 Entertain Yourself, Educate Yourself, and Empower Yourselfl
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By Thomas Holbrook II
When doing websites for a couple of years, one tends to learn what works and what doesn't. I initially wanted to a site with strictly HTML. Then I switched to e107 as the content management system. However, for some reason, I wanted to get back to HTML. I still use WordPress for the blog, but the rest of the site will be HTML. There are a few good reasons for this. The first reason is fairly obvious. I was starting to become weary of spam bots. As easy and simple as it would have been to keep the site updated through e107, I would have run into the problem of bots over and over again. Having to only deal with them via WordPress is much simpler. Also, it is much easier to insert PayPal and Google Checkout HTML code if the system that is being used happens to be HTML. Of course, I am having a bit of help with liberated software. KompoZer is a website creation tool that was derived from Linspire's Nvu, and it has made it much easier to assist me in revamping this website. When a site is built, it has to be maintained. The problem at this point is that a content management system requires just as much work as manually creating the pages. To add to that, there is the issue of spam bots and attempts to corrupt any database created for the purpose of systems such as e107, Joomla, and Drupal. This would requrie me to maintain the site more often than necessary, which would take time away from evaluating submissions for possible publication. The website is a major part of this media venue, and using already existing themes without being able to effectively alter them to a more suitable style (due to not wanting to mess with PHP at the moment) turned out to be a major hinderance. Yes, the layout of the site is borrowed from another, but due to the fact that it was HTML, I was able to truly make it my own without spending the extra time creating the layout myself, let alone learn PHP and performing extra steps in order to have a truly custom site. The final reason for redoing the site is of profound importance. At the local college that I am attending, there is quite a bit of indication of corruption on the part of those who are a part of running the institution. I am not referring to the faculty and staff, but higher ups. The college newspaper has been taking them to task for their actions as of late. However, they just do not have the resources to keep the pressure on to do the right thing and place academics above athletics for once. This reminds me how important the alternative media is. The alternative media can do things that traditional media wouldn't be able to get away with. That's because the alternative venues have people who are not afraid to walk outside the traditional way of covering news. Their point is to spark controversy, and most important, discussion on any given subject, for those two things are what truly causes the public to be informed, not so called standards of reporting that cause people to allow reporters and news writers to do the thinking for them, even though that wasn't the intent. While bloggers are dismissed as those who aren't writing real news, it is important to noe that during the time in which newspapers were a lot spicier than they are today, an eighth grade education meant much more during this time period than it does currently (at least as far as the U.S. is concerned). Now this isn't to say that traditional media is bad in and of itself. It becomes that way when the major outlets are owned by one or two corporations bent on keeping competition out of what they feel is their turf. There are still respectable publications out there that follow the traditions of the Associated Press and attempts to simply report the story while leaving opinion out of the mix. It is instances like corruption at a university in which these respectable publications may need a helping hand, for it is alternative media that is capable of attracting an audience very quickly. One only has to look up Jeff Gannon to understand how quickly such an audience can be had. So what are the plans of THE *NIXED REPORT? Simply put, by the time this is being read, I will have a good number of essays prepared, and I plan on writing one every day. I am also planning on doing an online TV show right on this site. For those concerned with bulky plugins to view YouTube video and other video formats, fear not. I am going to be using the HTML 5 specification for displaying video directly in a web browser. That means there will be two flavors of the show:
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