TILife Gets a Fresh New Look

I'm always hovering in the background but seldom submit any new copy to the Editor in Chief of Thousand Island Life. I used to make websites for a living, but I have moved onto other things, but more of that further down the page. I have been involved with TILife from the early days. With the help of Susie Smith and Ian Coristine, we have made two major upgrades to this website. This month marks the third, albeit, this one is mostly cosmetic.

For the first rendition, created in 2008, we published on a platform called DotNetNuke. Ian Coristine and I worked very closely on this project. Every little detail was nitpicked down to the final pixel. Susie and her great team of authors and editors published hundreds of articles in the 10 years that we used DotNetNuke. Marceli, Susie's husband, would use Photoshop and create a new "Hero Image" for the top of every issue and I would assist in going live with every issue. Eventually, that platform rendered itself obsolete and we moved to Ghost.

Ghost is purpose built for publishing articles, allowing Susie to spend more time creating and less time fighting with technology, and Marceli was able to retire from his monthly Photoshop gig. When we moved to Ghost, I was able to create the new site with less input from Ian. All I had to do was show him what I had and he would sign off on it. Perhaps it’s because I could always have him in the back of my mind when choosing colours, fonts, spacing, and so on. In the end, we developed a very elegant look that paid homage to the original. With that same mindset, I embarked on the update presented today.

If you go way back, my original career was in the recreational marine business. I grew tired of it after 15 years, changed careers in the late 1990s and got into website development. By 2020, I was pretty burned out from that too, and did what I said I would never do and I got back into the marine business. In 2022, I completely uprooted, moved to Muskoka, and took a job as a Marina Manager.

Being a marina manager in the Muskoka Region keeps me pretty busy. In the early Spring we start opening up, we launch 350 boats, and then summer hits. In the fall, we put away another 350 boats and then I get a few months to recharge my batteries . . . and then we do it all again. The winter recharge is supposed to afford me time to delve into artistic pursuits but that never seems to happen, so this year, I updated TI Life.

TI Life was suffering from a few glitches. Most notable was that paging didn't work, making it impossible to access some of the older articles. Now, one might think that I could just fix the glitch and go back to learning guitar, but no, I decided a whole new theme was needed. When websites age and start glitching, it is often best just to start again. Also, website development is now done using a mobile-first development strategy. Even though I am developing on a computer, the site first must work on a mobile device and then scale to work on a large monitor. The first time I made the TI Life Ghost theme, I would build for large screens and then scale down to fit on the phone. Both of these development strategies produce similar results, but path to get there is vastly different.

Did I mention that I am no longer a website developer? I am now a marina manager. Now I use a computer for Email, word processing, and crunching numbers. My skills as a developer are nearly forgotten, so what I thought would take a few days took me the better part of a month. I remembered the fundamentals, the technology, and the platform, but I had forgotten so much. I would look at some code, I would understand it, but then I struggled to write it.

To get the project off the ground, I had to start with an existing theme, so I went to the Ghost website and went through the multitude of options available. I settled on one called Liebling, shown below.

To make Liebling work for TI Life, I would need to change colours, fonts, spacing, and so on. I was pretty happy with the font used on TI Life, Ian liked it, so I felt strongly that I should use that same font. Changing font is easy right? Well, yes, and no. I had to re-learn SCSS, I had to learn how to embed the fonts into the site so that I would not need to rely on Google Fonts. To get the font working, they needed to be converted to WOFF . . . what the hell is that? Enter ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence in case you don't already know that. Back when I was a website developer, if I wanted to know all about WOFF, I would Google into the wee hours of the morning. Now all I do is say to ChatGPT "What is WOFF, how do I convert my TTF fonts, I am using Libre Baskerville and I am on Linux?" ChatGPT then gives me a concise answer along with the commands to run in my terminal, and in about 30 minutes, I know all I need to know about WOFF and the site begins to take shape.

If you look at the photo above showing the Liebling theme, you will see that there are three articles on each row. My old buddy Ian was pretty sure 4 was a better number. So I had to figure out how to do that in SCSS. ChatGPT to the rescue. I use custom software for sending notifications and another one for story comments. I use a custom layout for the Events pages and another for the Communities and Stories+, Terms, Back Issues, and more. I was reminded just how much work went into making this site but it was fun and Artificial Intelligence really helped along the way. You have to be careful though, it can definitely make mistakes and steer you in the wrong direction. The key is to know what to ask and to realize that its not infallible.

I am enjoying my new life for the most part, but if anything is going to make me quit this gig early it is the snow. This winter has been absolutely punishing. We have had more snow fall this winter than I have seen in my lifetime, making my quiet season anything but. Well, it is certainly quiet, isolating even, but it is exhausting. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I long for the busy season to start. Maybe I should just go back to making websites.

By Mike Cox, TI Life's IT Magician

Hailing from North Western Ontario, Mike Cox spent his time working at his family tourist business in many different capacities. Having a penchant for technology, he bought his first computer in 1995 and started developing web sites for marina operators.

Mike now resides in the Muskokas with his wife, where he manages a large marina. He also is well known in the Ottawa region playing his ukulele, and in December 2018, Mike did a humanitarian trek on a motorbike in Patagonia. We wrote about it in April 2018, Mike Cox Rides Again.

Editor's Note: Each month, this Editor calls on this IT Magician to help, repair, and fix our wonderful online magazine. Join me in thanking him as he has made TI Life look great once again, and I know Ian Coristine would be just as happy as he was when Mike created the first edition.

Comment received after publication:

"Hat's Off to Mike Cox! Mike, what a great article. You are right about the snow. You have gotten more than your share. Thanks for all you do to make TI Life a success." John Stencell, Kingston