Eh? What's this referring to?
Edit: Wait, is this about Chen again? He didn't think your argument was invalid, Nathan, he just disagreed with it. There's a difference.
Chris Benett's website..is it working?
- Thread starter Nathan
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Eh? What's this referring to?
Edit: Wait, is this about Chen again? He didn't think your argument was invalid, Nathan, he just disagreed with it. There's a difference.
Anyway, getting back on topic:
I now have a home page and index pages up at Written Worlds, though they're still kind of bare-bones. Next I begin to add the individual book pages, with the annotations as sub-pages in the menu structure, hopefully. This should be the relatively easy part, since it'll mostly be just copy-and-paste of stuff from my original site, just restructured somewhat.
So while my old site's Trek Fiction page, for example, was this huge long list of non-spoiler discussions of all my books in chronological order, with an index of in-page links at the top, what I'll now have will be a Trek Fiction index page with just the covers and titles of the books (and maybe a bit more to be added later), each of which links to a separate discussion page for each book or story, with annotations thereunto appended. Hopefully it'll be less cumbersome.
I don't think my current theme works well as a webpage, so I'll look into changing it at some point. For now, though, I'm focusing on getting the basic content online.
I now have a home page and index pages up at Written Worlds, though they're still kind of bare-bones. Next I begin to add the individual book pages, with the annotations as sub-pages in the menu structure, hopefully. This should be the relatively easy part, since it'll mostly be just copy-and-paste of stuff from my original site, just restructured somewhat.
So while my old site's Trek Fiction page, for example, was this huge long list of non-spoiler discussions of all my books in chronological order, with an index of in-page links at the top, what I'll now have will be a Trek Fiction index page with just the covers and titles of the books (and maybe a bit more to be added later), each of which links to a separate discussion page for each book or story, with annotations thereunto appended. Hopefully it'll be less cumbersome.
I don't think my current theme works well as a webpage, so I'll look into changing it at some point. For now, though, I'm focusing on getting the basic content online.
Idran, this ain't about the fictional character of Chen, as Stevil2001 referred to him as "King-of-Science-Research-and-All-Other-Knowledge Christopher L. Bennett", but this is getting a bit off-topic, I will PM you...but to get back on-topic, I'm glad Chris that you are solving the web-site crisis.
Update: I now have book pages and annotations up for all three Rise of the Federation books, DTI: The Collectors, Ex Machina, Hub Space, and Only Superhuman. I decided to abandon my plan to work my way backward through the annotations, since a number of my annotation pages refer to earlier annotations, so it's more convenient to go through them in forward chronological order, more or less.
I've also updated my Ex Machina annotations somewhat. In addition to a few text revisions to acknowledge new info, I've incorporated my cast photos into the annotations themselves, accompanying the entries for the various characters, since that was easier than trying to recreate the separate cast-photo page. Also, Memory Betans and alien buffs take note: There are now illustrations for two of the original alien species in the book, the Shesshran and the Escherites. These were both species I created for my original fiction long before I used them in the novel, and I did some artwork of them ages ago using a low-resolution art program called PC Paintbrush Plus (based on pencil drawings I scanned in and then drew over). We're probably talking early '90s here. So they aren't very good or detailed art, but they give an idea of what I intended the aliens to look like. I've been meaning to add those to the page for years, but at first I wasn't sure I still had them, then I couldn't figure out how to convert the PCX format to something more modern, and then eventually it just became a lower priority. Having to recreate the page gave me the chance to do it at last.
Unfortunately, the link to the StarTrek.com chat session about ExM that I used to have on the old page is dead now, so I had to leave that out. Hard to believe I created that page over 10 years ago now.
Oh, and I've also rejiggered the site so that the "landing page" of Written Worlds is now my homepage, with my blog as a page within that site. Thanks to Allyn Gibson for explaining how to do that. But all my old blog links should still work; it's only the front page of the blog whose address has changed (with /blog added after the previous address).
I've also updated my Ex Machina annotations somewhat. In addition to a few text revisions to acknowledge new info, I've incorporated my cast photos into the annotations themselves, accompanying the entries for the various characters, since that was easier than trying to recreate the separate cast-photo page. Also, Memory Betans and alien buffs take note: There are now illustrations for two of the original alien species in the book, the Shesshran and the Escherites. These were both species I created for my original fiction long before I used them in the novel, and I did some artwork of them ages ago using a low-resolution art program called PC Paintbrush Plus (based on pencil drawings I scanned in and then drew over). We're probably talking early '90s here. So they aren't very good or detailed art, but they give an idea of what I intended the aliens to look like. I've been meaning to add those to the page for years, but at first I wasn't sure I still had them, then I couldn't figure out how to convert the PCX format to something more modern, and then eventually it just became a lower priority. Having to recreate the page gave me the chance to do it at last.
Unfortunately, the link to the StarTrek.com chat session about ExM that I used to have on the old page is dead now, so I had to leave that out. Hard to believe I created that page over 10 years ago now.
Oh, and I've also rejiggered the site so that the "landing page" of Written Worlds is now my homepage, with my blog as a page within that site. Thanks to Allyn Gibson for explaining how to do that. But all my old blog links should still work; it's only the front page of the blog whose address has changed (with /blog added after the previous address).
Hey, you've seen DeCandido.net, right?
(Sorry, Keith...)
In all seriousness, I'd rather have you, KRAD, and anybody else producing good fiction. That's your job. Webpages are eh. Is the info there? Good. Can I find what I'm looking for easily? Awesome. I don't need a pretty website. The only thing I would think is that it should be easily updated, so new work can be added.
Check whether http://web.archive.org/ has a mirror of the old chat session link.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090408...w/community/chat/archive/transcript/9406.html
The old Startrek.com bookclub chats, a blast from the past, got a signed copy of Tales of the Dominion War out of those (signed by KRAD, Mack and Weinstein).
FWIW, in terms of webhosting I've been pretty happy with HostGator. They offer a slew of stuff that exceeds my level of technical expertise, and I can't really speak to most of that side of things, but on a basic level they've offered everything I needed, and they offer some nifty extras.
Thanks! I've added the link.
Pages and annotations are now up for Aftermath, The Darkness Drops Again, Orion's Hounds, The Buried Age, and Places of Exile. I'm learning new tricks as I go: The old Buried Age annotations had a link to my senior history thesis, which was on my old site in HTML form, and I figured out I could convert the original paper into a PDF and upload it onto WordPress. Not sure if I'll bother to restore all my history papers that way.
I'm now halfway through my 20 (!) different works of Trek Lit. Yet to be restored are Greater Than the Sum, Over a Torrent Sea, DTI 1 & 2, The Struggle Within, and my five anthology stories (which will probably share a single page, but have separate annotation pages). Other than that, I have my two Marvel novels and five original novelettes left to go.
EDIT: Okay, GTTS and OaTS are up now. I hit a snag with OaTS, since the table-within-a-table of statistics for the planet Droplet was too wide for the column and stretched out the annotations to partial illegibility. I finally tried a Hail Mary of copying the table and pasting it in my paint program to see if I could convert it into a JPEG, and, surprisingly, that actually worked. So now it's in there as a clickable thumbnail.
Tomorrow, I tackle the complicated annotations for Watching the Clock. I've been wondering what I could do about the Alien Calendars page with its big calendar tables. Maybe I can use the JPEG trick again.
I'm now halfway through my 20 (!) different works of Trek Lit. Yet to be restored are Greater Than the Sum, Over a Torrent Sea, DTI 1 & 2, The Struggle Within, and my five anthology stories (which will probably share a single page, but have separate annotation pages). Other than that, I have my two Marvel novels and five original novelettes left to go.
EDIT: Okay, GTTS and OaTS are up now. I hit a snag with OaTS, since the table-within-a-table of statistics for the planet Droplet was too wide for the column and stretched out the annotations to partial illegibility. I finally tried a Hail Mary of copying the table and pasting it in my paint program to see if I could convert it into a JPEG, and, surprisingly, that actually worked. So now it's in there as a clickable thumbnail.
Tomorrow, I tackle the complicated annotations for Watching the Clock. I've been wondering what I could do about the Alien Calendars page with its big calendar tables. Maybe I can use the JPEG trick again.
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*gasp* Just coming up for air... All my Star Trek pages are now back up. Like I tend to do when writing a book, I kept at it pretty much nonstop once I saw the end approaching. Plus I've learned most of the tricks now, so it went faster.
The pages probably aren't in quite their final form, though. I think I should go through the various book vendors and add more buying links to the pages that only have a couple. And I should still look into alternative site themes at some point.
Meanwhile, I still have to do my Marvel novels and my original short stories. I'm not sure whether to post the notes for my out-of-print stories. A couple of them used to be up on my old site, so the notes served a purpose; but now they're gone, and I'm thinking of looking into possibilities for selling them in e-book form, rather than just posting them for free on the new site. The thing is, they don't lend themselves to a collection as well as my Hub stories did. The first two are loosely linked, but the third is basically unconnected to those, so it'd feel a bit off. If I could figure out how to epub-ify them and sell them individually, that might work better.
The pages probably aren't in quite their final form, though. I think I should go through the various book vendors and add more buying links to the pages that only have a couple. And I should still look into alternative site themes at some point.
Meanwhile, I still have to do my Marvel novels and my original short stories. I'm not sure whether to post the notes for my out-of-print stories. A couple of them used to be up on my old site, so the notes served a purpose; but now they're gone, and I'm thinking of looking into possibilities for selling them in e-book form, rather than just posting them for free on the new site. The thing is, they don't lend themselves to a collection as well as my Hub stories did. The first two are loosely linked, but the third is basically unconnected to those, so it'd feel a bit off. If I could figure out how to epub-ify them and sell them individually, that might work better.
A note, Christopher: your page 282 annotation for Watching the Clock refers to DC Comics' "The Peacemaker" storyline. It should be "The Peacekeeper".
^Thanks -- fixed.
One advantage of this new site is that it's quicker to edit, since I don't have to open one program to modify the file on my computer and another to upload it. Still, I hope WordPress has excellent backup procedures...
One advantage of this new site is that it's quicker to edit, since I don't have to open one program to modify the file on my computer and another to upload it. Still, I hope WordPress has excellent backup procedures...
Basically done now.
https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/welcome-to-my-new-homepage/
https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/welcome-to-my-new-homepage/
If you stick with WordPress.com, yes, they do routine server backups.
Still, it's not a bad idea for you to do an export of your blog once a month. In your dashboard, Export is under the Tools menu. You'll get an XML file with all of your blog posts and pages. Plus, if you decide to host WordPress on your own server, you would need that file to import your old data.
Oh, and one recommendation I'd make -- turn off the comments on your landing page. You may not want people leaving comments on that page, as they would be visible to people landing on your front page.
To do this, edit the page in your dashboard. You should see a box beneath the text window titled "Discussion." (If you don't see it, at the top of the edit page there should be a tab on the right that says "Screen Options." When you click it, it drops down. Check the Discussion box, then close the "Screen Options" tab by clicking on Screen Options again.) In the "Discussion" box, uncheck "Allow comments." For good measure, also uncheck "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this article."
To do this, edit the page in your dashboard. You should see a box beneath the text window titled "Discussion." (If you don't see it, at the top of the edit page there should be a tab on the right that says "Screen Options." When you click it, it drops down. Check the Discussion box, then close the "Screen Options" tab by clicking on Screen Options again.) In the "Discussion" box, uncheck "Allow comments." For good measure, also uncheck "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this article."
^I moderate comments as it is, so only approved ones get through. Is there a reason for not allowing even moderated comments on the landing page?
An aesthetic one -- turning off comments on that page would remove the comment form at the bottom of the page.
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