New look for main website

Online since 1999, MMEP gets an updated look in 2012

Its been along time coming, and it’s finally here. I spent a couple of
years of working around a defective web authoring program that I used
for many years, which caused me many headaches. Then of course the
frames style of the website, in use for many years, became a major
problem in website structure vis a vis navigation and search. Then the
new defacto standard of CMS – Content Management System, such as
Wordpress, with many new website adopting it, was a worrying factor for
me. What to do??? I already have a ton of popular and relevant content.
So I approached a web guru friend of mine for some guidance, he
suggested a CMS as well.

Last year, I started experimenting with
various CMS, Joomla, WordPress, etc, B2Evo and such, which meant
learning a new programs and their functions. All in all, a neat and fun
experience, but a very time consuming endeavor. I saw the benefits of
using CMS like the majority of the other website – mainly, a major
commercialization step, but having so much content already online, and
not interested in making money in itself, I saw that CMS was going to be
a major laborious project, to import all my current content into that
framework.

So after much discussion with my web guru friend, we
went back and started looking at good old’ HTML, but getting rid of
frames using PHP and CSS. This gives us a uniform look and feel, and be
more user, and search engine friendly. So I finally decided to maintain
the current structure, a simple structure that has served us so well for
many years. However, it cost me quite a bit to get a proper coding
done, as do not have this expertise. So I waited many months, until I
had enough money from the meager advertising earnings to go ahead with
the project.

The result, I think, is exactly what I was after.
Not reinventing the wheel, or alienating you, my visitors, yet making major
strides towards being a more accessible resource website. Being an
eternal optimistic, I should have known it was going to be far more
laborious than anticipated, but in the end, the main areas of the
website, the content laden pages were all gone through, text verified
for accuracy and flow. New information put in. All links cleaned up.
Basically a major refit!

Not going to CMS has allowed me to not
be overwhelmed by the entire project – which was a very serious threat,
by not being forced to convert all my content right away to the new
format. This is why you will sometimes see some webpages in a “simple”
format, however not in frames. Over time I will convert the popular
pages to the new format. I hope to also carry out some other structural
changes once funding allows it, these however should not affect your
visit in general.

Thanks for you patience, continued loyalty, and participation in the project.