As many of you know (or knew I should say), the Falls City Journal’s website was down from mid-September of last year until just recently (March 10th to be exact). There are a cornucopia of reasons for the prolonged absence, but I will save you the trouble and get to the nuts and bolts of why. We’ll come back to this.
First though, and most importantly, we at the Journal are pleased to announce the addition of E-editions to our website, which if you are not familiar can be found at www.fcjournal.net
The Journal e-edition will be available first thing Tuesday mornings and will be free to anyone who has a paid subscription to the print version of the Journal. It is an exact replica of the print edition and is accessible to subscribers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Those who do not have a paid subscription can buy the online only e-edition for $25 per year by signing up on the website. A PayPal account was setup specifically to handle these purchases and is easily accessible once you get to the site. This will hopefully appeal to readers who live long distances from Falls City and will immediately resolve any issues out-of-town subscribers might have in receiving the print version.
Another perk for those with access to the e-edition is the ability to go back and read past issues. E-editions for every issue through 2011 are ready to upload and we will be able to add July through December of 2010 soon. As of right now, July 2010 is as far back as we can go with the e-editions because prior to that the Journal was still laid out manually, sans computers. Hard to believe.
The website will continue to be a source for current area news, sports and weather, but articles will be limited to non-subscribers.
Now, briefly, I’ll get back to why the website was down for such a long period of time.
Some of you may remember last summer experiencing problems when you tried visiting our site. A few calls were received on this end and a few questions were lobbed my way socially, but firsthand accounts of the problem were nonexistent.
Folks were alerted with virus threats or other potential problems for their computers should they continue to site. Due to the fact that the Journal’s computers are Macintosh, none of us received these same warnings. Most of the people I spoke with were using PC’s with any combination of web browser or operating software, so I didn’t have a clue as to how to access the situation.
Last spring we started working with Information Analytics out of Lincoln about setting up the e-edition and the decision was made in October to have them overhaul the site, as well as provide support.
After they began to diagnose the problems on the site, I was quickly informed of the severity. Long story short, much work was needed to clean up the mess on the backend of our website. That they did and a big thank you to them.
Matia Aspegren, with Information Analytics, deserves a ton of credit for all her help with our site and I want to thank her for being patient with me as I learned on the fly. Our site was sort of handed over to her when another IA employee went on maternity leave and she’s been stuck with me ever since. So, again, thank you Matia.
In closing, as with anything there are sure to be some hiccups with the new e-edition, so please bare with us. That being said, please do not hesitate to contact me at the Journal office at 402-245-2431 or send me an email at jlanganfcj@sentco.net and I will do my absolute best to resolve the issue. Feedback, good or bad, will be received constructively as we move forward with our online services.
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