As this page bears testimony to, your new website is now up and running and has been designed to make the most of current server technology.   Peter Evans maintained the previous site and together with the development team, we have arrived at something new which we hope you will find useful in your career and your development.

We began by upgrading the current hosting package to include support for a system called MySQL.  This allowed us to build the site from the ground up to hopefully offer material and content that you will find of use and of interest.

The front page belies much of the work that goes on behind the scenes.  When I first began to build websites, I updated the pages manually each time a piece was needed.  This was very time consuming and these so-called ‘static html’ pages soon became outdated and the process of archiving became a laborious task as the page count grew.

Size counts
Web surfers are a demanding bunch.  If your page fails to load within five seconds, they will go elsewhere.  In the same way that remote controls for TV sets allowed viewers to ‘channel surf’ in the ad-breaks, Broadband access has made the world a little less patient.  With this in mind, all the images on the site are optimised for delivery over the web so that they load quickly.

New generation
By far the biggest change since I have been involved, database-driven websites have now come of age and you will be hard-pressed to find any large corporation still clinging to static html sites.  I have used Macromedia Flash sparingly and only for specific purpose such as the interactive map and the patient services menu bar. I use MySQL to deliver pages from eight databases that will store and archive every item or story that is ever published on the site.

You and your website
The strengths (and weaknesses) of any publication is its content.  It is with regard to this that we ask you, our membership to contribute and feed into the website.  Something such as a laboratory tip or technique can be shared very easily between members with a quick email to the website.  Please take some time to browse the site and let us know what you like or don’t like.  The website will be what you make it. As Hilda Ogden was once heard to say, “The world’s your lobster”.

Peter Gough
IMPT Website Developer
website@impt.org