Projects in the works: Exercising my under-used writing muscle

2Niki Doyle • 2nd May 2010 • The Huntsville Times • LinkedIn, Newspaper, ongoing projects, The Huntsville Times

I’ve been working on so many Web projects lately that my writing muscle is starting to atrophy. Sadly, this is one of the few places I have left to write more than 140 characters at a time.

I want to blog more, but a couple of issues have slowed me down. For one, it’s difficult to determine what topics are blog fodder and which ones are off-limits. As a young workaholic, 99 percent of topics that drive me to write are work-related. I had an interesting discussion with a coworker on Friday about who owns our online personas — do we, or do our companies? In this day and age, you can’t assume you own your online identity. But that’s a discussion for another day. Mostly, I don’t have much free time on my hands to blog. I’m juggling as many projects as I can handle right now. A few are listed below: 

Building a PAC Database

The Huntsville Times, The Birmingham News and The Mobile Press-Register have decided to combine forces and develop a database that contains all the political action committees’ financial transactions during this election year. It’s been a monster of a project — while all the data is readily available on the Secretary of State’s Web site, it’s not in a searchable format. The secretary’s office simply uploads a PDF of financial disclosure forms, which are often filled out by hand.

In order to make a usuable database, we’re having to take those handwritten forms and enter the data one transaction at a time. So far, I’ve built the structure of the database using Caspio (not the most ideal for search engine optimization, but it’s what all the Advance-owned newspapers have been given) and developed simple Web-based input forms for reporters. Now, I’m trying to recruit some college journalism students to help test the database and start inputting data.

What I’ve learned: JavaScript! I now have a basic understanding of JavaScript, and I would like to experiment with jQuery, too.

Redesigning The Huntsville Times site

This is the first project where I’ve relied entirely on my XHTML and CSS skills. I’m using a free, open-source CSS template from OS Templates to develop the site. I’ve been tinkering with design modifications for about a month now, and I think I’ve finally settled on a look. This project has greatly improved by coding skills, and I have a much better understanding of how XHTML and CSS work together now.

Whatever the final design, I’m sure it will be more modern and functional than the site is now. While all our news content remains on al.com, our advertising and business information is housed at huntsvilletimes.com. That site hasn’t been redesigned since the ’90s, and it’s obvious that pages have been added during the past decade with no regard to site structure or style. I’m hoping, if nothing else, that I’ll be able to build a more structurely sound site.

What I’ve learned: God bless the concept of open source. It’s wonderful that developers and designers who have built excellent, stable designs and programs are willing to share the source of their projects. The most basic and frequently used codes are easily found for free, as long as you’re willing to acknowledge the creator when you modify his or her work. There’s certainly no shame in giving credit where credit is due!

Building a WordPress-powered site for my condo association

I just accepted this project yesterday. I’m now the secretary of my condo association, and this is my first order of business. Our neighborhood is beautiful, but it’s often mistaken for a collection of luxury apartments instead of homes. I would like for it to have more of an online presence where homeowners and potential buyers can find all the information they could want on our neighborhood.

What I’ve learned: I haven’t started this project yet, but I’ve already picked up on something important — people can be intimidated when it comes to starting and maintaining a Web site. I’ve decided to power the site with WordPress (which is also what I use for this blog) and modify a theme to fit the neighborhood to save time and to make it easy for the homeowner’s association to maintain one day when I move on.

Other projects in the works

I’m also spending a good bit of time developing online goals for The Huntsville Times staff, and trying to develop some more training initiatives for the year. I’ve also been active in a group that’s trying to come up with better ways for the three Advance Alabama papers (The Birmingham News, The Mobile Press-Register and The Times) to work together to produce stronger products. I just started a class on XHTML and CSS, too, so I have plenty to keep me occupied this spring.