!
Upward and onward to 1000 :)
Posted: Tuesday 20th April 2004, 3:19 AM
Back on Deck
Well after having worked long hours for months on end I fianlly HAD to take a break.
A few days on the beach left me feeling refreshed initially but soon after I fell quite ill and am only just now starting to catch up.
Recent events for WTMT include our first entry South America, and we are now just 3 entries short of 200 short stories.
Till next time
Posted: Tuesday 13th April 2004, 8:05 PM
Monthly Winner Claims Prize
Well they may have left it till almost the death but our monthly winner has come through and claimed their prize.
The thought of someone missing out on the $500.00 was going tobe disappointing but luckily they recieved the reminders and were able to get in before the deadline.
Only one prize is now outstanding and the countdown has begun. If you have not claimed your prize please do so. Unclaimed prizes will be redrawn as randoms, so if you have not contacted us yet you had best do so.
Posted: Saturday 20th March 2004, 5:41 PM
Final Notices
Well final notices have been sent to the two outstanding prize winners. If they do not reply within the given period all outstanding moneys will be redrawn as random prizes.
I haven't decided exactly how they will be distributed yet, I am still hopeful the winners may come forward.
Posted: Sunday 14th March 2004, 9:08 PM
Unclaimed Short Story Prizes
Money must be easy to come by for some writers, we still have two unclaimed prizes.
If you have won a prize you should reply to your emails so we can get your details to send you the check. If after the final notice the prize remains unclaimed we will will redraw the prizes as randoms.
Posted: Wednesday 10th March 2004, 6:01 AM
Drum Roll .... the $500.00 Monthly Prize goes to
Research Randomizer Results
1 Set of 1 Unique Numbers Per Set.
Range: From 1 to 224. -- Unsorted.
Job Status:
Set #1:
208
Doesn't make sense does it? I used the handy dandy online random number generator I found at
http://www.randomizer.org/form.htm
and that is the number it spat out.
I simply entered the range of all submissions, limited it to a single number and viola we have ourselves a winner. Submission 208 being Ecorse, Michigan entered by Cenceree E.
If you are wondering why there was a bigger range than number of stories on the main page this is because it took into account all submissions, however only accepted entries were elligible to win.
On average it may appear only 2 out of 3 entries were accepted, this wasn't the case. Some submissions were blank, others were resubmissions after I requested alterations to ensure they followed the TOS. In all probably 90% of stories were accepted.
Posted: Monday 1st March 2004, 11:18 PM
Lord of the Rings Wins Again?
Lord of the Rings cleaned up at the Academy Awards winning all 11 categories it was nominated for, but did the cast or crew also slip in a submission to Welcome to my Town?
We can't be sure in fact the likelyhood is probably remote but this final weeks winner was Hastings, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. So once again the kiwis have shown what they lack in numbers they make up with quality.
This was by far the toughest week we have ever had deciding the winner. Seven entries were almost impossible to split with all 3 judges selecting different short stories as their favorite.
Well that was our last weekly prize winner. Submissions from 1st March are no longer elligible for prizes but hey that's no reason not to submit. Put your town on the map and share your great little town with us just for the pleasure of it.
Posted: Monday 1st March 2004, 11:06 PM
Rush Those Stories
With only 4 hours left, if you haven't got your stories in by now, you had better rush. Every accepted short story marked before midnight is in the running for the final $500.00 draw.
GOOD LUCK
Posted: Sunday 29th February 2004, 7:59 PM
Excellent Short Stories
Yet another week for excellent short stories, with three entries fighting it out for the weekly prize. India, Mexico and Alaska were the standouts, with the submission on Mazatlan, Mexico being awarded the prize. Barbara P please contact as soon as possible with your details.
With 9 countries and over 140 stories Welcome to my Town has become an incredible destination. From very cute submissions from our younger entrants to some vividly delicious tours of towns from everyday people with a gift for writing, we now offer text to suit almost anyones taste.
Posted: Monday 23rd February 2004, 9:39 PM
More Countries Added
Welcome to my Town has several more countries submitted, with Kuwait, an entry from Mexico and one from India adding to the diversity we now have.
The variety of styles of entries continues to expand as well, however in some cases they have not been suitable for acceptance. Recent submissions have covered raps, poetry and works of fiction, some of which have been very good but are not what WTMT is all about and also in some cases have strained the boundaries of good taste.
All in all WTMT continues to grow and put a smile on my face with some very enjoyable entries.
Posted: Saturday 21st February 2004, 5:44 AM
Different Strokes
Well we couldn't have had two more different stories fighting out this weeks prize. We had San Francisco where difference is the norm up against the history rich town of Crete, Illinois.
Both writers take you on a wonderful tour of their respective towns sharing their rich offerings and personal experiences so different from one another they could be on different planets.
Cretes' story penned by a Methodist parishioner and San Francisco, described by a self confessed occasional mimic of drag queens, certainly gave us a look at the differing lifestyles on offer. In the end the theme of accepting difference gained the San Francisco entry the prize.
Welcome to my Town late Saturday achieved a milestone of 100 published entries. Yeay team, many thanks to the people that have contributed in every way to our continuing success.
The US stories page is approaching critical mass and the need to separate some of the entries into sub categories by state is getting close.
Posted: Monday 16th February 2004, 9:08 PM
Very Busy Week
To say that I have been flat out this week is a total understatement. I have had to bring several huge commercial projects forward and the strain on time has been huge.
Welcome to my Town has been marching on regardless and as of today is just short of 100 entries. There have been a few anomolies of late and I held over the submissions till I was able to review the logs. One entry has been disqualified as it shows every indication of being computer generated.
We also have had he pleasure of receiving our first entry from Africa. The Nairobi, Kenya entry adds a little additional flavour to the site.
Unless their is something big to let everyone know about, my next post will probably not be till I announce this weeks winner. Till then take care all.
Posted: Saturday 14th February 2004, 5:26 AM
Tough Decisions
Another tough week deciding the winner of the $100.00 weekly prize.
The initial entries were easily refined to 16 that had genuine chances of winning, then the going got tough. Those 16 were slowly wittled down to 5, then finally 3. All of the entries though good lacked the stand out quality that has thrown the previous winners. In the end the three of us selected different top picks and the final decision was made on second and third preferences.
In the end it was Lawton, Iowa in a blanket finish.
There was a lot of variety in the approaches of telling their town's stories, ranging from a letter, a bus trip style, geography lesson and others. Very creative on the whole.
Posted: Monday 9th February 2004, 8:49 PM
Finally a UK Entry
It was good to see an entry come from the UK, Middlesex London to be exact. Only Asia to come now to complete the regions I was expecting submissions from.
Otherwise, it has been reasonably quiet. While there is a slower period I might hold anything minor over till this weeks draw and catch up some more in other place.
Posted: Saturday 7th February 2004, 4:39 AM
Welcome to my Town Compliments
There have been several emails recently complimenting Welcome to my Town from people saying they love the site.
This pretty cool and makes it worth while, although I think the compliments may be more directed at the concept more so than the site itself. I know it isn't a pretty baby but it's mine and I love it even if it causes me rip my hair out at times, just like a real child.
In other news, I decided to cut and paste the received notices to todays entries and inadvertantly sent off additional info I had made to an entry that had a problem to two submitters. Might be two confused people today emailing back later. Need sleep.......Zzzzzzzzz
Posted: Thursday 5th February 2004, 4:23 AM
Slowly Regaining Control
Well I am slowly regaining control of the empire and returning to my usual organized chaos.
Ok the good things that were missed in the scramble were, we reached 50 entries, a little behind schedule but the quality has been superior to what I envisaged.
The 2nd weekly winner was awarded to the Vancouver entry which came down to the decision of the final judge. This was a hard fought win with either of four entries having the chance to win.
One other entry I will mention that gave this week a big shake was the Suttons Bay entry which was submitted by Patricia B. Patricia reffered to herself as a child which I am guessing by the quality of the entry may be 14 or 15. As it is she competed strongly against the adults and if she is any younger than that then she has a very bright future indeed.
Also we recieved our first ever European entry, that coming from Iasi, Romania.
So we now have stories from the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe, with submissions from the United Kingdom being the glaring ommission. England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales aren't worth sharing with the rest of the world? Surely not.
Posted: Tuesday 3rd February 2004, 10:20 PM
Update
Ok just to fill you all in on the lack of action on this page there was a run of storms, 5 in 7 days to be precise that caused disruption to the time I was on the net. Combine this with then having 36 hours with out power and I am waaaaay behind on everything.
The weekly winner is still undecided as I have only been able to get one other editor to review the entries, which has resulted in a deadlock with 1 of 4 entries now being the potential winner. I expect to have the winner decided in the next three hours.
One thing I noticed reviewing the entries was the very poor editing job I did on some of them. It was a very rushed process with me doing little more than running the spell checkers over the entries and general formatting. Some glaring examples, where the word should have been ever and not never, whole instead hole. I appologise for this and have a rework of these entries on a very long to do list.
I have become a little harder on accepting entries now as well. 50 word entries and pure fiction with no relation to the town are not being entertained. Again on my to do list is to drop these people mail advising them of non acceptance and the reason.
Ok that is about all I can think of off the top of my head, I will get the winner of this weeks prize as I soon as there is an outcome. Now some very pressing matters on the other side of cyber world screaming for my attention, byeee.
Posted: Monday 2nd February 2004, 7:03 PM
In Catch Up Mode
Sorry about the recent lack of posts. We had a storm come through and although it wasn't particularly severe here surrounding areas received heavy damage and the power went down for almost 36 hours. The longest loss of power in my memory.
So I am currently in catch up mode and will try and get something worthwhile up later today.
Posted: Sunday 1st February 2004, 8:05 AM
Authority to Reprint Stories additional
To save you the trouble of trying to track down the authority link here it is, reprint authority
Posted: Wednesday 28th January 2004, 6:32 PM
Authority to Reprint Stories
I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the great short stories that are being submitted to Welcome to my Town and make it possible for other sites to reprint individual short stories.
I tried to keep the rules as simple as possible yet make it very clear that abuse will not be tolerated. It's always a fine line with people either not bothering to read rules or simply ignoring them and ruining good things for everyone.
So if there is a story you really love and would like to reproduce it on your site, just follow the simple rules and make it easy for everyone.
Posted: Wednesday 28th January 2004, 6:31 PM
Canadian Entries
At last we have started getting a few Canadian entries to add a bit of diversity to Welcome to my Town.
Still waiting on the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Asia to start submitting a few stories and sharing their piece of heaven with the rest of the world.
Just backing up a day, I have to say I am very pleased with the depth that is starting to show up with the submissions. Having to review all of the weeks submissions really opened my eyes as to how strong WTMT has grown even with the small number of entries.
Posted: Tuesday 27th January 2004, 5:43 PM
And the winner is ....
Photo finish
Deciding the winner of our first ever weekly prize was not an easy choice by any means, with two wonderful entries going neck and neck.
On one hand we had Hubbard, a beautifully descriptive trip down memory lane, on the other, Washington DC, an honest warts and all commentary of the contrasts that make up the US capital.
I had hoped that the other two judges would come up with a clear winner allowing me an easy ride, however this was not be. Both swayed between these two entries before finally splitting the vote 1-1 and conceding there was nothing between them, just what I didn't want.
Hubbard was an early entry and I had read it several times and loved it, the DC entry was the very last entry of the week arriving 48 minutes before the cut off time, which had only given me enough time to browse quickly through it while editing. Time to sit down and carefully read, then reread both of these very different stories.
My opinion after reading these two over again swayed, but a descision had to be made and Washington DC was given the prize by a hairs breadth.
If you haven't read either of these entries do your self a favor and take a look, they are fine works.
Posted: Monday 26th January 2004, 9:08 AM
TO BE Included OR NOT TO BE Included
That was the the question, unfortunately the answer is not to be included.
Welcome to my Town just received its largest and most detailed submission to date. A huge critique of the Shakespearean play Hamlet. Somewhat wasted on an uncultured baffoon such as myself, and also unsuitable for inclusion in Welcome to my Town.
Aside from being off topic, it contains terms which are unacceptable for a website the likes of this one. For anyone familiar with the play you will be well aware of some of the terminolgy that could be used in referencing certain scenes and underlying themes. I will point out these terms have been used fairly and releveantly throughout the text but totally unsuitable for a site such as this.
One quirky feature the submission had was the use of 192 question marks throughout the text, mainly where the quotation marks should have been but also in others that left me dumbfounded. Perhaps a keyboard problem?
I have emailed the submitter and advise the entry was unsuitable and invited them to submit an entry on their town. I also advised that I revoked the TOS for his entry and that Welcome to my Town lays no claim to his submission. It was a detailed work and they do deserve the right to put it to use it in a more suitable forum.
Posted: Sunday 25th January 2004, 6:48 AM
Another small problem
When I had the submission script made for Welcome to my Town I specifically asked that the text area reset on click, this way when the mouse was placed on each square the description would disappear.
Well this has come back to bite me, after receiving an email explaining why an entry had a few spelling errors. It was explained that each time an spelling mistake was made and they clicked to correct it, the story would disappear. This lady tried six times god bless her and eventually decided to leave any error that was made so as to complete her mission.
Now I know I wouldn't have the patience to try several times to submit a story, before giving up in frustration.
I quickly removed the on click reset from that text box, but it now leaves the initial text there which looks kind of strange but will do short term. Hopefully this might explain the lower than expected number of people that make it to the submit page but don't actually enter. If there is an upswing in that area I will be very pleased.
Posted: Saturday 24th January 2004, 4:58 PM
Link Removed
Just went to check if welcome to my town had been added to a blog search engine that I had linked to and ran into a full page entry console. A simple matter for someone experienced in dealing with them, but somewhat more difficult to close if you are new to the web.
I then typed in the name of this site and hit search, another full page console pops :-< and like the first it is carrying google adwords. I wonder if they have read googles TOS for adwords. I am not going to report them but their link has been removed from this site.
Posted: Friday 23rd January 2004, 6:27 PM
Vented Frustrations part2
Well I had hoped to have this up and running by now but an almost 2year old son running a very high temperature has put paid to that and given me time to reconsider if I really want to give in to the dark side.
I had been considering replies I had recieved in chat when telling a number of people what this site was about. One of the standard replies for not wanting to sumbit was "but my town sucks, it's boring, nothing ever happens here" so I went and registed my-town-sucks.com which was going to be the black side of welcome to my town.
A free for all unedited place to vent your frustrations and tell the world why your town sucks.
I have since come back to my senses and have mothballed the domain, but have to admit it did put a wicked smile on my face when I was registering it. The darkside is strong Luke. :-)
Posted: Friday 23rd January 2004, 5:45 AM
More Short Stories
Another five stories have now been added to my town. The quality is an improvement and some reflect what I had invisioned when I first started building this site.
There have been a few interesting ones, a short story covering an outing in the town rather than covering the town itself was one that caught me somwhat by surprise, I have allowed it through.
I have been emailing those that have submitted stories and thanking them for their entries, something I don't believe I will be able to maintain in the long term.
One amusing thing occurred as a result of this,
I emailed the 18 word story person and explained it simply wasn't of sufficient length to be included and included some ideas to help, if they wanted to submit a longer story in accordance with the rules. They have since resubmitted a new story, of 24 words. What do you do? It has to be a child but I really can't add something so small.
Another email? Or do I just move on?
Posted: Friday 23rd January 2004, 5:31 AM
Clarification on my last post
I just reread my post and almost seems that I am disappointed to have children entering, this is certainly not the case.
In fact I look forward to many entries from younger people as a child's perspective on life is usually filled with wonderment and innocence that can put a smile on the face of even cynical old grumble bums such as myself :-)
Posted: Wednesday 21st January 2004, 5:28 PM
woohoo entries
You may notice the title is in small case.
Welcome to my Town has received its first entries, four in total. Of those one was abusive and has been deleted, two have been posted although they are very short and quite obviously written by younger children that I am guessing to be in the 9 to 10 year old age bracket. The last was 18 words in length and I simply could not add it.
We finally have our start, although I did question whether I should add the two stories that I did. The fact they appear to be children swayed me to the affirmative, and after all a starving man isn't going to refuse food simply because it is not pheasant under glass :-)
Heres hoping some high quality entries are just around the corner.
Posted: Wednesday 21st January 2004, 5:16 PM
Now the Good News
Amidst a Tangled Web, It's A Puppy's Life and The Candle Blog have all linked to us. Very cool guys and very much appreciated by me.
Eeeeek a spider! Googlebot is the first spider to appear, and boy was he hungry. Made the first appearance just after 7-30am yesterday and proceeded to run around every page of the site in a series of visits over the next 8 hours. What a good little fellow, he does his job so well.
What exactly does this mean? Well googlebot is a spider sent out by the google search engine to find web pages to add to their index. So if google thinks these pages are worth while it may start showing us in its search engine results pages so people can actually find us now.
Posted: Tuesday 20th January 2004, 8:21 PM
Vented Frustrations
I was sitting rethinking my current strategy on Welcome to my Town but it was all negative and that gets right away from reasons for even putting this lil sucker up.
But I did come up with something that vented my frustrations. You just have to wait a few days to find out what "it" was.
Posted: Monday 19th January 2004, 8:55 PM
Progressing at a Snails Pace
I can honestly say I have never had as much trouble getting a site going as this one.
My little promotions for the welcome to my town seem to be totally ineffective and I just can't work out why at present.
I put in almost 8 hours on this (till well after 2am) last night and still don't have even one submission. It seems very few people have any hometown spirit anymore, although apathy is probably the more likely culprit.
I was trying to avoid it but I may have to pull out the big guns, Google Adwords. Paying for adwords for people to come to a site without adds, offering almost a grand/month prizemoney seems insane but I am getting very close to that.
The way I have decided to approach this is definitely hobbling my efforts. Not allowing myself, family or friends to write seed stories, means that I am totally dependant on outside parties igniting the spark that hopefully will become a flame.
Perhaps I am expecting too much too soon.
Posted: Monday 19th January 2004, 6:27 PM
Error
Well several hours after promoting Welcome to my Town, I checked the admin area ready to add the first entries.
SHOCK! HORROR! there are none! How could this be.
A quick check of the submission area, ERROR!
But I had checked the the submissions with ten posts and everything was smooth. I had made some small asthetic changes, maybe that late night change I made had corrupted the script code.
A quick cigarette to calm the nerves and return and look at the error message again. numfile? Wait on I reloaded the number file after my tests to rezero it, oh no, fire up the ftp click chmod to see 644 aaaarrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh. Only works when set to 777.
The question that needs to be asked "can this site be a success despite my own attempts to sabotage it?".
Posted: Sunday 18th January 2004, 2:34 AM
Good links are hard to find
I thought it would be an easy job finding some good sites to exchange links with, bzzzzzzzz wrong.
Most of the blogs out there simply aren't suitable but I have found a few that I think people should like and they all seem to have a similar theme, photography. I might have to hang with a few more photographers if their blogs are anything to go by.
The majority of weblogs I initially looked at were what I call noise, they are about a lot nothing and I could easily duplicate them with a text generator. In fact the text generator would make a lot more sense than many that I read.
Others were ruled out quickly on the following grounds, language (swearing and non english), adult content, violence or they simply don't exist anymore. I need/want family friendly sites where mom dad or the kids can go and enjy what's on offer. If anyone has some suggestions feel free to drop me an email with your recommendations at admin@welcome-to-my-town.com
I finished up with a small collection of five possibles. One is a directory, and I have sent emails to the others asking if they would like to exchange links. They may not want to link to this site for whatever reason but I liked their sites, so unless they ask to be removed, I will be leaving their links up anyway.
This could take longer than I expected.
Posted: Saturday 17th January 2004, 8:58 AM
I committed the cardinal sin
I just deleted all of the old posts from this weblog, and don't have backups. This is the cardinal sin of webmastering. Luckily I had text copies of all but two of my posts, so if something seems like it missing it will be those from those two posts. If I can track them down I will repost them.
If this site was a bit older this wouldn't have created so much of a problem. I could have simply gone to one of the cacheing search engines or gone to the wayback machine and retrieved the data from there. The only real damage caused has been the loss of being able to follow the look of this blog as it changed and developed over its very short life to reflect the main site changes.
Cest' la vie (if I remember my few French lessons is an apt response)
In other news,
I am now going through the process of submitting both Welcome to my Town and the Welcome to my Town BLOG to the search engines. This may seem premature especially with the main site still not having any real content, but search engines can initially be slow moving when it comes to spidering pages (anywhere from a week to six months).
The directories can vary wildly as well so for now I will only be submitting this weblog and will follow up with the main site in about a week when hopefully it should be filling nicely with great stories about towns from a round the world.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 7:54 PM
Welcome to my Town is now LIVE
Alrighty folks, its up and running give me any feedback you have. Does it look ok, do the links work for you and most of all tell us about your town to get the ball rolling.
Now the fun really starts, dealing with the public. I started working on the net to avoid just that scenario, my god what have I done.
I can see the email exchanges now,
Your site doesn't work. I tried to put my story in sixty-five times and it didn't work. Fix your site.
Did you click the submit button?
Submit button? What submit button?.
Cries
Back to work, I have some submitting to attend to, links to chase up and with luck some entries to review. :)
Just think, you will be able to tell your grand children, "I remember when Welcome to my Town was just starting out". "I wonder whatever happened to that fruitcake" :)
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:39 PM
A Site is Born
Welcome to my Town is now complete. Well it has no stories yet but is capable of accepting them.
I am giving it the once over checking for broken links and making sure everything is showing and going where it should. A few hiccups but I did make some last minute changes cutting off empty directories and changing some of the text which gave the impression of what was rather than what will be. I have saved those pages for later use.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:38 PM
Tell it like it is
I have chosen to just tell people coming to the site, we are brand new, we have nothing yet but if you submit your town to us we will and that will get the ball rolling.
I'm kidding myself right? But I have a secret weapon, bribery! Submit your town to us and be in the running to win up to $500.00
I might keep this going for a few months to get some really good submissions flowing in, then drop the prizes and hope that enough people will visit to become self supporting or hope I can get a sponsor to pick up expenses.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:37 PM
Complications
The script is ready well ahead of time, and I can't make up my mind on how to present this site initially, so have stalled somewhat with building.
Usually when I make a website I have all of the content (this could be pictures, graphics, stories, articles and games) ready and waiting and build it into the site then run the links accordingly. I can't do that with this one because until I build it I have no submitted stories. One way around that would be to write a number of dummy stories about various towns but I have dismissed that as I would like this site to be totally genuine.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:37 PM
Wifey to the rescue
Ok the color scheme has taken on a suitable look after spending almost two hours with me chopping and changing things till they got to what I call acceptable. Not good but I don't mind it too much.
Time to track down some graphics to give the site some motion and added color. A nice tri color banner with bouncy text is what I have in mind, and again I know just where to get it.
Hmmm, my color matching with the background is way off and the logo clashes, another hump in the road. Invert the colors, lift the color from the logo and use it as the background color, for an improved overall look that I am now pretty happy with.
I decide to change the text heading of this page to the same logo and guess what I can't get the same colors. (Growls loudly and rips another clump of hair from my head).
Hooray some good news, my scriptbuddy can get it done in 2 days. This should be almost perfect.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:36 PM
Putting theory into practice
I quite like the layout I am starting to use but the color is... how shall I put this, just not right for this site. I want bright and breezy and I fall back to a black background. I have this thing for black backgrounds, other colors just go so easily with it that it's hard to break the habit. Try a few lighter colors and now I'm blind eeeeeeeeek, way too bright and certainly not breezy.
Ok time for a break away from building and regroup. I'm trying to calculate things so that they come together and fit in with other projects I am undertaking. I had best get onto my script man, I need him to build me a script so that people can submit their sites online.
Otoh, I have hit my first problem, scriptman is very busy and I'm looking at 5 to 10 days before he can get to it. It happens.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:36 PM
Building a Website
I always like to think out a layout initially, then start building, knowing there will be things that I have either forgotten, or that I will have to make changes because the initial idea doesn't look as good as imagined.
Color scheme comes next, and I want this to be a very light and bright site. Easy reading, easy to navigate and purely for pleasure unlike most of the commercial sites I build for myself and others.
Once completed its time to test and correct any mistakes, look for things that don't look right or should be easier to access and make the relevant changes.
Ok now its time to unleash this little monster on an unsuspecting world, swap a few links with like minded sites, submit to a couple of search engines and directories then sit back and wait for the world to rock up to my site.
Sigh! If only it was that easy. If you have looked at googles website recently they claim to be "Searching 3,307,998,701 web pages". Woohoo, this site will be one of over three BILLION webpages competing for the attention of the public. That means that if there are six billion people in the world(there isn't that many, yet) and every one of those had a computer and knew how to use it then I could expect to get two people to my site :( Don't you just hate statistics.
Always the optimist, or a gluten for punishment, whichever way you want to look at it I continue on my mission.
welcome-to-my-town.com now belongs to me and shall be know from this time on as the site.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:35 PM
A Little about Me
I've have been a webmaster for over 3 years now. For those that don't know a webmaster is someone who is a jack of all trades when it comes to building and operating a website. The webmaster handles everything from coming up with the ideas for a site, building the webpages, uploading the pages to a server, installing and in some cases writing(not me though) scripts, to handling enquiries from the public, etc etc etc. As I said a jack of all trades.
Anyway having been in the business for a few years at least I have almost everything I need to get my new little baby up and running. Server, ftp program, a knowledge of html, a friend that understands the squiggly lines that make a script work :) and where to find some other things that help to make a site look respectable.
Now here's hoping the building stage goes as planned. I'm off to go and buy a suitable domain name for this site.
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:35 PM
So it begins ...
Ever had one of those ideas that get into head in the middle of the night that you just can't let go of. One that keeps you awake till daylight just thinking of the possibilities?. Usually after a couple of hours sleep and in the bright light of day the idea doesn't sound right anymore with the pitfalls appearing deep and all the good things looking very difficult to achieve. Well this idea stuck and even under scrutiny of the hard and harsh daylight still seems like a good idea, and just what is the idea?
Build a website where people can post shortstories telling about their home towns or towns they know very well. People from around the world can come and read about areas they may not have even heard of, or places that they may be considering moving to or visiting, and read the first hand experiences of people who are residents or at the very least regular visitors.
The idea is there, now its time for the website. Things to do, people to see and a lot of planning and hard work ahead. So it begins.....
Posted: Friday 16th January 2004, 6:34 PM
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Recent Entries
Missed Stories Added
Back on Board
Latest Stories Added
Thanks for your Patience
WTMT Hits 200 Stories
Back on Deck
Monthly Winner Claims Prize
Final Notices
Unclaimed Short Story Prizes
Drum Roll .... the $500.00 Monthly Prize goes to
Lord of the Rings Wins Again?
Rush Those Stories
Excellent Short Stories
More Countries Added
Different Strokes
Very Busy Week
Tough Decisions
Finally a UK Entry
Welcome to my Town Compliments
Slowly Regaining Control
Update
In Catch Up Mode
Authority to Reprint Stories additional
Authority to Reprint Stories
Canadian Entries
And the winner is ....
TO BE Included OR NOT TO BE Included
Another small problem
Link Removed
Vented Frustrations part2
More Short Stories
Clarification on my last post
woohoo entries
Now the Good News
Vented Frustrations
Progressing at a Snails Pace
Error
Good links are hard to find
I committed the cardinal sin
Welcome to my Town is now LIVE
A Site is Born
Tell it like it is
Complications
Wifey to the rescue
Putting theory into practice
Building a Website
A Little about Me
So it begins ...
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