Check The Evidence – 2018 Website Update!

Check The Evidence – 2018 Website Update!

 

Hello everyone…

A New Look – and “Shop”

A while ago, I decided to update the www.checktheevidence… website, as the Content Management Software on it (Joomla) is over 10 years old. This means that the website did not work as well on mobile devices (tablets and phones) as it does on “traditional” desktop and laptop computers.

I therefore decided to “upgrade” the software to use WordPress –the most popular Content Management System (in 2018) which formats content for different platforms much more effectively. It also has many other features – such as an advanced “web shop” set of “plugins,” which looks and works a lot better than the old DVD ordering page.

Yes, I am hoping to get a few more book orders with a better ordering system. However, you can still download the books for free, in PDF format. (And, if you are able to post reviews on Amazon, that would be great! Currently, there are 9 reviews for the “Solar System” book and 2 for the “Secret Space Programme” book.)

With the new website, the presentation of material can be improved considerably (see this page, for example, which loads slowly). I have also added icons/buttons for sharing articles/posts on Social Media. Similarly, WordPress links themselves should work a little better (than the old system) when shared there.

The slight downside is one of performance. You may find that parts of the new site slow at first (until files get “cached” on your device.)

Mailing List

I have also decided to move the mailing list over to “Mailchimp” – as users can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves and it simplifies the process of sending updates. You should have received this message from there, with a link at the bottom to unsubscribe yourself should you wish. If you cannot see an “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of this email, you aren’t subscribed and so will need to subscribe manually, from the Website.

Old Site

The old website is still “there” but I’ve set things up to divert to the new website in most cases. If you prefer the old format, you can still access it. You may have noticed that the old site used long links of the form:

www.checktheevidence…/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=465&Itemid=59

You can now access posts on the old site by changing the “index.php” to “indexj.php” in the link above, otherwise you will be diverted to the new site (generally in the correct place too!)

Search

You can use the “search” feature although a general web search might work better. I have imported a “News” archive going back to 2005, which is now searchable, so this kind of documents some aspects of “my journey” through “all this stuff.”

Feedback Welcome

The update process is not trivial, but gave me an opportunity to learn a lot more about a number of IT aspects of migrating the site to WordPress.

Your comments and feedback are welcome – especially should you encounter any major problems accessing the material. I may be tweaking things over the coming weeks anyway, as I am pretty sure some issues and foibles will appear!

Onward we go!

Andrew

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