ManchesterAquatics.org has a new look once again. Now resplendent in
club colours, the new site allows members of the club committee to
update information frequently via the Content Management System and
provides a much richer experience for the visitor.
The new site
is intended to provide a dynamic environment for all club members to
communicate with each other and with their peers. I hope you enjoy your
visit!
Recommendations for viewing
As with the previous version, I recommend using Firefox.
Firefox is a W3C-standards compliant browser (based on the grandfather
of web browsers, Mozilla/Netscape) and is generally considered to be a
better quality browser than Microsoft Internet Explorer. Of course,
this site supports all modern browsers but you'll always get the best
results from Firefox.
What's a Content Management System?
Content
management systems are specially designed websites that allow
non-technical users to maintain the content of the site without having
to know HTML or do any sort of programming. This allows me to keep the
wheels turning behind the scenes, manage the hosting environment, and
work on the custom software components for the club, whilst the
committee members look after things like the news and photo galleries.
The software that powers the site provides a rich-text editor much like
a word processor application, so anyone who knows how to use something
like Word can use it.
Technical Details
For those
of you interested in the nuts and bolts, the site runs software called
Community Server. Manchester Aquatics is licensed to use this software
free of charge as a not-for-profit organisation. Community Server is
written in C# and as such utilises the .NET Framework (2.0). The
backend is IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003, and SQL Server 2000 hosted by
1&1 AG.