Shawn-----Thursday, February 12, 2004 5:43:53 PM
This is a lot of work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

First, you've got to determine what the website will feature. With us that's no easy task - we want to do everything.

Then you've got to design it. If you're like me it has to be just so and you'll make it just so, then discover a widget you got to install or a graphic that just a wee bit too bitmappy for your taste and just as you're about to finish the whole thing, you start over. Drives my partner nuts!

Or you get it all done one way and then discover a new tool that will do it better, faster, cleaner, but in order to use the new tool, you've got to change everything and start from scratch.

I think I've got the framework all set up. This part only took me 5 attempts to get it the way I wanted it. Of course each attempt had several versions to them. So this is version 5.3 of the Laffing Horse Farm website.

The framework is a big part of the task. But now it gets really tricky. Now we have to write or locate and import the copy. Folks, this is for a commercial website and we have to recognize that going into it. Slang? Probably not a good idea... Happy pics of the kids wading in the mud with their bodies plastered when they were 3? Maybe cute, but maybe not on this site. Old angst laden poems from a wasted youth or maybe sketches from the overactive imagination of a 16-year-old boy? Nope not here... Deep discussions on philosophy and religion? This ain't the place...

Not that we can't be us here... That IS an important consideration. How to walk that thin line between being plastic and false and being professional.

And so we add a journal to the website so we can write what we want (within reason) and keep everyone updated...