Student enquiry on FrontPage

[Andrew McCarthy]

I am a first year student at the University of Nottingham reading 'management
studies' and have been set a project which I was hoping individuals here
might be able to kindly assist me with.

The work is based on a case study for a fictional firm named ‘ActiVenture’
which specialises in the provision of outdoor team-building events for the
employee selection, staff training and management development markets, as
well as the facilitation of specialist adventure pursuits for groups of
individuals and corporate hospitality. The company is currently very small
(three employees) and thus looking expand and as part of this process is
hoping to develop a website. I need to detail the specific steps (and related
expenditures) that would be undertaken, including information on its hosting,
content, design, interactive features, maintenance and competitive
differentiation.

As I have been researching the topic and talking with representative from
real firms similar to mine I have come across MS FrontPage. I only have a
basic understanding of computing, and had not heard of this before. I was
considering using it for my project as the basis for developing the website
(this is all hypothetical mind, I am not actually going to make it), and was
wondering if as an everyday user you would recommend it, and suggest its
possible benefits and flaws? For instance is it user friendly, is it suitable
for a small business, are there alternative website design packages you have
found to be better/worse etc?

I assume most of the people in this discussion have access to the software
and so could offer me an informed opinion, and I would hugely appreciate any
other information or advice you can give me related to MS FrontPage

If the details I have provided are too vague or if you require further
information then a full outline of the task is available at the website:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/nexus/Nexus_Documents/UG/N11101/CSR-2005.doc

Alternatively you can contact me directly:
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)

All help is gratefully received, thankyou for taking time to read this post,
and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,

Andrew McCarthy

 

[Anne Troy]

The only thing I see wrong with FrontPage as a small business tool is that
there are some people who simply should not be doing web design, and this
enables them. LOL.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[clintonG]

Well I got to give you credit for creative begging ;-) but several questions
are left unanswered noting I don't have the time to read the rambling
specifications of some pimp working for a university who apparently has
dumped a very sophisticated assignment on a freshman bringing back the
memories and lessons learned when I too was a freshman.

Trust me, as I speak from experience. My work was stolen on three different
occassions by the pimps in the universities and these pigs are everywhere so
be forwarned and you will be forarmed. On one 'assingment' I lost over
$150,000 that would have been awarded to me and what would have been several
million dollars in punitive awards simply because I was not informed and did
not meet the requirements as I am trying to inform you of in this reply. I
just hope your mind has not been polluted yet and understand what I am
taking my time to tell you is serious business and is the way the real world
works.

If you want to go through college working for pimps who will take your ideas
and your work and make big money while your left holding your d!ck in your
hand its your life to live. If you want to get smart real fast read on...

Lesson One:

Copyright everything you can afford to do when told to produce and hand over
these types of assignments to the pimps. Borrow money from your family and
friends if you must but get it done when the assignments look and feel like
the real world. Whenh the pimps protest and threaten to flunk you -- and
they will -- stand fast. Put it in the record immediately by filing a formal
complaint. In fact, never attend one of their meetings in this regard
without a witness you can trust not to turn on you. Do not listen to anybody
that tells you students can not copyright their work. That is a lie. You can
even call the US Copyright Office and ask. In fact you should cal them
because then you will also understand what I am explaining is credible. Most
of what I am telling you is only known to the lawyers (most of whom are also
pimps) and most of what I am explainign is also only known by their victims
like me who had to learn this the hard way.

You have to pay a small fee to record your copyright but if you do not do so
you will not be allowed to enter the federal courts to demand your rights be
preserved. Secondly, if you do not pay the fee and file the record within 90
days of making the copyrighted work made known to the public (in any
context) and you pay the fee sometime later you can still enter the federal
courts but you lose any rights to claim punitive damages including lawyer
fees and other compensation. Failing to meet this criteria is how I lost the
big money I deserved. I have already proven the pimps stole my work when I
was a student (architectrual drawings they used to construct a building I
proposed and designed) but I was lied to, misled and trusted by those I
later learned were also pimps in the colleges and universities -- almost
all of them -- honest it really is this bad -- so I can now only recoup
$14,000 in architectural design fees because I did not follow the rules the
so-called justice system requires. The lawyers want that kind of money just
to get started filing documents with the courts. Since there is no way to
get punitive awards or lawyer fees back it would be foolish for me to
proceed even though I would be awarded the $14,000 after spending what to
get the courts to say so? Get it dude?

There is another catch to Lesson One. You can not use ANY resource that
belongs to the school to create your works and ANY means ANY. Get it? The
point is, you have to decide what assignment is going to be worth protecting
your interests with copyright and when you do make that distinction you MUST
use your own computer in your own apartment with your own electricity and
wipe your butt with your own tp. It is that strict. Get it? Give them one
excuse and they can own your @ss. This is how the real world operates and as
I said I learned every bit of this the hard way noting I had actually met
this requirement as I had my own business and my own studio when I attended
school but I got burned on the copyright and timely filing requirements
because I trusted the wrong people and was lied to.

Lesson Two: Front Page 2003 Academic Edition can be acquired very
inexpensively through any school bookstore. You may have to order it but
Microsoft makes many of their products available to students and instructors
very inexpensively. If they give you any sh!t you can order through any
bookstore if you show student credentials which Microsoft requires. You can
even buy academic online but I would not do that if the pimps at your school
still force you to use your Social Security number as your student ID.
Furthermore, FrontPage is used to layout and publish the pages for a
website. If you do not need to actually create a website forget about
FrontPage at this point in time. A better application for this project may
be Microsoft Publisher.

Lesson Three: study, study, study...

Business Plan Archive
http://www.businessplanarchive.org/

Hosting
http://www.hostingtech.com/

Typical planning considerations...
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/columns/writerfp.html

SitePoint Content & Forums is an excellent resource for web business
issues...
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243311
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/make-money-content-site
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/successful-development

google: website business plans

The Business Plan Archive is an invaluable resource and the other URLs are
some of the stuff I dug up from my own research. Now go get em' dude, find
a beautiful wife, make some money, have a family and take care of them
(parents especially) and never forget the world is full of deceitful pimps
who will lie, cheat, and steal from you given any opportunity to do so.

Especially any of the so-called 'civic leaders' as it was Robert
Greenstreet, the Dean of the UW--Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban
Planning from whom I learned one of the most important lessons in my life as
it was he that was instrumental in the theft of my drawings and proposals to
further his own career. The bigger the title the bigger the rat. This is the
way the real world works freshman. Good luck, best wishes and God speed...


<%= Clinton Gallagher
METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://metromilwaukee.com/
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/

 

[Andrew McCarthy]

Ok, thanks for the replies so far. Particularly those of you who contacted me
directly via e-mail. Does anyone else have information to add?