another editor on board

As part of an on-going effort to reduce my workload and perform advanced activities for the RASC Toronto Centre, I am trying to off-load some of the web editing chores. Fortunately, RASC TC web site uses a Content Management System and I've found some victims, er, volunteers!

Of course, a key feature of a CMS is that it allows multiple authors to contribute. It only makes sense that the people who have a portfolio then "own" site content and therefore they should do their own posting. Then the content will better reflect what they want to say and the whole updating process will be faster.

I'm prepared to train-up people. I've 3 in mind...

John is the Telescope Loan chair. To date, when he's received a new piece of equipment, changed a configuration, or something to that effect, he's asked me to apply the updates. Moving forward, I want him to add and edit the content of the Telescope Loan pages.

We had talked about this for some time but then it fell off our collective radar. A couple of weeks back I got fired up again about this--I can't remember what triggered it. Regardless, John and I targetted this Sunday (long before Guy and Sara decided to extend the Solar Observing...).

The day started with me heading over to John's house. After he served up a cup o' Joe, I briefly explained the core features of the CMS. Using his home computer, I created and configured an account for John. We created a test article. And then I had him build a real article, for the Centre's new 114mm reflector telescope. We even uploaded an image.

Speaking of images, we talked briefly about scaling. I suggested the Picnik web site. But then, after performing a test scan on his Brother MFC unit, we stumbled across the Microsoft Photo Editor, the discontinued app thrown in with Office XP. Great little program. I helped John toss a shortcut on the desktop for it. He told his son Michael. They were both pretty happy about that.

John did great. It's fantastic having another person on the team.