Weather Related

Well, the ice storm I talked about in the last post did not affect our immediate area too badly. We just had a little accumulation on the trees and none on the roads. To our west and throughout much of Oklahoma it was a lot worse. Hundreds of thousands lost power and some are still without power.

Last weekend, we were ready for a major snowstorm that meteorologists were predicting could dump up to 10 inches of snow. Temperatures remained higher than expected and we mostly got rain. We did get a couple of inches of snow Saturday night, but it was gone by Sunday afternoon.

Another Ice Storm

We are bracing for another ice storm today and tomorrow. So far, it's only been rain here, but not too many miles to our north and to our west, ice has already fallen and caused power outages, heavy tree limbs and icy patches on roads. The news reported that the entire town of Lamar, Missouri is dark, without power.

We are all hoping this storm won't be of the same magnitude as the January ice storms that broke so many power lines and utility poles causing widespread outages for weeks at a time. Still, the memory is fresh enough that precaution prevails. Grocery stores have been packed with people stocking up several days' supply of food, generators are flying of the shelves, as are batteries, water, flashlights and propane heaters. For many in the area, it was difficult enough last time. Can't blame them for wanting to be prepared this time around.

As I write this, it's 27 degrees. Certainly if precipitation does fall tonight, ice or snow would be the result. Radar shows a band of showers extending all the way back to Texas and growing. Could be a long night.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Besides eating until I nearly burst, I went fishing over the the Thanksgiving holiday. The White River - my favorite spot on the planet. It was still deer season in Arkansas, and there was only one camp at the landing - a deer hunting party. The rest of the river was mine.

It was cold, maybe 40 degrees, and a bit windy but the fish were biting well. The river was very low and the water clear as gin. I caught a limit in less than forty minutes and played catch and release after that.

The rest of the weekend was business. I worked on a website design for my client in the UK and then there was the business of putting up Christmas lights, which I accomplished between rain showers.

The Woods

I was out in the woods over the weekend. Deer season. Arrived before first light. I climbed into my tree, had a cup of coffee and stared up at the stars, listened to coyotes howl about half a mile away and deer move cautiously on dry leaves.

As the stars melted into morning, Venus was the last to give up her light. And soon, the blackness turned to gray then to full color as the sun rose higher in the sky.

Two does, startled by something I could not see, passed directly in front of my stand. Running, ducking under branches, escaping. I let them pass. A fawn was following, confused, and got separated from the two. Hopefully, they found each other again.

That was the end of my deer sightings in the woods that day. The weather was too warm, too windy for deer to move well. But it didn't matter. For seven hours, maybe eight, I was at one with the woods, with nature, with the great outdoors, and nothing else mattered. The real meaning of deer season.

Panel Discussion at MSU

Last month, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion sponsored by Missouri State University's Journalism Department. The panel met yesterday and discussed ethics in citizen journalism. It was a great experience and I felt privileged to be a part of the group which included Brian Lewis, a columnist for the News-Leader, and Doug McGill of the McGill Report and formerly of Bloomberg and the New York Times organizations.

What most thrilled me was how readily the professional journalists on the panel including the moderator, Dr. Andy Cline, embraced the citizen journalist movement. On the surface it seems journalism practiced by untrained people could be threatening to career professionals, but these folks saw it very differently. Rather than be concerned with how the trend affects individual journalists, they viewed citizen journalism as an enhancement to the process of reporting the news. They explained that there are many experts out there who need to be sharing their expertise with others and that this new way of reporting would only make the flow of information faster, better and with more detail than could be done before.

It was the process and the result of news reporting that most impressed this group. They see journalism as an extension of democracy and citizen journalism as a better means of making democracy work. Very refreshing to see professionals advance their cause instead of defending their territory.

freshare Site Version 3.0

I had the best of intentions. Really, I did. My plan was to design a complete makeover for freshare.net. And I did that part. I was lax in pursuing the other part of my plan. I wanted to blog my design process and talk about some of the pitfalls encountered and successes achieved along the way. But I got too busy designing and constructing with a fast approaching deadline. There was little time to write.

So here is the condensed version of how it all went:

I needed a more navigable site with a front page that would give visitors a sampling from each major category we had to offer. I wanted to move away from a detailed menu that told what was available and instead display the samples that would show visitors what stories were inside. And it needed to be clean, no ads on the front page.

My html and css skills are improving, but I am still pretty slow at the process. Since I have to run the publishing business and write content for freshare, most of my site building needed to be done before or after work each weekday, or on the weekends - time I usually spend writing stories for my blogs and in my journal.

The content management software I used for the upgrade was the same one I started with: Expression Engine. It is powerful, top-notch, php-based software that accomplishes everything I need it to and has more features I have yet to use. It is a low cost alternative with one drawback: there is no direct customer support, which is OK if you don't mind investing your own time into figuring out how to use EE to build your site around.

If you enjoy programming and coding, the trade off is well worth the effort. Besides, there is unlimited, 24/7 access to the Expression Engine Forums where hundreds of helpful people can guide you through the rough spots.

All in all, it is the way to go. I paid under $400 for my license,and I get to upgrade every time a new version comes out for a small fee of $19 a year. Compare that to other options that cost in the five-figure range and I think I did the right thing.

The results were great and I was able to accomplish all the goals I had for the site upgrade. We add the content, but how and where it is displayed is dynamically generated by the Expression Engine cms.

Although the most difficult part of the re-design is behind me, we will be adding new features soon, like a freshare store, podcasts and video. All supported very well by the cms.

Take a look at the (almost) final results at: freshare.net.

Debit Cards and Gasoline

The price of a gallon of gasoline is getting way out of hand. Even the filling stations and convenience stores think so. If you pay by debit card, beware. A store could, legally, put a hold on your checking account until such time as the charge you made against it for gasoline goes through. And, sometimes, that could take several days.

In the meantime, you may not be able to get cash from an ATM and checks you write could bounce. And it's all legal. Banks, credit card companies and gas stations say they need the protection to make sure everyone pays for their fuel. But guess who's liable when checks bounce their way back to your bank? That's right - you.

Stores typically put a hold on amounts ranging from $50 - $150 for gasoline purchases, so if you have that or less in your checking account you could experience some problems. Some stations automatically stop their pumps at a certain dollar level and control the issue that way.

Since nothing has to be posted to warn consumers, just be cautious when using your debit card for gasoline purchases.

Website Update

Well, our stats continue to climb in terms of the number of visitors and the number of page views. The "viral marketing" components - email articles, print stories, tell-a-friend - all are picking up steam, so that should result in ever higher numbers of visitors and page views.

The MySpace page also seems to be sending traffic to freshare, although it's difficult to measure exactly how much.

We are at a point where it is possible to approach potential advertisers in the area.

Spike in Visitors

The publicity package actually did hit on June 5. Since then, we have been seeing about a thousand page views per day as word gets out about the site. Pleased to note, too, that people are going deeper into the site than just viewing the front page. They are also reading articles, emailing them and printing them off.

We completed work on our MySpace this past week as well. Already boasting nine friends. Kristen Dudley put the site together for us and did a great job. Check it out right here: freshare's MySpace. I have to admit, I was very skeptical about having a MySpace spot. Sydnee Crain, our editor, finally convinced me that we needed that presence to help draw attention to freshare. I think she's right. We are also exploring a Facebook site and Squidoo lenses to round out our networking presence.

Traffic Trends

We are beginning to see a bump upward in traffic to the freshare site. Google ad revenue is showing upward trends, too. The publicity package has yet to be completed, so we may be seeing traffic from new links we requested from a variety of other websites.

We also launched a unique search engine powered by Google technology that only searches the top quality blogs in the Ozarks. It's a great way to get word out to the world that good writing and good photography blogs exist in Missouri and Arkansas. We have a search bar right there at the top of our home page.

This week, we hope to have the publicity plan executed and would like to see measurable results in terms of additional page views.

Things Are Looking Up Again

Finally got to speak with our linking strategist about plans for the freshare site. I told him that the linking strategy was going slowly - a lot of tedious work with very few solid results. I wanted to move on to the publicity part of the plan.

We discussed that strategy and what was needed. Then Eric made the best suggestion yet. One that made the wait worthwhile and the consulting fees money well spent. He suggested we put a very specific search engine on our site. One that only features the best bloggers and citizen journalists in our region. Such a search engine would greatly simplify things for visitors who only want information from local bloggers and it would help gel our relationship with those bloggers. We put the engine in the very next day.

This weekend, I'll work on the site announcement for Eric to send out to his contacts. After that, I'm hoping we'll see a readership begin to emerge.

Another Tough Week

Our expert in linking and publicity strategy has pretty much ignored my emails requesting the final conversation and the publicity package I've already paid for. Today I sent out an email reminding him I already paid him (two months ago) and expect an immediate reply. I got one. We are slated to finish up tomorrow. We'll see.

I've also been looking into affiliate programs to see if I can find some webmasters who are interested in selling ads on our employment and classifieds sites. I tried HydraMedia and, after talking to a rep, the program sounded solid. All that was left was for me to sign a credit / financial agreement and an insertion order.

Good thing I read through them first. Hydra wants to check credit anytime (presumably even if we decide to dissolve our business relationship) and they want to use only their figures in determining affiliate payment with no room for discussion if we see an error.

I don't mind a credit check, but unlimited ones? Accessing credit reports can have a negative impact on credit scores. Would you give a stranger that kind of freedom? Probably not. Neither would I.

Using Hydra's numbers for calculating affiliate payment does make sense. But give up my right to challenge those numbers? Never.

I presented these concerns to my rep. So far, she has not replied.

Links

We've spent the last week and a half or so emailing hundreds of web site administrators requesting they link to freshare. While we were extremely busy, productive emails have been hard to come by. We picked up about half a dozen or so links, some unfulfilled promises of links and a lot of unanswered emails.

It's not like we spammed or shotgunned our efforts. We hired an individual who is known in the industry as a links expert. The web administrators we chose were well thought out and were already linking to some of our competitors.

It's tough to keep focused on the task when there is so little success to celebrate. This week, we are going to try to fire up the publicity portion of our campaign. We think that generating a buzz will not only help promote the site, but we will also see an increase in the number of inbound links we receive.

Writing Code

For me, writing the code behind the website was a slow, sometimes painstaking process. I knew a bit of HTML, but precious little about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and Expression Engine, or EE (the software I chose to power our content management system).

The HTML part was not too bad. Fairly straightforward and not to cumbersome to work with. Mostly, I used HTML to divide up the page, create links, make lists and fairly mundane things.

The real workhorses behind the site are the CSS, which I'll talk about tomorrow, and EE. They perform all the real work.

I read anything I could find, searched the Internet and hung out at forums trying to pick up whatever I could about working with EE. Luckily, someone I hired to put together that piece of the site had laid out enough code that I could follow the logic and improve on it. The gentleman I hired abandoned the project without warning or explanation about halfway through, so I was forced to pick up the pieces from there. Looking back now, he did me a favor because it forced me to learn the program.

Just so you know, Expression Engine is powerful yet inexpensive content management software. The trade off is, the only tech support you get is via their forums, wikis, knowledge base and documentation. But, let me tell you, those folks are fantastic to work with. I posed a lot of questions on the forums and got the help I needed quickly. Day or night. If you are considering content management software, I would highly recommend Expression Engine.

Back to Blogging

Well, it's been quite some time since I last blogged here. But now that the website makeover is complete, I have a little more time to write English instead of xhtml and CSS code. Over the next several days I'll be recounting the process we've gone through in our website transformation.

For example, while I was away from the blog I revised the "YourPanorama" web site twice. The last revision was a complete makeover. Even the name has been changed - to freshare. We pronounce it "fresh air" but you could also say "free share" as some people do because that's accurate, too. It's a citizen journalism site where visitors can share news, opinions and photos in a free exchange of information.

Freshare just seemed more like us. YourPanorama was fine but it was too long and not as descriptive of our project. Luckily, we had not branded YourPanorama to any great extent so we were early enough on in the process to make the switch.

Tomorrow, I'll talk a bit about the code behind the site and some of the resources that I found helpful.

Another Winter Storm

Well, we're bracing for another major ice storm. This one has the potential to be worse than the storm we experienced a few weeks ago. Already, over half an inch of ice has fallen. The trees are coated and I can hear limbs breaking outside. The precipitation is actually coming down as rain, but it is freezing on contact. Roads are clear, but even that is expected to deteriorate as the night goes on.

I put wood on the deck in the event power is lost and we have to resort to heating with the fireplace. The ground was soft and wet which made it tough to push the wheelbarrow, and the icy rain soaked my jacket and shirt. Plus, the gutter was overflowing from a leaf jam so I had to pull out the ladder and clean that mess. Very difficult to find a place where the ladder did not sink in and when I did get up to the gutter, my hands froze almost instantly from trying to clear the jams. All is well now, though.

Tomorrow and Sunday are threatening to be even worse than today for ice accumulation along with snow accumulations on Sunday. Could be an interesting weekend. I was planning to work on the web site design improvements, and will if the power holds out.

Site Changes Coming

It's time to take the YourPanorama site and give it a major makeover. It has served its purpose well for a couple of months, but the time has come to pretty it up and add some new features while we're at it. In fact, we're even going to change the name of the site to give it a jazzier sound and shorten the number of syllables it takes to accomplish that.

Most of the site re-design work will occur over the weekend, but if you would like to check the progress, just go to: www.yourpanorama.com/newsite/index to see how we're doing. In fact, I would really appreciate any input, comments or advice you would like to post here at Abbozzare about the YourPanorama update.

Designing the Future

We took some time last week, in between the holidays, to lay out plans for YourPanorama. Up until now it seems we were making decisions daily as to what sounded like the right thing to do, which direction to pursue and which means appeared the best way to achieve our goals. The result was that it felt more like we were floundering than setting sail in a prescribed path.

I should have learned a long time ago that a vision and a written plan to realize that vision works best. Did that all the time in my previous life as a manufacturing manager. No reason I can't apply the same technique to this new venture.

Our plans fell into three categories: 1) Improve financial conditions: which includes reducing costs where it makes sense to do so as well as finding and implementing new revenue streams. 2) Increase the number of contributors and visitors to the site: two different, but related activities. Thus far, a small handful of contributors supply all the content to the site. Our plans are to expand this number so that the site is truly participatory. 3) Improve the overall look and feel of the site. By design, we started with a simple layout and a few things we thought were necessary to include. We knew that we would learn and discover what else needed inclusion, what need to go and what design features we wanted to apply. YourPanorama will be constantly changing, so this is an on-going process.

Beginning tomorrow, we will be putting these plans into action and I can't wait. It would be wonderful to see results immediately, but I think we are more likely to see things evolve a little bit every day, then take off rapidly at some future point. We'll see and we'll keep you posted.