WMATA Breda Rehab 3176 at McLean
McLean, VA
January 20, 2015
After over four years of not adding content to Oren’s Transit Page, I’m excited to welcome everyone to check out not only what has been sitting in my photo queue for all these years, but also my redesigned website! I hope you like the changes and new features.
I originally launched Oren’s Transit Page in September of 2000. I had learned some basic HTML and scanned about 200 photos that I had taken from my travels to that point. Over the years, the site grew to include several thousand photos, but little changed on the backend, and everything remained coded by hand each time there was an update. I was always more interested in adding new content than rebuilding the interface to bring it up to modern standards. I was also being hosted on a server that did not support PHP. However, eventually, things reached the point where an overhaul was needed, and my host had moved me to a PHP compatible server.
The site now runs on WordPress and a variety of “plugins” that developers have created. Perhaps most notably, NextGen Gallery is now being used to organize and manage all the various different photo galleries. The move to WordPress will also allow me to upload content faster than before, as photos can come straight off my camera and be uploaded minutes later to the Uncaptioned & Unsorted Photo Gallery. This gallery is a “holding area” that will allow you to peruse and see photos that have yet to receive captions or be filed in to the appropriate gallery within the site. I’ll share some of the details about what the new content includes tomorrow.
It was also suggested to me that I create a space to tell some of the stories behind the photos, in addition to the simple captions that appeared on the old version of the site. This is the purpose of “The Travelogue”, the section you are reading right now. The Travelogue will also be used to host other features, which will be explained further in a separate post later on today. You are able to comment on posts to The Travelogue, creating a place where you, the site visitor, can interact with the content that I am sharing on the Internet for everyone to see.
Finally, Oren’s Transit Page now as a Facebook page that you are invited to “like” if you are a Facebook user. The Facebook page will have links to the content that appears on The Travelogue and other site information that will be delivered straight to your Facebook news feed. There will also be a special Facebook Page only feature called “Foto Friday”, where I will share some of my non-transit photography that was featured in the “Skyline Terminal” on the old website design.
As is the case with all projects of this nature, there may be some bugs in the website coding or choices I made in the design phase are not as pleasing to your eyes as they were to mine. Please contact me if you have any suggestions, comments, complaints, or questions.
It’s good to be back. All aboard!