The 21st Century Preston Family

Well, Christmas is over, the New Year has come and gone and we can begin trying to move on to more work in the website. Well, I say "we" but the truth is still that it is just poor old me, though there are rather more people who have become involved over the last few weeks and by the look of things may well be more to come. Our new members have all joined the Family Journal side of the site rather than anything else but let's face facts - the records are what really matter to pretty much every one of us! New members, though, have raised one or two issues that are relevant to our family in the 21st century and the way we can work together to help each other.

Applications and solutions

First off, there have been questions from one of our new members about the structure of the website and how it works to provide facilities we can all use. This takes us into the peculiar world of computerised solutions and applications and how they differ from each other - a matter of vanishingly small importance to most of us except in the way that it affects how we can use the website. To begin with, let's try a couple of simple definitions and work from there:-

An application is a set of tools that all work together as part of a single package that can be delivered to customers or users as one off-the-shelf package. Nice and easy - as long as you want everything in the application package and it has everything that you want to use.

A solution is a set of things that might be produced by different people for different uses that can still all be put together so that they deliver what you want to use. The snag with them is that they don't come in one neat bundle but instead have to be put together so that everything that is needed is collected into one place and all hooked up to the other bits of the solution.

Our website is not an application - it is a solution that is made up of several different websites that provide special services that are useful for our family site.

Truth and consequences

Two obvious questions - at least, they seem to be obvious because several people have asked them recently - that arise because of the structure of the site are:-

• What are the applications in our website?
• What does it mean for users?
  

Taking each in turn, let's take a look at the structure of the site, then what it means to us as users. After that we can have a quick look at the disadvantages of our site solution and finally wind up with the advantages that it offers. Most of the points have been covered before in one way or another but, since I have been asked about them, I am quite happy to go over them again.

Bits of the jigsaw

To begin with, there is the site itself - and this one is easy. I own and run a full internet domain (a place to store web pages and other things) which offers me the address "www.mpreston.demon.co.uk". Most of you will recognise this as a simple domain offered for free by my Internet Service Provider - Demon Internet - which I can use for my own pages. That is where the main pages sit and is used for hooking together the different sites used in our family pages solution.

Next up comes the Journal - the pages that you are reading - which is used just for keeping people in touch with developments and to inform everyone of what has been done, what is planned and what is currently under way. This is not provided by Demon Internet and is actually just the Blogger service provided by Google. Since it is not a part of the same company as the main page, it needs members to create an account (free, of course) in order to join in - though thankfully Blogger does allow us to add comments and join in discussions in the Journal even if we have not got accounts with Blogger.

So far, so good - we can use the website solution without actually needing to set up any accounts at all. Nice and easy to use, nice and easy to take a full part in and nice and easy to keep in touch with others using the site. There are even facilities to allow you to "follow" the blog posts so that you can be regularly updated on what happens in the site as a whole - though you can also follow the Journal without actually setting yourself up as a "follower".

Finally - so far - we have the Family Records and it is here that we have a different situation that does require you to join the site. This part of our solution, provided by Wikispaces, is a wiki - like the much better known Wikipedia site - so that we can all add, change and even remove entries in the records. When it comes right down to it, this is the main part of the site and the one where I expect to build up a very large number of pages - there are already more than 250 of them there - so that we can collect and keep up to date the full details of our family over the centuries.

Like most wiki sites, this does need members to join and set up an account before they are allowed to make any changes. In fact, the restrictions on the records are slightly more strict than the service provider insists on so that we can be a little more sure that people will not deface or corrupt our records - and that if they do they can be quickly removed from the site altogether!

Copyright and licensing

To be certain that all of our different components are allowed to work together and that any information on them is protected and legally safe, most of the parts are made up from open source software and are offered as open source products that can be linked together without breaking proprietary licence conditions. One issue that could cause a problem is the use of copyright on the content of the sites since they may be in different legal jurisdictions and be controlled under different versions of copyright law.

Thankfully, there are several open source copyright solutions out there and these have now been tested in a number of courts around the world, the most contentious of which is likely to be in the USA and even this has been tested and found to be fully enforceable. Links to details of how open source affects and is affected by copyright law in this paragraph point to a report on the testing of this matter in US courts for this very reason.

Of the various open source copyright - also known as "copyleft" - conditions that can be applied to information such as we record on the family site, I have chosen to put in place the Creative Commons licence to apply to the site. At the moment, this is only applied to the main site and to the wiki where we keep records of family members and even there we have not yet made it clear that it does apply by posting a link to the license on each page - but I shall do that as a matter of urgency, I promise!

Downsides and upsides

Obviously there is a major disadvantage to this sort of solution - you need an account on each part of it that requires an account and they can be different for each part. Wherever possible, users should do their damnedest to mitigate this problem by using the OpenID service (also a part of the site solution) so that a single logon can be used for all the different parts. Much less easy to deal with is the fact that each part of the site needs its own development of a standard "look and feel" - which still has to match as closely as possible the rest of the site.

On the bright side, that last disadvantage just means that poor old me gets more work - for you, as users, it should be pretty easy to find your way around and will even help you to recognise which part of the solution site you are using!

The major advantage, of course, is that if another feature is needed then it can be added without disrupting the rest of the site - and here, dear readers, we come to the crux of this posting. I have been asked by a number of site readers if it would be possible to add a forum - a place where we can post questions, answers, queries about the site, genealogy information not yet ready for the Family Records and so on. In fact, a place where we can generally keep in touch with each other.

As yet, I have not really begun to look for a way to add this to our site solution, but will be doing so over the next month or two (even though I have still got to change the main page for the site - so much work to do, so little time to do it!). I hope that this will be useful to users but there will inevitably be a downside to it - you will need to register an account with the forum provider as well as with the other parts of the site.

To make it easier to remember these passwords and account details, it is now clear that the best browser to use to view the site will be Mozilla Firefox and I shall also be adding this recommendation to the main site as well over the next few weeks. Other browsers will work, of course, but Firefox is well-known for its many ease-of-use features, a major one of which is its Password Manager to help you with exactly this sort of site.

Well, in the hope that this will answer the several questions I have had about the site structure and plans for the immediate future, I shall now ride off into the sunset and plan the next changes to be made. Perhaps by this time next month, we will have new features on the site... but more likely it will be April before they are in place.

Family Records

Yes, I admit it - hands up, give in and agree... the Family Records are not that big as yet. That's the point of only adding a link last posting - we have to start somewhere and this is it for the records. They are in a wiki space so you can add to them; how good they end up depends on you more than me!

I also admit its mean not to have given an email address to get in touch. Only people who had my address could send comments without them being on the journal. Rest assured, those who passed on my personal address will not get told off, but I've corrected that now so please use the new link in future.

For the moment, the posting link is a rather horrible "click me and I will use your own email software" link over to the right at the bottom of the other site links. I particularly hate links like that because I don't like to trust your PC any more than I trust mine and because I don't trust the good intentions of everyone who looks at the site. There are, after all, some not-very-nice-people out there on the internet. Unfortunately, that is what the blog host offers so - until I have a nice little email form set up somewhere else - I will have to make do with it, but rest assured that I will provide a nice little email form in due course!

Ok, personal sulk over, now to get on with the posting.

In the Journal

So far, most readers of this journal are in the UK with a scattering around the world - though I've still not heard from our Alaskan reader(s) if you're out there. I have, on the other hand, heard from a New Zealand reader whose visit did not show up in the Google logs when I last looked, so it was a double pleasure to hear from the antipodes!

For that visitor, the answer is that yes, we do know about Captain Preston and his less than entirely peaceful relationships with the Maori but there are other members of the House who know a great deal more about our Australian and New Zealand connections than I do. This is exactly what the Family Records section of the pages is for - you people out there in the Land of the Long White Cloud could and should know much more of our history in the Antipodes than I can possibly do from here in the UK. So get yourselves together, work out the family links and write up the history! Add it to the records on the website - that is precisely what it is for.

In the Family Records

For the Family Records, the story is very different from the Journal - two thirds of visitors are Australian and one third American, with us poor British members of the House hardly getting a look in at all. While the journal gets almost a hundred readers a month, the records only get around ten a month, so its possible those using the records already read the journal. This month I've put links in the journal to point at the records and in the records to point here, so hopefully both sets of readers will start using both sets of pages.

That link makes for a potential problem that I have heard about from users of the records: the pages are not yet complete enough for readers to know how to best use them. This seems to be as much a problem of readers wondering what the hell a "wiki" is and why I chose that for the records rather than a journal. Now, I really, really do not want to try giving a quick course in basic computer interactivity on the world wide web right here and now - and not only because if I did then it would be out of date in next to no time.

Instead, I will use the journal as a quick introduction to the records so that any new readers will know how to handle it. Existing readers who also read the journal might get a quick reminder of what can be done - I hope!

Family records pages

As mentioned, the records are in a wiki web site and offer things you don't get in a journal like this. For one thing, each and every page has a discussion you might want to join in with - and the whole point of those discussions is to talk about what is on that particular page. Each one also has a history to show you what changes were made to the page so that we can track down who it is that thinks uncle Jack never actually married auntie Vera (no, don't look for them - I made them up).

What seems not to have been spotted is that before you can even join in with a discussion you need to be what we refer to as a Talker - that is, you need to join the wiki provider. So far, I have had only one message from someone asking to be allowed to be a Talker, even though no such permission is needed. All you need to do is join Wikispaces by clicking the "Join" link at the top right of the Family Records page. Just to make life easier, you can also click the link I just wrote here as well - and that will let you join the discussions too.

Over the next month or so I should finish updating the example family record for the database which will mean my own little branch of the family, from my grandfather down to my children, will be made available and searchable in the records.

Not a lot, I know, but it should be enough to show you how the records work. Essentially, they are easy - write up everyone you can think of who was born in a particular century and link them together as the family. Send it to me to be checked and then I will approve you as a Writer for the records so that you can write your information onto a web page.

Its that simple. Once you are a Writer, you can add more and more records as you find them. That is the whole point of that section of the site - you, as the biggest part of the House, should be able to write the biggest part of the data. My job is really just to make it possible for readers to be able to find what you have written. Unfortunately, that does mean I may not write as much in the Journal next month, since I hope to be busy with the records and, to a lesser extent, with the main site that will link everything together.

Over-reaching Ambition

Last time I set this site up, I made mistakes; I wasn't ambitious enough. I thought a simple blog to help people make their own sites and blogswould be good enough. It wasn't, and I should have known it wouldn't be. This time, I hope to avoid that mistake and provide more for us all.

Back then, the main page was just for the regular and unchanging stuff. I thought people would link their own pages to the main site but they didn't - many couldn't do it because I hadn't provided features for it. In short, I was missing things people would need.

Don't get me wrong - I had planned to put them into the pages, I just never got round to it. I wanted everything perfect first time - which it never is - but this time I hope to avoid that mistake, start simple and add features as the pages grow.

What is different

The new site began with design - covered in Doing Design and Page Design Software. That meant the blog - where the design was made - came first. Everything else, though it is already under way, will be added later. Now I want to add the main core of the site: the home page site. This will arrive in a basic form and be added to as additional features come on-stream.

This time, I will not expect perfection right away, though the Family Records will also come on-stream at the same time. Incidentally, if any of you are already using the records, I would be fascinated to know why it is mostly people from Australia who are using it.

What comes next

The main page has several sections. In the middle is the main information, with a headline for the "big story" and two smaller ones with smaller stories. Each will - but not yet - link to a detailed page for each of the three main subjects. Below that is a section that can hold several other items if they are needed. All of this gives me a way to show what is going on at the moment.

On both the right and the left is a smaller column, like the one to the right of the blog page. Both are for additional items and are where you come in.

What can I do?

I have my own ideas for those two columns, but the point of a family site is that it should be for the family and not just me. Thanks to Google Analytics I know we get six to eight visitors each day so if everyone pops in twice a month almost a hundred people read each posting (Ed: Analytics puts the actual figure at 91). We have a fairly high readership and hopefully most are members of the broader House.

So I would be foolish not to ask what you want to see in those two columns. It may be a risk, since last time I ran a poll I got a very odd vote from one and mixed responses from the others, but I really have to ask, especially now we are moving up Google search rankings. If you think the poll doesn't offer enough choice, please send a comment - I'll read them all!

On the right is a short poll for your opinion what to put in those columns. Please take a few moments to cast your vote. Feel free to send a comment to explain, expand, instead of, or as well as your vote.

Last word

One final thing: it has me curious and really isn't something I can ask anywhere else.

In the wilds of Alaska we seem to have at least one reader. Now, I know the family sent quite a few to the colonies during the British Empire and there are lots of us all over the world, but so far I don't know of any out in Alaska. I would appreciate it if our Alaskan reader would send a comment or email to let me know about the family out there in the snows - and I am sure others would be interested too!

Doing Design

There's no point discussing design methods without explaining the plan - and notice that there is a plan! Never start a design without one.

For me, it was easy: readers told me what they wanted. Let's make no bones about this - you may think your ideas are good but you will never do better than listen to users. I had a short list of what people wanted.

• To be "prettier"
• To be able to add stuff
• It should always work
• To see new changes easily

Pretty it up

The first is probably the most common request and almost impossible to be sure of. Its rare for any two people to think changes make it better the same way.

I seriously considered using a genetic algorithm to make site changes depending on the way it is used, mainly because the new templates make it fairly easy. I even tested it before I realised that the big problem was the design would be the basis for the rest of the linked sites - and if it kept changing, the whole site would have to do the same.

As a second choice, I set up on-line polls with different design elements and asked people what they liked. I didn't ask about colour - I had decided to use colours based on our family crest. Of course, the snag with asking is that you might get answers you don't like.

And sure enough, I did!

Personally, I don't like boxes with round corners: but - by a two to one majority - users did! I also don't like separate boxes to one side of the screen: but users did, by an even larger majority. There were even ideas about what should go in each box and mostly I've stuck to them, even limiting the newsreel to genealogy in the UK, although to be perfectly frank I am not sure how much I trust Google's news filter.

Like it or not - and I still don't - I had a design plan, but users are a fickle lot, so I'll run a poll to check what you think and keep running it from time to time.

Add it up

The second was trickier - there are many ways to add to a website - but gave me the chance to use some of the experience I have.

First to consider was to use existing web space and add a database. That was a no-go since my provider is cagey about it unless you cough up a chunk of cash. I don't want to pay, so that I can avoid asking users to cover costs.

I was left with fewer free options than I liked, but one was to use a free web host.

Problems with free hosts are legion but I'll leave you to check those for yourselves - there are plenty of articles about it in the computer press. If you're happy with those - and many are, including myself - then fine.

I didn't feel it was right since I wanted control over membership and access. Frankly, it was too much like hard work! That left me one choice: a free wiki service. Part two of the plan was in place.

Keep it up

One of the first lessons I learned was not to ignore advice, so I make no apologies for using two writers for whom I have had a long and deep respect.

The first is Guy Kewney, best known to many because the BBC mistook this tall, thin, wiry, red-headed and (I hope he will not mind me mentioning) greying and balding middle-aged man and interviewed instead a young, large, and very much black person who knew damn all about computing!

The second is a man for whom I have the deepest respect - even though I've met and talked with him and found he is a lot funnier and less serious than his journalism would suggest. In the past, he used to be known as "Wavey Davey" but now seems to be known only as Dave Winder - and as yet I can't find a link to his web page, but will set one up when I do!

Both have been around the block and use different web pages to make sure their work is available. As far as I know, neither has come out publicly and said "for reliability, spread your pages across multiple websites", but it seems to be the best idea and is precisely what I chose to do.

This, then, is the third part of the plan: different services provided by different servers linked through a central page.

Feed it up

The last suggestion was to keep people informed about changes. This was the hard part and the decisive issue in choosing some of the other options. It can be hard to keep you informed and, to be frank, I didn't want the effort of doing it myself . This is, after all, a site to be used rather to take me a long time just to keep people up to date!

RSS, also called Really Simple Syndication (and, yes, I know there are other claims for what it means) was and is the obvious choice. Best of all, it leaves it up to you to choose how much, how often and in how much detail to be kept up to date. It even lets you choose which parts to be kept informed about!

This is a no-brainer. The fourth part of the plan was decided by being blindingly obvious!

Design summary

So the plan was now in place.

It would be split into parts, each dealing with one service.
Page design would be based on the blog.
Changes might be needed because of how other parts looked.

The first three parts would be a blog, a wiki and the central pages on my own server. I would design the blog and copy it to my own page. Then, set up a wiki with a similar design - and change mine to look similar to both. All I had to do now was find the right wiki and get working.

Except that at this point family members asked if I could include a forum where they could meet up and maybe a chat-room where they could talk.... I had not started and already the requirements were growing!

Onwards and Upwards

Site changes should roll out pretty quickly now. It is just a matter of collecting the parts together on the linking site.

That might sound strange, so let me explain.

Redesign time

The House of Preston is not one site but several, with common design and purpose - for members of the Preston family to share genealogy details, family records and so on.

When Blogger started Beta Testing for new designs, it was obvious I had to change the design since it had always been the basis for the look and feel.

In any case, the old one - and myself - had been getting messages making the same points :-

• It was not pretty
• There were no family records
• Users couldn't add their own stuff
• Tutorials in blog pages are not very good

It was one of those times when you look at what you have done and realise you have to do it all over again - but do it properly!

Mash-ups and mix-ups

The plan was to use several providers of features on offer out in Internet-land. At first, there weren't many, but along with the Blogger announcement came the real Web 2.0 sites.

The web was changing and we had to change with it!

Much more could be done. I had always been of the opinion that the web lost a lot when Tim Berners-Lee's original vision of a web you could edit as well as read had gone. The reasons why that vision disappeared are complex, but in a nutshell they come down to Netscape adding features to HTML and Microsoft following suit.

I wanted that vision back - and to judge from the comments I had received, so did you!

Thats what Web 2.0 offered - a simple design could be used for many pages and you, the reader, could change what was on it. Sites with a mix of features like this are called "mash-ups" but here I planned to use different sites for more reliability and ease of use - a "mix-up" rather than mash-up. At the time, I was swamped with things to do, but I set up a basic design on Blogger and looked for other services to deal with suggestions from users.

And they all had to work with the same basic design.

Family records

First up was some way to add family records and make sure readers could post to them. It screamed out that it had to be a wiki.

It took a lot of doing to find something I could use without having to run my own server. In the end, I collected a list of wiki services and tried them all out. It came down to two I liked - PBwiki and Wikispaces. Neither could do what I needed, but I could plan how family records should be stored.

Both reached the needed level of personal design at the end of last, start of this year.

Putting it together

With the wiki sites and Blogger's update, it was time to work on the design. Of course, that could change the way the blog and wikis should look, so it had to be right.

Its worth looking at the development, since it could help people building their own sites. There are limits to one blog posting though, so let's leave that to another time.

We have a simple design thats slightly different for different features. Its still based on static pages with links to more capable sites, but is a big step towards what I think the web should be like - and to what I had been asked for. You should be able to recognise where you are from the look and feel of the page.

But since the old version wasn't pretty, I have to ask - is this better?

You'll find a poll to the right. Please vote on what you think - but remember the design is different on parts of the site. You might want to wait until the whole site is updated before voting.

After all, a major objective is your freedom - so it is up to you.

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