An email arrived confirming that my resource has been re-harvested and with the updated link to my Gallery showing 340 taxa (species) instead of the previous 220. It was in reply to my email of 14 October drawing attention to the fact that the list we supplied on 30 September contained some 350 items. The discrepancy is the result of replacing two different names which EOL regards as synonyms, with a valid name occupying a single page.
The updated XML files we sent before my overseas trip were all successfully harvested and are on my EOL gallery, BUT they replaced the existing material. I should have known better than not to include the existing files with the new ones, especially after Andrew asked me if he had sent everything, meaning everything. Anyway, today we have sent the files to EOL and I await news of their successful harvesting.
For some weird reason when we added over 100 new XMLs to EOL, all but a few of the original XMLs vanished from my EOL gallery as if they had never been there at all, even though Andrew sought to make them compatible with WordPress. All the new XMLs were successfully uploaded. After waiting a couple of weeks for Andrew to work on my corrections to the original XMLs, I decided to take matters into my own hands and re-do the lot from scratch. I then added over 100 new data files, which had been accumulating since the first new batch. All this took several days of long and concentrated effort. Andrew came to my place this morning and transferred all the XMLs from my downloads to his USB. He has some code checking to do before arranging for the XMLs to be harvested by EOL. As noted in my 8 May post, we’ll see. Check EXPANDED PRESENCE ON EOL 30 March 2014.
Today I sent out a newsletter informing subscribers of 9 new videos, which brings the total on vimeo to 223, with more in the pipeline. A recent video of a female Wood Duck nestling 10 ducklings for the night drew more comments from vimeo members than any other video of mine. My presence on vimeo is resulting in frequent emails, including one from a production house in West Australia offering credit for footage, but no payment.
One of the main reasons for expanding the website and enabling me to upload content was to boost the species data I supply to the EOL. Prior to the relaunch I entered 120 or so new species on the admin site. Andrew Nagy had to make them fit for purpose and head off a potential problem by reconciling the original XML files with the new ones. We duly sent the combined list to EOL who in return provided the link to my EOL gallery pages. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that most of the original files were missing. EOL pointed out an error which I carefully checked out and found that it only referred to two files. I discovered other errors on our part, but most of the files seemed to be correct. I selected 12 of them and asked EOL to tell me if the news concerning them was good or bad. There was also a problem regarding missing videos. This was due to a mistake I made, which I have since corrected. An email from EOL arrived today confirming that the 12 files were OK and that the videos should be harvested within 2-3 days. We’ll… Read Complete Text
An email arrived from EOL with the link to my species data contributions in the form of video frames and videos. On the 24th Andrew sent corrections to a few of the now nearly 240 XML species files to EOL. Thanks to the relaunched website this is more than double the number we originally submitted.
Today I emailed my second Newsletter to 10 subscribers 3 days after emailing my first to 7 subscribers. Today’s email concerned the 3 latest videos. Given that we have only uploaded 37 of the 100+ short, grant aided videos and the completion date is December 15, I expect to be informing subscribers of many videos being uploaded at a time in the next little while. The first Newsletter concerned a new Gallery page.
Today the new look website went live after a year of hard work, twists and turns, aggravation, trauma, moments of triumph and hundreds of emails between me and the site developers. This process has resulted in a site which is a testament to their skill and ingenuity in retaining the beautiful design and structure of the original as much as possible while introducing major new elements. These emphasize the site’s main function which is to be informative and educational. Just as vital, are the features which allow me to take on the role of webmaster.
My website’s first entry is dated 16 December 2005. The site architect was Clive Tempest and its designer and webmaster Christina Dreesen. From its first appearance, the site was captured for Australia’s national web archive and has been recaptured every two years. The structure and scope of the site remained unchanged until its new incarnation was completed on 22 August 20013, thanks to the IT skills of Ben Sinclair and Andrew Nagy.
New are:
- SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE, find out when new videos and Gallery Pages are added to the site.
- ALBUM PAGES, devoted to a single subject such as Moths, Fungi, Birds
- BLOG CATEGORIES, to make the blog more reader-friendly.
- VIDEOS, every video on my Vimeo pages appears on the site’s Videos page.
- TEN additional GALLERY PAGES.
Equally important to the visible changes are the features which enable me to be the webmaster and generate all content (other than the videos, which will continue to be uploaded by Steve Guttormsen), plus XML data files for the Encyclopaedia of Life (EOL).
After 3 turbulent months, Henry Hardy proved incapable of completing the website. Today I accepted Andrew Nagy’s quote to repair the damage Henry had done to Ben Sinclair’s good work and complete the further changes required. Andrew, whom I have known for some time, lives and works on the mountain. He looks after my computer. Unfortunately I was only made aware of his web design work at the time I was commiting to Henry.