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Under the Gun, Part 5
by Rebecca Rohan
Meet Your Deadline (instead of the executioner)
Keep It Simple
Mark Lazen, Online Editor and Webmaster at Books That Work, says "Page layouts in which graphics are integrated with content in sophisticated ways can be beautiful, but can force a...time-consuming back-and-forth between the webmaster and graphic designer. When pressed for time, use simpler graphic elements." Lazen knows what he's talking about, as the Books That Works site has some beautiful, as well as useful, pages.
Likewise, Lazen says "Complex page layouts...tables within tables within tables, for example, are time consuming to edit and revise. Only use such layouts on a very small number of highly visible pages--such as your home page."
Get It Up and Running
Grant Hutchinson, "Web Toys & Interface Guy" at Image Club Graphics and
Adobe Plug-in Source Catalog, updates each of his sites at least twice per week. "We run all Power Macintosh boxes with WebStar servers. Development of the site is accomplished on Macs attached to our internal network and then transferred via Zip disk to the servers on our external T1 connection," says Hutchinson. "We do not currently have the need to provide FTP service, so I transfer files between the Mac servers using the file sharing built in to MacOS. I use Symantec CopyDoubler's fast replace feature to copy only the changed files between servers, thus saving vast amounts of time, both in terms of number of bytes
transferred and not having to sort through the file directory to determine which files were added or changed." Hutchinson says it takes him an average of 2 minutes per update (instead of the hour it used to take) with this method.
Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor would be proud. Susan M. Cooney saves time by getting a "workstation with a strong processor for running multiple applications efficiently, and a high speed Internet connection."
Cooney has ISDN at home and a T3 at work, but she says "Don't get jealous...my full-time job is at an Internet Service Provider. This has proven invaluable when dealing with managing my sites, getting Internet access, accessing the FTP site(s), teaching myself about HTML and CGI, and, most of all, managing secure
transactions."
Get a Grip On Reality
Even while under horrible pressure to produce webstuff fast, it's important to have a mellow attitude. Tony Heinz, Director of Interactive Development at Jumbo Shareware, advises patience when dealing with a Web site. "Jumbo Shareware gets close to 1.7 million hits a day," says Heinz. "When something goes wrong, you know it's being seen. Keep a cool head and accept that the mistake has happened, and try to be as productive as you can and be patient when trying to find a solution."
Troy Hayden Glick, Online Development Manager at Destination Florida, says the larger your site, the more evident the need to stop Band-Aiding. "Push back deadlines. Go to the head of the project and say, early on, that you need more time. We don't want to run a 5,000 visitors/day site on Band-Aids¨." Glick adds, "When you do something new, do it thoughtfully. You'll save time in the long run."
A final bit of advice from Mark Lazen: "Don't make it perfect before you post. Make it solid and functional, then let usage help you identify shortcomings."
Now that should take some pressure off!
Rebecca Rohan is a freelance writer specializing in the Internet. She has credits in I-Way, NetGuide, Internet World, and Internet Shopper, and often writes about the Net for other kinds of publications, too. You can visit her at her Web site.
Reprinted from Web Developer® magazine, Vol. 3 No. 1 Jan/Feb. 1997 (c) 1997 internet.com Corporation. All rights reserved.
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