Tuesday 15 March 2011

Webmaster!

My experience and knowledge of computers dates from a day about 13 years ago when two men in brown coats delivered an unexpected large package to my office desk. I unpacked it and found - a computer! 
I hadn't ordered it or even asked for one - I was quite happy to use the shared machine in the corner for what little work I did that required a PC. 
The office's computer whizz-kid (every office has one) set it up for me and switched it on and, gradually, by trial and error - and sharing knowledge with the rest of the team - I started to use it.
And that's how its gone on:  The change from MS-DOS to Windows; the introduction of email; access to the internet all sort of "happened" without any formal training - an experience I imagine that was repeated in offices up and down the country that were still staffed by a generation who completed their formal education before the computers were part of the national curriculum.
So, when I went along to a meeting of our local rail user group I intended nothing other than to sit at the back and listen and learn. But, I'd overlooked the fact that it was the AGM and AGM's elect committees and there are never enough candidates. With my transport background I suppose it was inevitable I'd end up on the committee and at the first committee meeting, when disquiet was expressed about the quality of the organisation's website I realised that merely having a blog meant I knew far more about it than anyone else, so I've ended up volunteering to look after and improve the site.
The first thing I've done was to change the host. Rail for Herefordshire were paying a hugely inflated fee for a site that was far more sophisticated than they wanted or needed and not using it very well.  I found I could do everything they want using WordPress, which is free and for which the only cost is the purchase and mapping of the domain name and I've set the new site up accordingly.


So, if you've read this far you can at least assist me to boost the new site's hit rate by clicking this link!


Thank You!

2 comments:

Halfie said...

Happy to oblige, Jim. RFH duly clicked upon.

No Direction said...

I've Clicked, it looks good.