Archive for August 2013

Gannett: Week 9

This summer’s internship is over, but the project isn’t finished. They’re close. The only obstacle preventing launching the new website Monday is transferring the domain name, which requires OSU to review some paperwork.

The current estimate of The Lantern’s launch is August 30, during the first football game.

This week:

  • added categories for photos and Buckeye TV
  • uploaded the classified section
  • uploaded the interactives directory, including timeline stories made by Liz Young and myself.
  • wrote documentation for editors on:
    • posting new stories
    • uploading images
    • creating users
  • transferred some old stories from the old website to the new
  • handed the rest of the transfers off to Jay
  • set up email blast signup and un-signup forms
  • gave OCIO the email blast template for testing; received praise from our OCIO contact about the email template tool I wrote.
  • posted the Involvement Fair ad
  • various small CSS tweaks for readability and style
  • fixed the search bar’s placeholder text not actually being a placeholder

I’ve turned in documentation and the list of outstanding issues, and will be gathering my work into a portfolio.

This internship has been a tremendous learning experience. I’ve picked up some PHP and Js, have expanded my knowledge of CSS, adopted Bootstrap, learned some of the ins and outs of WordPress, and gained new appreciation of the planning fallacy.

Outside of this project, I’ve been putting CSS skills to work on creating (as-yet-unpublished) themes for the Dropplets blogging platform. I also have some projects planned that would use my new PHP knowledge. And once Bootstrap 3 settles into a release format, I plan on creating some themes for that.