I'm feeling well and truly netted














The old Fairlynch site hosted by Devon Museums has vanished, just as I was getting the hang of it

I last mentioned my involvement with Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum at
http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-brochure-for-budleigh-salterton.html referring to the work I'd done on the website at http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch

Well, the website is back online after what was for me a mysterious blip. But it took me some time to recognise it.

The helpful explanation from Devon Museums, which runs the site, was that the changes had proved necessary because there were a number of problems with the old site that they just could not rectify in the Joomla system that underpinned it.

"In addition," I was told, "we now have no funding for Devon Museums Group or for the website, hosting or technical support, so we needed to make it more sustainable and also generate income if possible."

It seemed to me initially that much of my work to add extra images and text for the various collections at Fairlynch Museum had simply disappeared into cyberspace, including a page of links to other museums, sponsors and similar institutions.

But I may be wrong. There's a training session next month and I've clearly got a lot to learn about the website's sustainability and income generation facilities, and maybe even something about Joomla.

"All this has been built into the new site, and so much more - with an iPhone app to follow," I've been promised.

An exciting new era? Or a rather confusing development which is proving just too much for a simple blogger like me.

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