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The Evolution of UQMS Web UQMS Web

UQMS Web



Alex . . .Phase One
It began when the (somewhat painfully) sharp mind of one Alexander Ritchie took up office as UQMS President in 2003. This ardent scholar embarked on the prudent task of moving the UQMS out of the dark ages and into the world wide web.

Alexander envisaged a website as a medium where:
  • Students could readily contact their representatives
  • Note pools could be exchanged
  • Our gala events could be promoted
  • The contributions of our sponsors could be recognised
Some of the content on this site remains from when Alex volunteered his time to write it. He single-handedly developed the first bulletin boards, migrated the executive to proper email addresses and moved the UQMS site to its own domain. Though sometimes heard groaning in denial, "I am not technical.", Dr. Ritchie did all this without sacrificing his marks one iota and became valedictorian of his class.



Mark . . .Phase Two
While 2004 UQMS Liaison Officer, Mark McFarlane inherited the crown of king amongst luddites (on a UQMS executive stacked heavily in favour of the apple mac over the pc), a move that aided neither his sanity as he slaved over a keyboard, nor his social life, since knowing what ‘linux’ is apparently demotes one several rungs on any social ladder.

The executive decided to build on Alex’s great work and move the website to a format which would allow the entire executive, or indeed all UQMS members, to be involved in content creation. One member of the executive came up with the idea of selling tickets online, and before we knew it, we were talking about having an entire online store. Mark's subsequent research and toiling soon made him into a technical quasi-guru, able to leap tall unix stacks (his mac kernel) in a single bound, installing and testing web servers, applications, and electronic management systems as prototypes for the next phase.
 
 
 
Randal . . .Phase Three
Closely intertwined with the intricacies of phase two was a crazy (for purposes of this story anyway) cowboy from the United States who made the mistake of admitting that he knew a thing or two about web development.

At that point Mark took it upon himself to secure this $150 (American) dollar per hour former Wall Street consultant and pay him 150 greenbacks per hour less than he was accustomed to, in the effort to redesign the site.  Some might say Randal Pittelli was an absolute steal at nothing per hour.

Randal has a thing about using technology to improve corporate branding, communications and group-speak, supporting our notion that he's mad as a hatter. Thus the torch was passed into appropriate hands.

The UQMS Website uses the Australian-invented Mambo CMS as its backbone, with design implemented to UQMS specs by the Brissie design firm, Online Visions. Calendaring (PerlCal) and document management (Libra) software was kindly donated by the Bastard of Boston's Acme Software.

It is our hope that the site, under the guidance of the entire UQMS executive, will learn to manage itself to become an integral part of the communications core of the students we represent. Time will tell.
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