austraLasia 1373
2006: Happy New Year - visit the new Bosconet.
ROME: 1st January 2006 -- What has begun on Sunday, in the Gregorian Calendar, 1st January 2006 is also known as the years 5766-67 in the Hebrew calendar, 1426-27 in the Islamic calendar. On 14th January it will be Mahayana, the Buddhist New Year, and on January 29th, the Chinese 'Year of the Dog' commences. This year has been designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, and is also known as the Rembrandt (400th anniversary) and Mozart (250th) year. But for a certain 'Julian' calendar it is austraLasia 1373 and the beginning of the new Bosconet. Happy New Year!
Bosconet, the website of the East Asia Oceania region, is undergoing a complete overhaul to bring it into line with current web standards and to ensure its efficiency. You may see the first phase now on www.bosconet.aust.com. A word or two on what is happening and where the process is going.
Contemporary web standards recommend an almost complete separation of content from presentation. What this means, effectively, is that if you look at the source code of any of the overhauled pages in Bosconet, you will see only a minimum of html code - the rest is content. What you don't see is the file containing all the presentation code (called a style sheet). The advantage of this is significant: Pages are lighter, there is no repetition of formatting details on each page. These are held in a single file. With a minor change to that file, the 'look' of Bosconet can change entirely. By the time the overhaul is complete, you may even be able to make your own choice of presentation from several on offer. There is more consistency throughout for pages linked to the style sheet.
I did not know this until I started, but I know it now - there are in excess of 1,000 pages in Bosconet! I have so converted around 20 of them! However, the process now of converting the remaining pages is much quicker, and certainly you could expect that around 10 a day will switch over from now on.
The pages that have been converted are the main 'top level' pages on the Bosconet site 'tree': this means the home page, obviously, and the main Salesian sector pages - formation, youth ministry, communications, and so on. I have included the EAO central page amongst the top pages and two sub pages to this, the Brothers 2006 Assembly and the Youth Ministry 2006 meeting. What this means in practical terms is that if you click on the brown links on the home page navigation bar you reach converted pages. Blue links will take you to unconverted pages. All converted pages will have their own common navigation bar, usually on the left hand side of the page other than the home page and the austraLasia pages.
The theme was inspired by a characteristic geographical feature of our region....ocean and sandy beaches. It also fits in with the deserts and desertification international theme. I could hardly claim to have achieved any Rembrandt dimensions with the featured 'gif' on each page. Any artists out there with suggestions for other themes? Practical suggestions by way of useful images?
You may need to reload on first visiting, if you still get the 'old' Bosconet on your screen. Oh, and by the way, it has been built to handle as many browsers as I could think of, including varying screen resolutions. It has also been constructed in such a way that a 'sight challenged' individual could 'read' it using acoustic software. You could technically receive it on a PDA and still be able to read it, or on a screen reader. That's the sort of thing that current web standards are all about. Access for all. If any of these features fail, please let me know. I would appreciate knowing of failed links, too - with 1,000 pages to think of there just have to be failed links. You can help me fix them up. I just need to know what link didn't work on what page. Happy viewing/reading/listening!
_______________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
2006: Happy New Year - visit the new Bosconet.
ROME: 1st January 2006 -- What has begun on Sunday, in the Gregorian Calendar, 1st January 2006 is also known as the years 5766-67 in the Hebrew calendar, 1426-27 in the Islamic calendar. On 14th January it will be Mahayana, the Buddhist New Year, and on January 29th, the Chinese 'Year of the Dog' commences. This year has been designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, and is also known as the Rembrandt (400th anniversary) and Mozart (250th) year. But for a certain 'Julian' calendar it is austraLasia 1373 and the beginning of the new Bosconet. Happy New Year!
Bosconet, the website of the East Asia Oceania region, is undergoing a complete overhaul to bring it into line with current web standards and to ensure its efficiency. You may see the first phase now on www.bosconet.aust.com. A word or two on what is happening and where the process is going.
Contemporary web standards recommend an almost complete separation of content from presentation. What this means, effectively, is that if you look at the source code of any of the overhauled pages in Bosconet, you will see only a minimum of html code - the rest is content. What you don't see is the file containing all the presentation code (called a style sheet). The advantage of this is significant: Pages are lighter, there is no repetition of formatting details on each page. These are held in a single file. With a minor change to that file, the 'look' of Bosconet can change entirely. By the time the overhaul is complete, you may even be able to make your own choice of presentation from several on offer. There is more consistency throughout for pages linked to the style sheet.
I did not know this until I started, but I know it now - there are in excess of 1,000 pages in Bosconet! I have so converted around 20 of them! However, the process now of converting the remaining pages is much quicker, and certainly you could expect that around 10 a day will switch over from now on.
The pages that have been converted are the main 'top level' pages on the Bosconet site 'tree': this means the home page, obviously, and the main Salesian sector pages - formation, youth ministry, communications, and so on. I have included the EAO central page amongst the top pages and two sub pages to this, the Brothers 2006 Assembly and the Youth Ministry 2006 meeting. What this means in practical terms is that if you click on the brown links on the home page navigation bar you reach converted pages. Blue links will take you to unconverted pages. All converted pages will have their own common navigation bar, usually on the left hand side of the page other than the home page and the austraLasia pages.
The theme was inspired by a characteristic geographical feature of our region....ocean and sandy beaches. It also fits in with the deserts and desertification international theme. I could hardly claim to have achieved any Rembrandt dimensions with the featured 'gif' on each page. Any artists out there with suggestions for other themes? Practical suggestions by way of useful images?
You may need to reload on first visiting, if you still get the 'old' Bosconet on your screen. Oh, and by the way, it has been built to handle as many browsers as I could think of, including varying screen resolutions. It has also been constructed in such a way that a 'sight challenged' individual could 'read' it using acoustic software. You could technically receive it on a PDA and still be able to read it, or on a screen reader. That's the sort of thing that current web standards are all about. Access for all. If any of these features fail, please let me know. I would appreciate knowing of failed links, too - with 1,000 pages to think of there just have to be failed links. You can help me fix them up. I just need to know what link didn't work on what page. Happy viewing/reading/listening!
_______________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
