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Your web design team
(I am the one on the left by the way). My son Ryan who has just turned three can navigate YouTube already ! As you can see, he is into everything! |
After what has seemed an age, I have the website at a stage that permits publication. To rebuild a website from the ground up has been a mammoth undertaking with what amounts more-or-less to a complete rewrite of the code. The new site embraces current server technology and the wonderful scripting power of PHP. In a nutshell, this allows much quicker updating of the website and allows greater flexibility for the council team, especially the membership secretary.
In the past, the pages were static HTML; each occupied a space on the website and to move it, archive it for example required a search for every page that linked to it and a change thereto. The new stories will inhabit a database where you can search for articles or list the entire archive of past news stories. This dynamic code builds the homepage from a database sorted by date and the headline story can be selected just by checking a form checkbox. Indeed the majority of the pages created you will never see as they reside in an administration area to insert, edit or delete records.
The OTA Forum is, I hope, going to become one of the most useful links on the website. This wonderful facility allows true communication for orthodontic technicians all over the world. To exchange ideas and tips, request and offer help and for general day to day discussion. You will need to register first which is a quick and painless process and within minutes you can be online and contributing.
Remember, if it’s blue, you can click it. If you take a look at this page, anything that can be linked to is shown in blue. I have incorporated ‘Google Search’ into the website. The search box is available on every page. As the OTA is non-profit, we do not have to display advertisements on the search results page.
The new members area will require a login. This is in the form of a username and password – the password will be printed on your new OTA members card which will arrive shortly. Your username will be your surname with a leading capital followed immediately by your OTA member number (if your name is bloggs and your member number is 777 then your login user name would be 'Bloggs777'. Most news stories will sit in the public domain; however, stories that are of a sensitive (.i.e members only) variety will require you to login.
The old website access logs show that the vacancies page was one of those most visited. The rebuild has been given a facelift and lists all vacancies with the ones that will expire soonest at the top. A little script will tell you how many days there are left to apply. The previous incarnation of the website also featured conference news quite frequently. In answer to this, I have introduced a dedicated ‘Conference’ button which will link to the latest information.
Anyone who is a member may submit a new event onto the ‘forthcoming events’ section. Just fill in the form and submit it. As with anything new, there may be some teething troubles to begin with so please let me know of any broken links or things that don’t work at webdesign@orthota.co.uk
On that note, could I also remind members that this is your association and you are welcome to contribute articles for consideration. Please forward any articles to John Brown, the OTA publicity officer at publicity@orthota.co.uk
Many thanks to the OTA Council for their valuable input during the rebuild.
Peter Gough
OTA Website Author
July 2007
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