Thanks for your e mail Bob, i have just entered Birdwatching Wilmslow into yahoo search and this site gets a page one listing! A great achievement for you and the site and a just reward for all your hard work ! It will be fascinating to see where the visitors to the site come from over the coming months. steve
Hi Nelson - it's good to see that you have been able to register and post to our birdgroup website. The site has been visited by a few people in the US - one yesterday was from New Jersey using Verizon but not your IP address. I assume your photographs (by email) were taken at Stone Harbor possibly from Ewelamb (if I've got that correct). A topic I have planned for a later feature in the website is Kingfishers - perhaps I might use your shot of the Belted Kinfisher if that's OK with you. The Osprey shots were great. Will email other non-birding news. Bob.
Hi people, would be great if I am talking to the right people,I met some Wilmslow birders today at Wigg Island and unfortunately one of the guys was taken ill,I was the Artery of Life officer for HBC who was in the tower hide when the incident occurred and was just trying to contact to make sure he was Ok and to pass on my best to him and invite him back when he feels better - contact me via my website arteryoflife.co.uk or email,
cheers guys enjoy your birding.
Anno.
Hi Anthony, your post found us OK. I had an email from Robert this morning to say that he got home yesterday without any further problems, and that he was feeling much better today and pretty much back to normal. Thanks for all the help that you and your colleague gave us. It was our first visit, but I am sure we will be back. Thanks again. Brian
that's great news and thanks for getting back to me - give my best to Robert and let me know when you are visiting and we can meet up,it was a very quiet afternoon bird-wise for Wigg and the river in general,hopefully next time will be better.
Take care,Anthony.
Re posting from Anthony and subsequent replies; it's good to see Site Feedback serving a useful purpose.
Bob - Website Administrator.
Recently website changes mean that the drop-down menu links for the Bird Group Activities have been removed and replaced by blue links on the Welcome page. I like drop-down menus, they are very easy to use, so I think that this is a backward step. Apparently some people have had difficulty with the drop-down menus. I don't know what the problems have been, no one has complained on the forums, but what can be difficult about drop-down menus? Besides, only the Activities drop-down menus have been removed - every other other item on the top (green) bar menu except Welcome still retains drop-down items.
As I see it the use of drop-down menus has 2 main advantages. Firstly it concentrates all of the site navigation links into one place which should make it easier to see the links and find out what is available. Secondly it makes the links instantly accessible from any page on the site. For example, if you want to check the field trip programme you have to go to the Welcome page and search for a link. When finished on that page if you then want to check out the trip reports there is no way to link to there. You have to backtrack to the Welcome page then go link hunting again. Frequent visitors may be in the habit of bypassing the Welcome page and going straight to the required page via the top menu bar so they may miss new links that have been added.
There is still a place for blue links on the site. There could be a temporary blue link on the Welcome page (as well as a drop-down link) when a new page/section is added to the site but I would expect the blue link to disappear eventually when the Welcome page is updated. I think that the main use of blue links should be for navigation to external sites eg as we aleady have for The Guild, Wikidot etc.
Over to the Members….
Thanks Robert - it's good to have feedback and your constructive comments are helpful. You will understand that I need to wait a little while for the comments of other BG members (and indeed any website visitors) before commenting on your points. It would help if you could encourage the other BG committee members to participate in this discussion.
It might be helpful if I spell out concerns expressed to me by some BG members - they did not want to display their lack of understanding by commenting in site feedback so they will remain anonymous. To give an example of the problem - these people were pointing at FORUM and then going directly to one of the seven topics listed. They failed to realise that they needed to read the information under FORUM itself in order to understand how it works. This same problem was happening with other top navigation bar topics. Clearly they had not read "Navigating the website" on the Welcome page.
Bob.
Hi Robert - I also like drop-down menus which is why I have retained them in some modules. I like your thoughts about concentrating all the links in one place - especially the ones that BG members may use. To this end my current thinking is to include all the blue links they need on one page called WGBG on the top navigation bar. If you are doing something else and then want to check out Trip Reports you just go to WGBG on the top bar. These changes will make maintenance activities easier and probably quicker.
If you have time can you have a look at my latest version in the Development website - I would welcome your thoughts. Realistically I suspect that comments from committee members and others will be a long time coming. I want to get it all tidied up before the end of August.
Bob.
Your idea of a separate page for the Guild members could work very well. I just think that it is important to have all the links together in one place somewhere. Having them on the Welcome page works well enough but there will always be the impatient few who bypass that page and head straight for the main content. I notice that the previous posting on the feedback forum was in December last year, so as you say it may take some time to attract any more comments.
Liked the ospreys. I have now seen (and photographed!) ospreys on 4 continents - Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. My photo from Costa Rica is showing its age. That was pre-Canon 300mm f4 L days and it's obviously not quite as sharp as the photos I would hope to get these days, or as sharp as Nelson's photos. Still, not too bad.
Robert
Bob-
Added something about hummingbirds on Nelson's Page. Not very proficient at this yet. Need some constructive criticism from you. Thanks, Nelson
Bob-
Worked several hours on Hummingbirds. After editing and Previewing I clicked Save and closed the webpage. Reopened the webpage and nothing was there on hummingbirds. What did I do wrong…lost everything!! N
Hi Nelson - sorry it did not work for you. There is nothing more annoying than working for ages and then loosing it all - I know - it happened to me as well. Thoughts follow:-
1. I notice you are using various website addresses - Wikidot will only recognise the one you registered with.
2. Having said that you obviously uploaded image files so you must have been signed on OK then. 3. Monitoring system clearly shows you on Nelson's Page for quite long periods of time on 18th Aug but it does not show your activity. It does not show you on any other pages. 4. Shows you working with Verizon using Safari browser - is that the one you always use? - Some browsers operate differently.
When ever you start to edit a page the system locks the page for you for 15 minutes. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you should see a running count-down starting at 900 seconds. If you exceed the 15 mins it should warn you but you may have missed the warning.
As you know "Your Pages" is a new venture for me - I will give some thought to how best to present Nelson's Page to make it easy to add things to it. Meanwhile I have just put "Start Here" at the top of your page.
Suggestions:-
Always check you are signed on before you click on edit.
Do a save as soon when you have put a few words in to make sure all is OK. Keep an eye on your page lock time 900 secs count down.
Final thought - you are the first person I have had operating as a moderator - this should not have caused a problem but please put a few words in on Nelson's Page as soon as you can so that I can check.
Bob
Bob-
Check out Nelson's Page. Haven't caught on to picture placement as yet. Wasn't watching the time on my last attempt.
Yes, I use Safari as my browser.
Still working on JPEG vs bmp.
Nelson
Nelson - the little trick your friend Ernie suggested would appear to have solved the problem. Your latest batch of photographs all came in jpg format and all associated data was accessible. Well done!
Bob
Hi Nelson
What stunning pictures you've been sending lately; I just loved the Osprey sequences. The photos taken at Leaming's Run brought back the lovely afternoon we spent there with you. The picture you took with the gardens and butterflies would make a very interesting and absorbing jigsaw! Well, I've poured over the picture and have finally found three; 2 male Black Swallowtails and 1 Pipevine Swallowtail (I think but am not certain). Could the Pipevine be a Spicebush?
Our regards to Joanne.
Barbara