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Yesterday I cudn't spell "webmastr". Now I are one.

Thomas Veil

Thomas Veil

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Feb 14, 2004
2,636
8,862
Much greener pastures
Life's so weird.

As some of you know, I work for my city's cable TV office, making shows of local interest.

That's what I do; that's what I'm trained for. I've been in broadcast, cable or institutional TV all my adult life.

Couple weeks ago, my boss calls me in. How would I like to be in charge of the city's web site?

Well, it was an odd request. But they were trying to relieve the city's only IT guy of having to do it. And for me, it would be (a little) more money. And I had been thinking of broadening my skills in the direction of web design.

So I said, "Sure."

Last week, they came and told me, "The IT guy put in his two weeks' notice. Next week you're gonna spend two days with him learning how to maintain the web site."

Oh. Okay. :eek:

I really wasn't planning on getting thrown into the pool that quickly. And then being left alone.

Anyway, the training was yesterday and today. And so today (please try to contain your snickering), they pronounced me the city's !WEBMASTER!

Oh, Lord. There goes the web site. :rolleyes:

In all seriousness, I feel I have the bare essentials down pretty good. But the speed at which I went from "Would you consider this?" to "We've gotta train you...NOW!" makes me laugh.

Now let me see....

dreamweaver.jpg
 
I'd highly recommend the training from the source series for additional 'lessons' in webdesign. they are quite useful. also, check out the special interest forum here on webdesign.. a lot of v. brilliant people stop in there with some usually good advice.

YT
 
Also: I would tell the management that there is no $@#&* way I would assume the responsibilty unless they gave me a contingency budget for brining in hired expert help in times of extreme need.

Then immediately spend some of the money identifying and bringing in a local expert to help you to
1) analyze and catalog the status and structure of the current website, and
2) create a SOP manual with all of the standard maintenance and updating procedures detailed such that anybody could make normal minor changes if YOU happen to be unavailable.

The mgmt will b!@%h and complain about the money spent, but it is absolutely essential for business continuity, and it would be a dereliction of responsibility to not have that documentation in place.

It's like not bothering to have a disaster response plan because, hell, there's never been a flood or hurricane here...
 
mad jew said:
Dude, crank some iWeb action. They'll love it!
Click to expand...
I wish I could do this on a Mac! The first full day I spent in front of Windows PC was rough. I'm not used to such crudities as Windows' aliased lettering, and I hate the file structure. I was never so glad to come home and hug my Mac.

But thanks for the congrats. :)

elfin buddy said:
Congrats on getting the job! It's really not as hard as it looks, especially if you're just maintaining and not writing your own from scratch ;)
Click to expand...
Which is what this is right now. I'm sure they'll want a total redesign at some point, which is why I really need formal classes.

But yeah, it's not really that bad. I've ftp'd stuff to my private web space, and I already got the idea of linking to images and stuff from this forum and from Cafepress. Plus, I already know Photoshop, and the Flash and Fireworks menus have a similar layout. So it's not like this is all new and alien to me.

Still, I'm smart enough to know what I don't know. I've no idea how to create forms, for example. So I've got plenty left to learn.

yojitani said:
I'd highly recommend the training from the source series for additional 'lessons' in webdesign. they are quite useful. also, check out the special interest forum here on webdesign.. a lot of v. brilliant people stop in there with some usually good advice.

YT
Click to expand...
I'm sure I'll be there. :D

CanadaRAM said:
Also: I would tell the management that there is no $@#&* way I would assume the responsibilty unless they gave me a contingency budget for brining in hired expert help in times of extreme need.

Then immediately spend some of the money identifying and bringing in a local expert to help you to
1) analyze and catalog the status and structure of the current website, and
2) create a SOP manual with all of the standard maintenance and updating procedures detailed such that anybody could make normal minor changes if YOU happen to be unavailable.

The mgmt will b!@%h and complain about the money spent, but it is absolutely essential for business continuity, and it would be a dereliction of responsibility to not have that documentation in place.

It's like not bothering to have a disaster response plan because, hell, there's never been a flood or hurricane here...
Click to expand...
My boss knows how to make changes via Macromedia Contribute, but yeah, one of the first things I told him was, we really need at least two people to know the whole shebang.

When I was producing video at a previous job, I was the only guy in that department, too. Well, I got into an accident which broke both my legs. I was laid up for six weeks, and believe me, they were panicking trying to figure out how the work was going to get done in my absence. (Even after I came back, though, they were too cheap to hire someone to back me up. Duh.)
 
Congratulations! :) I hope you get started right away in translating all the content into 1337 speak. This kind of thing does not simply happen on its own, you know. :eek:
 
congrats on the new job!

i hope you enjoy it. as someone else said, the Training from the Source series is great. its helping me learn slowly myself.
 
yojitani said:
I'd highly recommend the training from the source series for additional 'lessons' in webdesign. they are quite useful. also, check out the special interest forum here on webdesign.. a lot of v. brilliant people stop in there with some usually good advice.

YT
Click to expand...

beg your pardon but, what is the "source series"?

btw. you can do it OP. just don't relax for the next 6 months...
 
Simple web sites are simple, complicated web sites are ... well, complicated.

Go to some web sites that you like and use that "View Source" menu! :)

-T
 
We're a very low-paying facility. I don't mind telling you that I make around $11/hr. as a part-timer. There's another local cable office like ours clear on the other end of town, and they pay over $22/hr. for the same position.

I've got other income, so I'm not destitute on my salary, but it would be nice to be paid something closer to what I'm worth.

And thanks again, everyone, for the good wishes. I was just "mocking up" a web page design in Photoshop last night, and I've already come up with something that's quite a bit better that the current design. With more effort I'm sure I'll come up with something that'll knock their socks off.
 
Congrats lol

The other day I had to think about how to spell (type) "qwerty".

I know, I am retarded
 
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