Nothing is permanent, but change.
– Heraclitus (circa 500 B.C.)
You may notice a few subtle changes in the Computor
Companion Web site this time around. It looks a little different because the software that runs the site
behind the scenes is different. In conjunction with the new September/October
2001 issue, we’ve also moved the site to the new LEI Publication Manager.
Basically, we got so many compliments about the
Computor Companion site that we decided to develop the back-end software that drives it into a product
that other people can use too. So last month, after countless hours of
redevelopment, we released the LEI Publication Manager.
Some of you may remember my amazement at how easy it was to put articles
on line when I first got to use the original Computor
Companion site software. The LEI Publication Manager works much the same way. It has a browser-based
interface that lets publishers put articles online easily just by cutting and pasting text.
You don’t need to know anything about HTML or Web design to use it.
So with the LEI Publication Manager, people don’t have to open an
HTML tool or run to a Web consultant every time they want to change or add to
their publication’s Web site. Anyone who has a Web browser can create or update
a powerful database-driven Web site just like this one. The software includes
color schemes, which give you control over the site’s appearance. And because the
software uses templates, you can further customize a site by changing the layout or
including additional features such as news feeds and ad rotators like we have here.
In general, the new, improved Computor
Companion site looks the same as it used to, but the HTML code that makes up the pages is actually quite a bit
simpler. This change should make certain printing problems Netscape users
were having just go away.
One of the great challenges of designing for the Web is that you don’t
know what software and hardware someone is using when they visit your site. With
a print brochure, what you see on your screen is likely to be more or less
what you’re going to see when you print it out. Unfortunately, that’s not true with
the Web. Unless you happen to have a copy of every version of every browser
ever made, you are just guessing that your site will look like you intended. So, we’re
always trying to work on this site to make it better for you, the visitor.
But we probably won’t find every little problem. So if you find anything
that looks odd or isn’t working right, please send send me an e-mail
at sdaffron AT logicalexpressions.com so we can fix it.