Site Information - Kris & Cindy
January 2004
Technologies
Custom built content management system created with PHP and MySQL. Leverages include files and other components to store all HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML feed information in the database and not on the server itself. Site is fully customizable (even page layouts) via an admin web interface and new pages can be added without uploading a single file.
First of my sites to be all CSS based and not using any tables.
Custom built photo album system (PHP and MySQL) with online admin tools and categorization features.
A few pages with AJAX that pull in news and weather data.
About Kris & Cindy
This site has come to mean quite a lot to me, personally. It has become somewhat of an online journal and scrapbook for all the special moments and memories that my wife and I have shared over the years. And as our marriage and our lives carry on over a continuous journey - like future trips to Maui - I enjoy being able to expand this site out and watch it grow, too.
How It Started
We were married in September, 2003, and it has been by far the happiest day of our lives together. The following week and after everything had started to settle (especially after the nerves and planning to make it so special), we were able to savor the moment and go through all the wonderful photos that our friends and family had taken during that blessed event.
It wasn't until mid-November before we received the proofs from the wedding photographer. It was like reliving the moment all over again, showing off the photos to all our family and friends that were there, taking their orders for prints, keeping track of who wanted what. It felt really good to have that feeling again.
By January, everyone's photos were ready, so we had the joy of dropping them off and seeing the full sized photos and people's eyes when they put them in their favorite picture frames. Everyone was passing out wallets to friends that hadn't made it to the wedding, and commented on how cute the girls in the bridal party were and how it was the best wedding they had ever been to. And then there was the bridal album. Wow.
We also were able to purchase the proofs from the wedding photographer, so we could have every photo that was taken to keep for our own. Me, being the techie that I am, wanted to scan all 400 photos onto my PC and have a digital scrapbook. That led to the thought of putting them on the Ciolino family website with the previous ones that were posted in September. And that ultimately led to the thought of creating a new site, just for us.
After putting them up on the Ciolinos site, I almost started to feel like I could easily monopolize that site and have it lose the "big family" feel. The last thing I wanted to do was to make it all about Cindy and I. The solution, create a site that was dedicated to Cindy and I. :)
History
The site has gone through a few different structural changes over it's existance. It started with just a main section, details from our wedding and our honeymoon trip to Hawaii. We added another section when we went to Maui two years later, and then another was started (not really finished) from a short cruise we took to the Bahamas.
After the second trip to Maui, it was clear I was running out of room in the main navigation bar and I decided to group out our vacations into their own section. Prior to my Maui site being launched, I had started a Hawaii section to this site, which has mostly been drawfed by Ka'anapali Dreamin'.
Features
The most crowning achievement and personal satisfaction of this site is all the effort and energy I put into designing a full content management system to create and manage all of the site's content and functions. Everything from managing CSS files, creating new pages from the comfort of my web browser, to managing data feeds and JavaScript all being stored in a database was a blast to create. But unless you're reading this, you'd never know it.
The site is broken down into different sections, and listed below.
General - This section features general information about us, including our rabbits, a timeline and some of our travels.
Hawaii - A small little section with a few notes on Hawaii, including news and weather updates. Fell off a little once I started my Maui site.
Wedding - A section featuring details from our wedding, including the accomodations for the ceremony and reception, the guest list and the list of dances from the reception.
Honeymoon - Details of our first of many trips to Hawaii. Features a list of activities, Cindy's trip journal, and photos.
Vacations - As we started sharing more on the site, vacations became a popular theme. There are details of two of our trips to Maui as well as our cruise to the Bahamas. It's a little behind right now.
Blog - The newest addition to the site, published with Blogger. Something I wish I had more time to update more often.
Common Elements - Each section, while different, does have some comments elements to it, by design. There is a Photos section within each, that shares pictures that both Cindy and I have taken. There is a Links page for each section that shares other online resources and websites related to things in that section. And lastly, there is an Extras page to cover anything that didn't fit in other pages.
Photo Site Map - One of my favorite things about this site is the Photo Site Map. Each page on the site has at least one photo associated with it, and so when it came time to create a master site map page, I thought it would fun to use that to help associate each page in the overall structure of the site. I think it has a nice collage like feel to it, don't you?
What's Next
Blogging more often and getting caught up with some of the sections that have fallen out of date, such as the vacations list.
I'd like to integrate the photo section with my account on Flickr whenever I get time, and I can see that being fun to integrate with my content management system.