Site info  

On this page:
 2008-09-02   background   copyright   update frequency   technology   browser support   country statistics  

Having spent uncounted number of hours to design the new site it became clear that the project might never complete. To build the site from ground up using completely new principles and new technology (including the data conversion from the earlier site) is project too massive for one man. So it is now time to make new plans. I will continue to develop the current site and launch new features based on it. Gradually the site and its technology will change to fullfill the current and the future needs. I assume that the results will be reached faster on this direction and the amount of work required will be tolerable.

The main goals of the future development on the cat show photo galleries are

• To improve searchability and browsability: better entry page, more ways to search, no need to jump from index pages to photo pages and back. This means for example the possibility to browse the photos based on the cat color or the cat individual.
• To lower the accessibility barrier: give more information for those that are not experts with the secrets of the cat show world. For example provide clear breed name in addition to the breed EMS code.
• To improve the photo viewer: the current photo viewer is clumsy if the screen is small. The photo viewer is subject to complete redesign.
• To keep it simple: the goal is to keep the appearance of the photo galleries clean and the browser requirements low. I'm not a fan of heavy web applications that take ages to load and often appear not to work properly on the browser of your choice. The new site will appear simple and will be focused on the same thing as the old site: the content.
• To have such a technical structure that the system can be maintained and developed for at least three years without a need for complete rewrite.

This site, www.heikkisiltala.com, is Heikki Siltala's personal web site. The site was opened at October 1994 and has been evolving ever since. This site exists mostly due to the need to express myself. You can contact the author by sending email to webmaster [at] heikkisiltala [dot] com.

This site and the content of the site are © Heikki Siltala 1994-2008. All rights reserved. Some pages have more detailed information on the copyright of the material presented on that page. The cat show photos differ from other material as they are available for use under certain rulers stated nearby the photos.

Since this is a personal website maintained as a hobby no exact dates or promises of forthcoming updates are given. Just check the site out once in a while!

This site is based on two tehcnologies. The textual content is managed and generated by Template-Toolkit -software and custom-build Perl scripts. The photography content including the cat show listings, the EMS listings and the breeder listings are generated by the Perl-based TOTALWeb publishing system written by me for exclusive use of my website. Both textual and photography content are of static HTML with CSS formatting. Some Perl-written dynamic modules are present. Client-side active content like JavaScript, Java, Flash animations or Active X components are not used since I can manage fine without them. The site formatting is done using relative font sizes so the pages will obey browser's font size setting.

The site is currently hosted on a virtual private server (VPS) based on Xen virtual machine (Debian Linux).

The site is developed and beta tested using Opera web browser (generation 9). The site is tested also on Firefox (generation 2) and Internet Explorer (generation 7). Other browsers like the Nokia E90 browser are occassionally used for a brief testing. Due to simple and straight-forward site implementation it is very likely that any browser will work fine with this site.

Here are some visitor statistics on my website collected by my service provider during 7/2006-1/2007. They indicate that most visitors (over 95 percent) came from USA, Finland and Sweden.

   #   COUNTRY
   1   United States   46.0%
   2   Finland         45.5%
   3   Sweden           4.2%
   4   Unknown          1.1%
   5   United Kingdom   0.5%
   6   Russia           0.4%
   7   France           0.3%
   8   China            0.3%
   9   Germany          0.2%
   10  Netherlands      0.2%
   11  Norway
   12  Belgium
   13  Spain
   14  Italy
   15  Latvia
   16  Poland
   17  Estonia
   18  Czech Republic
   19  Canada
   20  Denmark
   21  Switzerland
   22  Belarus
   23  Israel
   24  Austria
   25  Hungary
   26  Ireland
   27  Ukraine
   28  Australia
   29  Lithuania
   30  Japan
   31  Romania
   32  Portugal
   33  Brazil
   34  Taiwan
   35  Turkey
   36  Bulgaria
   37  Argentina
   38  Thailand
   39  Korea, North
   40  Egypt
   41  Singapore
   42  Saudi Arabia
   43  Philippines
   44  Hong Kong
   45  Slovakia
   46  South Africa
   47  Greece
   48  India
   49  Luxembourg
   50  Colombia
   51  Mexico
   52  Iceland
   53  Iran
   54  Slovenia
   55  Uruguay
   56  Malaysia
   57  Morocco
   58  New Zealand
   59  Croatia (Hrvatska)
   60  Pakistan
   61  Indonesia
   62  Serbia and Montenegro
   63  Macedonia
   64  Bahrain
   65  Jordan
   66  Cyprus
   67  Dominican Republic
   68  Algeria
   69  Kenya
   70  United Arab Emirates
   71  Bolivia
   72  Kyrgyzstan
   73  Peru
   74  Cameroon
   75  Puerto Rico
   76  Azerbaijan
   77  Albania
   78  Guatemala
   79  Macau S.A.R.
   80  Moldova
   81  Dominica
   82  Uganda
   83  Chile
   84  Madagascar
   85  Tunisia
   86  Angola
   87  Bosnia and Herzegovina
   88  Costa Rica
   89  Venezuela
   90  Mauritania
   91  Panama
   92  Sri Lanka
   93  Cook Islands
   94  Georgia
   95  Honduras
   96  Nigeria
   97  Vietnam
   98  Yemen
   99  Libya
   100 Lebanon
   101 Benin
   102 Kazakhstan
   103 Kuwait

Page changes:

• 2008-09-02: Added site development information.
• 2007-08-02: More about copyright. Update the technology and browser support. Polished some language.
• 2007-02-04: Updated browser info. Added the country statistics.
• 2005-09-14: More info on background, copyright, technology and browser support. Links tested.
• 2005-03-27: Added background. Added copyright -paragraph. Updated browser list. Texts overhalued.
• 2004-10-13: Added focal length conversion correction info.
• 2004-09-09: Added short descriptios of technology, updated frequency and tech changes.
• 2004-08-31: Added browser list.
• 2004-08-27: Page created, waits for content.