Before we left on our travels I studied a lot of travelers' websites. Some were beautifully put together, and I couldn't imagine how
anyone managed to maintain a professional website while cycling, boating or RVing their way around the world. I was a software
engineer for ten years and wrote a lot of code in the ancient languages of Fortran, C, dBase and SQL, but I had no idea how to
build a web page. I emailed the folks who had the best websites and got all kinds of info about what they used. Most used some
version of Microsoft Front Page -- the version depended on how long ago they left home! We left home before I figured out what
would be best for us to use.
While sitting in Chanute, Kansas for a month, we had the rare treat of free wifi
accessible from inside our trailer (normally we have to drive somewhere and either
sit in the truck or on a park bench or patronize a coffee shop in order to get on the
Internet). I poked around and found Shutterbug, software for designing web-
based slide shows. This has turned out to be a terrific program and I used it for
our entire website -- and I haven't even created a slideshow yet!! The free
download version covers each photo with a watermark, allowing you to build your
site and even launch it (with the a built-in FTP procedure), before forking over
$39.95 to buy the product. Their support is phenomenal. I have emailed them
four times with questions, and each time their answers have been prompt, to the
point, and easy to implement. I can't recommend this product highly enough.
This website was created with the following:
15" MacBook laptop running OS X ver. 10.4.11
Shutterbug 2.5.6 from www.xtralean.com
The photos are by both Mark and Emily Fagan using Nikon D40 cameras
(Mark uses the 55-200 lens and I use the 18-50 lens. That way when we take photos of the same thing, side by side, they aren't
identical shots!)
The website has been a blast to put together. It is definitely time-consuming, and lately Mark has taken to calling me a "Pooter
Head." Our little granddaughter referred to the computer as a "pooter" a few times when we last saw her, and that seems an apt
word for it. So here's the best to you, from the Pooter Head!
--Emily