Sunday 16 May 2010

I shouldn't be here

I really shouldn't. I should be somewhere else. I can't actually remember exactly where I should be, but I know its not here. It is today that the District (that's the Lions District) is holding its Spring Forum somewhere - I forget just where - and I am supposed to be there. It's not that I have ever indicated I would be there, it's just that as an incoming District Officer (hey - note the capital initials!) I am expected to attend. I have done so on several occasions in the past and have been at sessions for incoming presidents, incoming treasurers and others and I have taken sessions on setting up a club web site. But this year they are having to do without me.

My conscience, though, is not troubling me in the least. I have a lot to do here at home and it has a higher priority than taking in sessions in which I have little interest just to pass the time until, at about 4.00 this afternoon, I can be introduced to the assembled multitude as one of the incoming members of cabinet.

Whether or not writing my blog should be considered a higher priority than attending Spring Forum is, possibly, a moot point. But there you are; that's what I'm doing right now. There are other things to be done, some in connection with Lions, some just family business. And family takes precedence over Lions. So there.

5 comments:

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Webmaster... right?
I have a picture of one somewhere that you may use to introduce yourself.

Brighton Pensioner said...

Yeah - webmaster. The outgoing WM sent me an email about the site:

The website is template based and mainly runs from an access database (I found this ran better and faster than the hosted MySQL service that they offer). The database has tables for Clubs, Members, Zones, Calendar, Cabinet members and club Meeting information. This file is locked most of the time so you might not be able to download, update and upload it, therefore I created and backend. In this area you can also upload new editions of the SE News, this will automatically put the file in the right folder and use the correct naming convention. The template HTML files are located at ftp://ftp.lions105se.org.uk/template/, namely (MDstyle.htm).

The pages about projects I never managed to incorporate into the database, so they all reside in an XML file. There is currently no backend for these pages and the XML file has to be edited itself (the file does not get locked like the database file). It lives at ftp://ftp.lions105se.org.uk/xdoc/pages.xml, each page is encapsulated with XML tags and the inner text has to be HTML formatted. If you are unfamiliar with XML, you can download the file, try editing it with Notepad and open it with Internet Explorer or Firefox before uploading (this will show you if there are any errors in the XML markup.

The whole website (in "htdocs" folder) is written in ASP vb-script, I was considering updating to PHP to make it easier to manage but haven't got around to it. There was one PHP file I created to hijack the news from the MD website and display it on the SE one (http://www.lions105se.org.uk/news.php), this page needs to be accessed in order to update the news, it is not integrated into the public site so you would have to access directly to do the update.


I think - no, I know I'm out of my depth here!

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

What it is about techies?
I read $#!+ like that and know that I am still just a beginner when it comes to IT stuff.

Brighton Pensioner said...

"Just a beginner"

You and me both! I foresee drastic changes ahead for the District web site.

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip said...

Well, you have to put your stamp upon it anyway... and keep it simple for your successor so he doesn't think it's rocket surgery.