Before we left on our travels I studied a lot of travelers' websites. Some were beautifully put together, and I couldn't imagine how
anyone managed to maintain a professional website while cycling, boating or RVing their way around the world. I was a software
engineer for ten years and wrote a lot of code in the ancient languages of Fortran, C, dBase and SQL, but I had no idea how to
build a web page. I emailed the folks who had the best websites and got all kinds of info about what they used. Most used some
version of Microsoft Front Page -- the version depended on how long ago they left home! We left home before I figured out what
would be best for us to use.
While sitting in Chanute, Kansas for a month, we had the rare treat of free wifi
accessible from inside our trailer (normally we have to drive somewhere and either
sit in the truck or on a park bench or patronize a coffee shop in order to get on the
Internet). I poked around and found Shutterbug, software for designing web-based
slide shows. This has turned out to be a terrific program and I used it for our entire
website -- and I haven't even created a slideshow yet!! The free download version
covers each photo with a watermark, allowing you to build your site and even
launch it (with the a built-in FTP procedure), before forking over $39.95 to buy the
product. Their support is phenomenal. I have emailed them many times with
questions, and each time their answers have been prompt, to the point, and easy
to implement. I can't recommend this product highly enough.
This website was created with the following:
13" MacBook laptop running OS X ver. 10.4.11
Shutterbug 2.5.6 from www.xtralean.com
In August, 2011 we upgraded a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.7.2 ("Lion") and Shutterbug ver. 3.0.8
The photos are by both Mark and Emily Fagan using Nikon D40 cameras (Mark uses the 55-200 lens and I use the 18-55 lens.
That way when we take photos of the same thing, side by side, they aren't identical shots!)
In November, 2008, we started using a Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera for situations where it was too risky to carry the
bigger cameras.
In August, 2011, we replaced one of the Nikon D40's with a Nikon D5100 with an 18-55 VR lens and 55-300 VR lens. The D40
had seen so much use (50,000 or so photos) that the paint on the buttons was worn off. We also replaced the Lumix point-and-
shoot with a Nikon Coolpix S3100 because it is truly pocket sized.
The website has been a blast to put together. It is definitely time-consuming, and for a long time Mark took to calling me a "Pooter
Head." This name comes from our then-4-year-old granddaughter who referred to the computer as a "pooter." That seems an
apt word for it. So here's the best to you, from the Pooter Head!
--Emily