Irish Sea Shipping
The Online Shipping Magazine
www.irishseashipping.com
Finished With Engines:
Updates to Cease After Almost 20 Years
Irish Sea Shipping – The Online Shipping Magazine (www.irishseashipping.com) will cease to be updated after August 10, 2014.
The web site had its origins as a text news file known as "Mersey Shipping News" on the UK Forums of CompuServe first appearing in autumn / winter 1994-5. It subsequently transferred to the internet and became a web site in its own right during 1995. Since then it evolved over the years into Irish Sea Shipping.
Between January and mid-August 2010 updates were suspended to allow a review of the site to take place in the light of changes in the use of the internet the growing number of shipping news sites combined with the potential threat of software obsolescence.
Following this review regular updates recommenced with emphasis on photographic content. However, the prospect of software obsolescence has continued to loom large. In recent weeks this threat is becoming a reality. Therefore, a decision has been made to cease updating Irish Sea Shipping.
Why has this decision been made?
Time and software obsolescence have finally caught up with Irish Sea Shipping. After the update on July 10 intermittent technical problems have been experienced with the Front Page 2003 editing software which has prevented the software uploading to the web site in its normal manner. It is not certain as to what has caused this problem, but information on the Microsoft Web site indicates that support for Front Page 2003 ended in 2013 and it may well be that a recent Windows system update has caused some incompatibility to develop.
Microsoft Expressions Web software has been investigated on several occasions as a possible alternative. However, this software’s lack of logical navigation structure would make conversion of Irish Sea Shipping such a mammoth task as to be impractical. Your webmaster has converted a small web site operated for a third party from Front Page 2003 to Expressions and the amount of work is considerable – converting Irish Sea Shipping would be a full time job which would take months to accomplish. It would also appear from the Microsoft Web site that Expressions Web has now become free ware and is no longer actively supported. Microsoft has confirmed they will not be producing any further traditional web editing software either.
Switching to other web editing software is not practical as again the site would have to be reconstructed from scratch which would involve an immense amount of work possibly more than converting to Expressions Web which itself appears to be heading towards obsolescence.
What will happen to the Irish Sea Shipping web site?
The Irish Sea Shipping web site represents a massive commitment of time not just on the part of your web master – but also those of its many contributors.
The site will be maintained as a resource until the end of July 2015 which should enable anyone to save any resources from the site for private use and allow the web site to exist into its twentieth year.
During August 2014 some changes will be made to the web site. It is likely that the What’s New or Home Page will contain details of recent updates to your webmaster’s Smug Mug site. Keep checking www.irishseashipping.com for details.
From August 2015 the web space used by Irish Sea Shipping will probably be utilised for another transport / industrial history related web project. Announcements regarding future changes will be made at various locations on the web including the Irish Sea Ships Yahoo Group.
What will happen to the Irish Sea Ships Yahoo Group?
This interactive group will continue to operate as normal and members of Irish Sea Shipping are encouraged to continue to post, share and discuss news as usual. Regular visitors to the Irish Sea Shipping web site who are not already members are encouraged to join.
Your web master will continue to provide news updates and news links on the Irish Sea Ships Yahoo Group on a regular basis.
Contributions of photographs, especially those of a newsworthy nature, can continue to be made by contributors directly uploading material to the Irish Sea Ships Yahoo Photo Galleries and file areas.
JHL Photography @ Smug Mug – www.jhluxton.co.uk
Your webmaster’s on line presence will continue with regular updates of photographs of shipping, other transport, industrial history and related topics from his cameras.
Removing the need to update the Irish Sea Shipping web site will mean that more time can be used to develop the Smug Mug site. At present there has not been time to do this justice.
Smug Mug operates without software installed on the computer and software obsolescence cannot become an issue.
Links to new updates on the Smug-Mug web site will also be posted to several relevant transport, history and other news groups of which your webmaster is a member as well as to the home page of Irish Sea Shipping.
Only original material from your web master will be hosted on www.jhluxton.co.uk. For those who have supported Irish Sea Shipping by submitting photographs in the past may I suggest that you either use the free Flickr service or Smug Mug for your photographs? A variety of Smug Mug packages at different prices bands are available; use the following referral link to set up a Smug Mug account: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=pOWO9Hghz08xs
A Big Thank You to Contributors and Visitors!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to the web site over the years from various locations around the Irish and Celtic Seas as well as from further afield.
Your support has been particularly invaluable the web site would have not flourished with out it.
One of the pleasures of running Irish Sea Shipping – The Online Shipping Magazine has been the development of personal and electronic friendships long before the term “social-networking” became a buzz word!
Irish Sea Shipping – The Online Shipping Magazine has taken up a large portion of my life but it has been a highly enjoyable experience thanks to the support of many individuals.
I hope that you have enjoyed Irish Sea Shipping – The Online Shipping Magazine as much as I have enjoyed compiling it.
See you all at JHL Photography @ Smug Mug - www.jhluxton.co.uk soon!
John H. Luxton
August 10, 2024
Email: [email protected]
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