Spinning a New Island Web

Link for this Post: The New Island Web: A Work in Progress

As regular readers know, I'm a writer by trade rather than a web design or coder. However since I have had several sites that have been on the web since its early days., I have slowly learned to become semi-self relent in developing my websites. This includes a bit of design and even installation as well as attempts at customization of server-side software.

Island Web at http://www.island.org has been mostly online since April 1995. A trip through time at the Internet Archives reveals Island Web's various incarnations at the Internet Archives from 1996-2006.

You can click on the images from my website collection and see a high resolution version.

The Way Back Machine does not go far enough to grab Island Web's first look but this image was early in our our evolution. The basic menu has not changed much from back then.

We tried out a more visionary art type look but this one did not last too long: The image was photgraphed from a painting and tended to load too slow for those days of 56.6K modems.

My understanding of he web evolved slowly and for a long time I was frustrated by my inability to change my website. I would vent from time to time about this in articles with titles like "How a Psychonaut Became a Cybernaut" which you can read at Part 1 and Part 2.

The next change came at the time of the new Millennium when we thought we were on the verge of a gigantic change with the turning of a thousand year page. The artist was a fellow who calls himself Spider and this was the Island imagery he put on the web: (click to blow it up). I call it the Island Map.

The plumbing for the last version of the Island Map was done by a web programmer from Sweden who did it in Visual Studio and put it on a Windows Server. He did a good job with all custom part for links directory, marketplace and forum. However things got stuck at the point because most volunteers worked on Apache servers.

As six years when by with little new added the site, I  decided to get new server space on an open-source server. For starters, I just picked it all up and moved it there with all the server-side applications non-functional.  I hoped that  by allowing for the chaos of a broken site,  a new and more dynamic Island Web might develop. My main goal is to turn the site int a real web community with lots of people doing things.

As my Psychonaut to Cybernaut piece testified to, it was a difficult task  developing on the web with volunteer help. In fact, the images on the last reversion of the site cost me a chunk of Island Foundation money. Lacking sufficient capital to get it done with cash, I decided to try and learn as much as I could.

I know some of what I wanted and the first part of the project was what I refer to when talking to myself as the "links" database. On another site, I use a program called Hyperseek as the web application to create an extensive links

I had to import all of my old links into the new database but unfortunately not the categories. I had to check each site to see if it was functioning, add descriptions and place it into categories. Well 500 links have been done. I'm no template customization genius nor graphic artist but the new database is up and running.

The new links section is titled Voyage Elsewhere: Island New Culture Web Guide

I also had Mambo installed by the fellow who helped me move to the new server and tried for a month or so to make it work. I found it to be too difficult to customize.

My final move is still a work in progress. I installed Drupal on the Island Web's server and it instantly made the Drupal home page the home page of Island Web.

Disappointed by the forum that comes prepackaged as a module of Drupal,  I installed a Simple Machines Forum as the Island Web forum and integrated as best I could with the Drupal and the links database.

I've spent a bit of time working on the site. I need to learn a lot more or get some reliable help to finish the job off. However the site is up and running and I'm hoping some brave people will move in while things are still not perfect and help develop the site with me.