Our Website

[hoferchr]

This is our website (ascensionfdl.org), and since becoming a member of Ascension, this is the fourth "version" of our site I have had the privilege of working on. What you are looking at now uses Joomla 1.5. Our previous version used Joomla 1.0. The two "versions" of our site previous to that used Macromedia Dreamweaver. We launched our new "look" on November 27, 2009.

I'd be happy to answer any questions or respond to feedback. Thanks!

[rePete]

Looks ok.

The blog is a completely different style. I assume you haven't updated that yet. Actually I like that style better than the new, my opinion.

I don't know that I've seen a 'guestbook' in years, again my opinion. I think it kind of dates the functionality of the site.

I like the text messaging selection, that's a good idea. Do you have many subscribers?

Keep up the good work.

Pete

[hoferchr]

Hi rePete...

The difference in "look" between our main site and our blog site is actually by design. Both Joomla and WordPress (which runs the blog) were installed with SimpleScripts (provided by our Web Host). The drawback of having two separate "sites" like this is that we don't have a "single sign-on" experience for our users...something that would be really cool!!!

I added that guestbook maybe a month ago or so. At first, we had spam getting posted from berkley.edu, but then I set up the component that runs the guestbook so that we have to approve any new comments before we publish them.

As for the SMS text messaging...we currently have 11 people subscribed to receive messages via their cell phone. We use this feature sparingly, however. The only time I have ever sent out a message to everyone was on Easter Sunday. But, we would also use this to get any emergency messages out if need be. Another example for using this feature was brought up by one our church council members to quickly send a text message to the council members (in case they're not checking their e-mail right away).