neylon

Some random thoughts on the reading for this week…

There is an interesting trade-off when using technology such as Flash.  It is great that there is such technology that makes your web page more interesting and perhaps more professional looking.  The only problem is, if you use Flash, it is harder for Google or other search engines to find the page.  This is actually disappointing.  Flash does a lot to make a website look nice, as well as allow visitors to interact with the pages.  There are great positives of Flash, but if the technology could end up limiting the number of people who ever find your page, is it worth it?  Digital History said that the search engines had most problems with sites that were heavily-laden with Flash, so I guess if you make sure to manage the amount of Flash you use, it would still be possible to make sure that people can find your site.  Otherwise, the ability to share your information with the world is somewhat limited.  This is another reason why it is very important to determine what the site is going to be before making it.  I would not want to spend the time and money to figure out how to use the program, just to determine that its use would be counterproductive.

I like the fact that we have our own spaces for websites through AU, but I seem some definite downsides to using the school’s server.  The biggest problem is that the URL is not memorable at all.  There is so much to it that even though I was just at my page the other day, I cannot remember how to get back there.  Though I do not really expect anyone to want to visit my site multiple times, if I decided to publicize the collecting site in some way, it would be convenient to provide the address so that people could go there on his or her own.  It would be great if the address were short and sweet, not complicated.  I always figure if there is a ~ in the address, it is really overly complicated.

We had talked about funding for sites through the NEH in previous classes, but I did not realize how many other places there are that could provide funds for creating sites.  I guess this is yet another reason that I should get some experience in grant writing.  I also find it encouraging that there are so many resources for funding online projects.  The academic world is sometimes slow in moving towards the use of new technology or even just new ways to look at history, but the use of the web in researching and publishing history has clearly been accepted, and will continue to change the way we look at “doing history.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2006 at 8:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.