Wrap-up

For this assignment, I decided to recreate the website for my business  www.jfkbusiness,com.  I am a small business owner and provide training and special projects services to small business and non-profits. I have never advertised; my clients have always come via word of mouth.  This website is not designed to be an advertising vehicle, but rather for information and resources.

I'm glad we had this assignment.  I've been thinking of updating my site for several years now. I didn't realize how bad it was until I took a good look at it.

As you can see, the old site was terribly outdated. The site was created approximately 10 years ago using a FrontPage template. 

Issues with the old site:

Neglect
To tell you the truth, I've paid very little attention to my website over the past few years.  I knew I needed to work on it, but never made the time.  I'm very good at looking at other people's websites and picking out what's wrong with them.

My website has a very dated look and feel.  It was created 10 years ago (has it really been that long?) using a FrontPage template, there's no mistaking that!  It looks every bit a FrontPage template. By the way, the latest verson of FrontPage is 2003. 

In addition to an outdated look, I'm embarassed to say that some of the information on the site is also outdated.  The "Break Room" page has a joke that begins with "you know you're living in the year 2004 when..."

Available Information
II would like the site to become a "go to" for my clients, during and after their training.

Web 2.0
There is little visitor interaction on the site, just static information. By adding in some blogs, Twitter and rss feeds, the new site looks current.

Control
I was the only one updating the site.  I took on the job myself.  If I utilize the Drupal roles features, there's no reason why my staff can't update the site.

Drupal site

More interaction
Because of the blogs, rss and Twitter feeds, the site contains current, relevant, changing  information

Offer more quality resources
I plan to put my training guides up on the site. These will be available for download for my students and any one else.

Orther people updating the site
With the users in place, the site can be updated by members of the staff.

Theme and Layout

I originally chose the Bartik theme. It wass simple and relatively easy to use. I was able to upload the banner logo, and put the address on the header and footer. It was simple, but unappealing.  After seeing the other students' sites using the MAYO theme, I changed mne, and am much happier with the results. MAYO was much more intuitive and flexible to work with. 

Modules:

I was able to install:

CCK - It was recommended that I install this module to add custom fields to nodes, but to tell you the truth I don't believe I've utilized it.

Chaos Tools - I installed this module because I thought would be part of Views. I'm still a little confused on the use of Views and whether it exists in Drupal 7. Chaos Tools also installed a whole bunch of sub-modules, which, to tell the truth, I'm not really sure whether I need them or not.

ICME - I installed this to upload images. It enabled me to browse for an image and upload it from my computer. This was a proud moment for me.

Nice Menus - This was installed to give some drop down menus. I also installed Superfish menus, it was working until just before I went to bed tonight...I can't figure out what I did wrong.

Google Analytics - We installed this during class. I can definitely see the value in using this software to discover where your users are going on your site.

CKeditor - Provides the WYSIWYG text editor for the site.

Poll - I utilized this module to place a user poll on the home page.

While searching the web for modules, I did find it rather frustrating to see so many modules that were not yet offered for Drupal 7.

Other features:

Favicon - is an icon of the JFK Business Solutions text from the banner.

Follow us includes links to my Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter acounts. I also have a javascript to show my last 4 tweets (don't give me credit for this, a friend gave me the code!

Home page - the home page is also comprised of recent blog articles. This is intended to keep the content fresh. There are also links to training guides

Poll - This is a user poll to get some opinions from my visitors. I will definitely try to find more interesting questions to ask!