Brent Heilman
Premium Member
Just shows how small the world really is. I will have to get up to Chickasha sometime for a visit.
My Freemasonry | Freemason Information and Discussion Forum
Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Bringing my Lodge into the 21st Century
- Thread starter Brent Heilman
- Start date
Just shows how small the world really is. I will have to get up to Chickasha sometime for a visit.
Brent Heilman
Premium Member
I have used 2 different things. The first I used was Google Sites. It makes it easy to do and you can use one of their templates to go off of. The 2nd I used and I like the best is Dreamweaver. It will give you a more professional look and you have more control over what goes where. Right now I am trying to figure out how to change to background color. It is all white right now and I would prefer to have something a little darker.
Brent Heilman
Premium Member
Thanks for the info. I will shoot an email to him and get his take on things.
Michaelstedman81
Premium Member
I have used Dreamweaver before and really liked it. I also used a couple versions of Microsoft's FrontPage. I was looking at both recently cause I know that we really need to work on our site coming really soon. Jeez, I never realized how expensive Dreamweaver was cause I always had a copy from a friend that was free. And, it looks like FrontPage doesn't really exist anymore and Microsoft has rolled it into some other program. Again, really expensive...lol I really don't know if the lodge is going to want to part with that much money or not. Don't know how much it costs for web design by a company, but int he long run you think it is cheaper to have the lodge buy a program like one of those two or pay someone to create and update the site all the time?
Brent Heilman
Premium Member
Having someone create a page and administer it will cost some $$$. There are place like Google through Google Sites that allow you to create a page for free. Then when you secure a domain name you can add that info to your Google site and you are up on online under whatever domain name you pick. If you don't pay for a domain name then you are still on the internet with a web address of sites.google.com/whatever. If you don't want your site to have an address such as that you will have to pay for the domain. Weebly, 1 & 1 my site, and a few others are free web page design sites that give you the option to purchase a domain name through them to remove their branding from your site also. I will PM you something to look at.
Michael Hatley
Premium Member
Keep us posted on what works out for you. I used to be a programmer (C, Perl, PHP, HTML, SQL, blah blah), but I jumped around IT so much that I've always been a duct tape hacker at best. I've been stuck with my HOA's website for almost a decade because I'm the only one who can code by hand, plus like I say I hack stuff together so its about the worst stuff I can imagine for someone who tries to pick up a book and learn it. I think its pretty normal in volunteer groups to wind up like that, a byzantine website that you are dependent on that one guy to get stuff done, and if he goes afk a week or two right when you need something changed, oh crap.
I'm verrry wary of getting stuck in the same situation with our lodge website, so I'm interested what platform you guys can not just use, but get help from other brethren on content. The idea I have is to be able to have an actual committee, where folks can do news updates, update the calendar, etc. I used dreamweaver for about a day a few years back, but like all wysiwygs, I went back to a simple text editor pretty quick. Just used to it.
I'm verrry wary of getting stuck in the same situation with our lodge website, so I'm interested what platform you guys can not just use, but get help from other brethren on content. The idea I have is to be able to have an actual committee, where folks can do news updates, update the calendar, etc. I used dreamweaver for about a day a few years back, but like all wysiwygs, I went back to a simple text editor pretty quick. Just used to it.
Michaelstedman81
Premium Member
Years ago I taught myself how to do HTML and got into JavaScript, but that was pretty much it. When I first jumped onto Dreamweaver and FrontPage, I didn't like it too much cause I would prefer just to hand type it all in. But after a bit of using FrontPage and learning the shortcuts of things, I would go more with that. Then I started getting a bit into DHTML, SHTML, XHTML and all that other stuff, but just barely skimmed the surface. Life finally got busy enough for me to not stick with any of that stuff.
I gotta say, this Google Sites is really going to take me a minute or two to sit down and look at stuff. I tried one of the templates to just get a "feel" for things, and having a hard time using the "editor" on there. Gonna have to poke around and see. Lol thankfully I just started up a "testpage" under my name instead of for the lodge haha
I gotta say, this Google Sites is really going to take me a minute or two to sit down and look at stuff. I tried one of the templates to just get a "feel" for things, and having a hard time using the "editor" on there. Gonna have to poke around and see. Lol thankfully I just started up a "testpage" under my name instead of for the lodge haha
Brent Heilman
Premium Member
I have dabbled with the programming side of the IT house and it just wasn't for me. I stick with the network side as much as I can. I think you are right it needs to be a committee thing. One person sometimes slacks but if there is a committee to share the load it will stay up to date much better. We have a few computer savvy individuals so I don't think it would be much problem for them if we use one the place like Google Sites or even Dreamweaver with a little instruction. I will keep posted on what works out or if I get shot down on this stuff. At this point either one is just as likely as the other.