Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
An Interview with finalsite’s Rob DiMartino
Monday, April 4th, 2011
If you are going it alone in your website development for your school, one thing to seriously consider is using the services of a company that provides web solutions specifically for schools, like finalsite. Finalsite has been working with independent schools on their web presence and strategy for 12 years, and counts many Catholic schools are clients.
I got a chance to speak with Rob DiMartino, a director at finalsite, about finalsite, working with Catholic schools, and the challenges and technological opportunities facing schools today. Rob is also speaking at NCEA later this month in New Orleans. Check out the interview below, and also make sure to follow Rob on Twitter at @robdimartino.
Resisting the Urge to Build Custom
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010People in the web design and development world go through some defined stages, like teenagers. Only there is (slightly) less drama and more, well, web development.
The most important stage, to me, is the stage where you build everything custom. From the ground up. I was and still am a huge fan of CodeIgniter as a basic code framework, but I still liked building the things that managed the sites I built.
One of the reasons for this is it is part of the learning process of coding. Coding a blog sounds fun, so why use someone else’s blog they coded and integrate it? That’s where you learn how things fit together and how great code is born. If you never try your hat at building something like your own content management system, you can miss out on some great learning experiences as a developer. You learn to appreciate how great systems are put together.
That’s really where my coding education took place, and after some time I learned to appreciate the benefits of using other code and other solutions to build something.
Why am I mentioning this? Because very often, the idea will be floated within a Catholic school that a portal or CMS should be built from the ground up to suit their needs. We’re not saying that this is an idea floated by novice developers or web pros, but I’d like to argue that this is the wrong way to go, for several reasons.
Tips on Using Facebook for Catholic Schools
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010I got a notification recently from Facebook: someone with the same name my old high school wanted to be my friend. Initially, I had no clue what was going on. A few seconds later I realized what had happened: someone at my old high school’s alumni office had made a personal profile for the alumni office and started sending out friend requests.
Although this was a new one to me, I see this sort of thing all the time. Well-intentioned alumni or donor outreach departments turn to Facebook and approach things in the wrong way, misusing the technology and alienating some possible targets for interaction.
Tools to Outsource Your Site
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010The less you have to worry about your school’s website, the better. Every small detail that is taken care of leaves you time to improve on other things that deserve time and attention.
That’s why outsourcing almost everything you can technology-wise is a great way to reduce some common headaches.
To be clear, we’re not talking about having someone do other work for the site for you. We’re talking about using tools freely available make common functions easier and quicker to implement.
The basic scenario goes like this: you have something you want to implement, and you have a choice. You can use make your own version (usually with the help of plugins and online tutorials), or you can outsource it to an established solution. The benefit of an established solution is that there are teams of people working to improve and update the solution all the time. All you have to do is hook it up to your site, and you’re done.
Let’s take a look at some examples of solutions that help you outsource your site.
Subdomain Use in Catholic School Web Design
Monday, June 28th, 2010At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Catholic school sites are complicated. Considering this, I’m always surprised at the very small number of Catholic schools that take advantage of subdomains for organization. We think they are a great tool for organizing a large site like a Catholic school one.
Let’s take three common sections of a Catholic school site:
- Academics
- Alumni
- Athletics
The traditional way to handle this is to simple create a section in your url for each of these. So you’d have:
- www.yourschool.com/academics
- www.yourschool.com/alumni
- www.yourschool.com/athletics
What’s wrong with this? Nothing, really. It’s a pretty common model, and it makes sense. However, I think we can do one better.
Website Faux Pas
Thursday, June 24th, 2010The web moves fast – really fast. Not only do people that work in the web have to keep up with the general trends and advances in technology, they need to keep track of what has been effectively left by the roadside in design and development.
That can be a time consuming task, but here at Catholic School Web Design, we’ll do the work for you and let you know about the important stuff that affects school sites all over, as well as Catholic school sites.
We’re starting off this commitment by bringing you a list of things that make people cringe when they visit a website, and are likely to leave your visitor with a diminished impression of your institution. Using deprecated and outdated elements in commercial web design tells your internet savvy visitor (and they’re all internet savvy now) that there isn’t much effort put into maintaining the site, even if there is. A feeling that a visitor is looking at an old, neglected website is a great way to get them to leave – something we’d like to avoid of course.
For some readers, this will be old news. However, we know there are Catholic school sites out there that have these elements, so we’ve got to be thorough!
What Is Open Source?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010One of the most common things I hear among people who are in leadership positions is an aversion to the words “open source” and consequently an aversion to open source solutions for software and web applications.
The feeling is understandable. In a world where security and privacy are big concerns to organizations such as Catholic schools, the word “open” doesn’t exactly have a positive connotation.
Open source, though, is easily misread as not secure and unsupported when you don’t have a background with it or are not familiar with it. In this post we’re going to explain what open source really is about, what the pros and cons are, and how to use it effectively in your organization.
The truth is, open source is one of the most exciting thing to happen on the web in the last 10 years, and it can save time and money, so let’s check it out!
