How To Stay In Touch OR The Doings of the Mid-Pacific Regional Computer Committee
By: Paul Huntley, April 7, 2001
Email List: tica-mp@yahoogroups.com
Like most regions in TICA, we here in the Mid-Pacific have started our
own email list. We are using the
yahoogroups free service, and for
those who are familiar with
yahoogroups, search for group name
"tica-mp". If you are not familiar with this service, that
is okay. It is very easy to subscribe, simply send an email to:
tica-mp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
If you are still having trouble, drop me an email (to
paulh@lunarcoons.com)
and I will be happy to help you get things sorted out.
Once you have subscribed, you will automatically receive the welcome
message from our Regional Director, Pamela Barrett.
Web Site: www.tica-mp.org
The Mid-Pacific Computer Committee has also been busy working on a
regional website. We are finished with the concept and planning phase
of the project, and are busy with the implementation.
There are basically three areas that can cost money when putting up a
website: web design services, web hosting services, and domain name
registration.
Web design services are a fancy way of describing the actual building of
the site. This is where the actual html coding comes in, but it also
includes things like graphics design and layout design. There are
companies that specialize in this sort of service, and their fees can
range to several hundreds of dollars per hour, or it may be contracted
on a per job basis. Large corporations maintain entire departments to
accomplish the design and maintenance of a professional corporate
e-business website.
We here in the Mid-Pacific don't have quite so lofty a goal. We just
want to put up a web site that will contain information useful to the
TICA members that reside in the region. It will be a good way for Pam
to communicate with the online component of our membership, and can
serve as a directory to our clubs and our members. It will also be a
good way to showcase our members and their cats.
Also, we are fortunate to have Tina Dodge and Barb Petersen working on
the web design of our site. Professionally, Tina manages a web design
group for a large telecommunications company. She is well aware of what
constitutes user friendly and usefully presented content. She also runs
a side business, which provides web design consulting. Barb is no
stranger to the internet, either. She and her husband John have been
involved in most aspects of the internet since its infancy. We are
very fortunate that both of these folks are donating their services to
the region.
Web hosting services involves where the website is actually, physically
located. Many Internet Service Providers (ISP's) charge their customers
a fee to store their websites on the computers that belong to the ISP.
This covers the costs incurred by the ISP company for the computers, the
modems, the technical support, and the connection to the rest of the
internet, the electricity, the building, etc. A typical charge for a
moderate sized website, for an average ISP, can be twenty or twenty-five
dollars per month. As an example, Gloria's TICA website,
www.tica.org,
is hosted by a company called magick.net, and I would guess that this is
close to what TICA pays for that valuable service.
For the Mid-Pacific region's website, again, we are fortunate. Henry
Franzoni, a Mid-Pacific TICA member and Mr. Pam Barrett to those that
know him, is kindly donating this service to the region for the next
three years or more. Again, the region will not be paying for the
computer, or the disk storage, and we will not be paying a monthly
charge to keep our website on the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week.
The last component of this project is the domain name registration. The
Mid-Pacific Computer Committee (MPCC) has voted to buy a domain name for
our website. The name we have selected is tica-mp.org.
While most of the other TICA regions already have their own website, we
will, to my knowledge, be the first region to have our own domain. The
MPCC members also donated their own money to pay for the registration of
our domain name.
The company that the government has charged with registering domains on
the internet is called Network Solutions. They charge $35 per year to
register a domain, and distribute the necessary codes so that anybody in
the world with internet access can "see" our site. The initial
registration period is for two years, and that is why our committee
donated $80.
Stay tuned to the regional mailing list for important announcements
about the debut of the website, and also just to stay in touch!
[ Top ] [ Back to "News" Page ]
Regional Awards Committee -- RAC -- Needs
Your Support, Donations, and a Minute For This Ballot
PREVIOUS YEAR'S BALLOT -- DO NOT USE!
