This blog will serve purpose to monitor and provide updates as it relates to the development of GEOtechref, the absolute best reference location on the web for geotechnical engineers. It will also serve as the official support forum.
12/11/2008
Hello world!
I’ve kept GEOtechref on the back-burner for a long time, but I think I’m ready to start developing again. That means more articles, more references, more links, more everything. This blog will track the development progress of the site, and will also serve as the official support forum. Check back here for updates and any new releases.
12/11/2008
Developers Needed
I’m looking for a few good men or women. I need developers with PHP experience. Let me know of any interest in the comments. And remember, this is a dot-org.
12/11/2008
MediaWiki v1.13.2
I’ve upgraded and installed the latest version of MediaWiki — 1.13.2. That means there will undoubtedly be some down-time as I run a few necessary scripts from the shell. The down-time will only affect the editing process and not reading or downloading files or any site navigation.
Let me know in the comments if you are having any particular issues.
12/12/2008
Cavendish
I’ve uploaded the Cavendish skin and installed it as the default. Cavendish is a streamlined skin, and should provide for the best user experience, both for the casual and repeat visitor. If you have an account, you can change your personal skin under My Preferences. Let me know if you have any thoughts — or constructive criticism — on the new (and default) skin in the comments.
12/12/2008
Beta
With the update of MediaWiki and the application of the Cavendish skin (which was on my to-do list for a long while), I’m moving GEOtechref from Alpha status to Beta.
The goals for the Beta version are:
- expand the library twenty-fold;
- simplify the end-user experience and make it more efficient; and
- reduce potential down-time on the backend.
As of right now, my time-table for this Beta version is to last through 2010. It will remain as a fully-accessible website throughout that time, but I do not have plans to rush the development at a frantic and an ultimately unsustainable pace.
Be sure to stay tuned for more updates along the way — including successes, hiccups and failures — with this blog.
For posterity, here is a screen-shot from Alpha, which lasted nearly 18 months…
12/17/2008
Categories
I started a massive re-organization of the site today using the Category tool within MediaWiki. This will help users find the content they are looking for without users doing a search (although a search is the most effective method). This is the growing list of categories.
The navigation panel on the left-hand side now includes an Index. I am working on which of the principal categories should be included in this list. Obviously I will need to settle on only a few at some point. A link to all categories (“Entire Index”) is at the bottom and will probably remain.
Some categories will also include sub-categories (Textbooks, for example). I do not want to have the categories and subcategories become too deep and nested (and cumbersome), however, which may result in the categories becoming counter-productive, both for creating and editing pages and reading and navigating the site.
To categorize an article, add this code to the end of the page…
[[Category:NAME|SORT]]
12/18/2008
Markup Validation
One thing that I strive to keep-up is the site’s validation. It may not be the most important aspect to the user, but on the back-end, it may mean the difference of items not rendering properly on certain pages in certain browsers. I want GEOtechref to be compatible with all browsers, and markup validation is the first step.
I checked the site’s main page with the W3C’s markup validation service and GEOtechref was found to be XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
As a parting gift, W3C offers a banner…
It’s the thought that counts.
02/26/2009
New Partition
I have moved both the wiki and this blog to a new partition on the server. The blog move — obviously — was without incident. The wiki — on the other hand — not so much. I will try to have this resolved as soon as possible. In the mean time, please refer to you hard-copy library for guidance.
The reason for the move was for more personal than practical reasons. The behavior of the site will not change (once everything is sorted out, that is).
UPDATE: The wiki is back up. Down-time lasted roughly one hour.
08/06/2009
MediaWiki v1.15.1
Late yesterday afternoon, I upgraded and installed the latest version of MediaWiki — 1.15.1. The downtime was minimal, in fact, non-existent, but that doesn’t mean that something will not arise (something always does). Let me know in the comments if you are having any particular issues.
