Its all about looks

Yes! i know what needs to be changed!
No it wasn't the contents but yes the way they are placed on a page... I may want to read on history of ningileri once but not every time i open the site! So I needed to make the main page (index page) an index page and not history page

The main problem with googlepage creator is that one is limited to work within the few but excellent tools provided. It doesn't make it possible for one to insert tables which was quite restricting and for layout one had to follow the templates given by Google.

It was keeping these problems in mind that i decided to make a new template in Adobe Dreamweaver. The software is simple as long as one understand the basic HTML. the tools are plenty and only thing you need to have is resources in form of pictures, text, some java script which is available on net and flash files if necessary.

It took a week for the site to be made again, that's a lot of time considering its just a few pages and the ready availability of information. I uploaded it immediately but didnt want to replace the old ste with this one yet! I wasnt fully convinced, there were few bugs. It took another week and finally its on : )

Adding fuel to fire

Once the fire was lit it was necessary to keep it burning as well. To bring around certain level of interactivity which will make the site fully functional. Basically we needed to add fuel to the fire. It came in the form of suggestions and ideas from the family itself.

Unni ammavan mailed me and asked me to insert a feedback form on the page so that it will be easier to keep the site updated and easier than asking people to mail to an id. That suggestion was a trigger and it made me put in a message board, google calendar, feedback form and later even add a blog later on.

These add ons made the site look more balanced than I had imagined initially; but wasn't a success as the response kept coming through mail and not on the site...

At this stage I was forced to rethink the site.... I needed to change something.. what should it be?

Meghna Ayiliath's Engagement

Hey everyone

First of all, Balu, great job!

I am writing in to announce Meghu's engagement and wedding.

Meghna Ayiliath, D/o NT Unnikrishnan and A Vasantha is getting engaged to Sujit Somasekharan, S/o V Somasekharan and Lalitha in Mumbai on Sunday, June 17, 2007.

Sujit is working for Standard Chartered in Dubai. His parents are based in Mumbai.

The wedding is scheduled for Sunday, January 6, 2008. It will take place in Calicut, Kerala.

Bonfire

Well making a fire from the spark was no big deal with lots of dry wood available in form of google page creator and lots of free add ons on net...

The reason I called the site a bonfire was because it was intended to act like one, a bonfire around which family could just sit around and enjoy the warmth of the fire; in the freeze of alienation in this world.

So i threw in a few dry logs from the old site (the text which i just copy+pasted)

Then I put in some hay in form of extra pages; to which I added a google calendar & finishing touch came in form of esnips widget on clicking which, user will be taken to an esnips account in which family pictures have been added

The Spark

It wasn't the toughest thing to do; nor was it the easiest all it demanded was spending of some quality time with one's computer which I didn't mind spending.

And what made me initiate it? Well... hmmm.. ya! I remember.. it was a boring Sunday. I had nothing to do. It was too hot to go out with friends. There were no assignments; college books looked too heavy to even glance at on such a day. As usual I turned to my homepage google.com and as I thought what to search on; I realised I had never read anything about my family on the net! So I gave a try & the search took me to the ningileri site which Unni ammavan had made in Tripod.com.

I didn't like tripod.com but i liked the site and its contents. But there was something stale about it.... Something that made the site look untouched... I wanted to change it.. I wanted to make a site where anything could be changed any time i wanted it to be; a site which functioned like a news portal for the family, another way to stay in touch than just a collection of web pages talking about our family.

Then after a while I stumbled upon googlepages. I like everything google but googlepages I loved it.