Technical This Website

Added, 22/06/2011, Changed 08/03/2020, 21/03/2020

Old this webpage http://ww1.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/about/technical-this-website

Updated

Colebrook Rail Viaduct which is very close to my home.

About this website project;

This website project is split across two Google hosts

The main website is; https://sites.google.com/view/anengineersperspective

Family Tree subsection; https://sites.google.com/view/andrewhlohmann

Old host called classic google sites;

(Will be deleted in 2021 or later)

https://sites.google.com/site/anengineersperspective1/

https://sites.google.com/site/engineerperspective -- this url does not exist now.

The pages are variable width so that page text line width resizes to the viewing screen size.

https://sites.google.com/site/andrewhlohmann/

Is set so that the screen width is fixed. When accessing those pages, you may need to use horizontal scroll bar to view a section of screen.

Website search

A consequence of this website project being split across two hosts is that it is not possible or beneficial to use the search to find everything. There are cross references.

About my blog;

It is a google blogger at: https://andrewlohmann.blogspot.com But I have given the site my sub-domain; http://blog.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/

Technical Stuff;

In the past I have had my website content on my PC then used a HTML editor and FTP tools to upload to my website. I now use a wiki. This is what I have used;

Page created with;

Netscape 4.08 to 7.02, 7.1 and Mozilla 1.6 to 1.7.13, Seamonkey 1.1 or higher. Some pages with FreshHTML. I have used till recently ;KompZer 0.7.10 or higher. Currently I am using Wiki site; sites.google.com

Uploaded with; Ipswitch WS_FTP95Le or higher on Windows 3.1 & 98.

FileZilla, on Windows 2000, this seems more robust and flexible than the free WS_FTP.

Audited using; http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

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Host & Domain;

Domain was register by me on in August 2014; andrew-lohmann.me.uk

Email; contact@

Website; www. Or additional pages; family. (these are called sub-domains)

  • The domain is provided by Freeola.com is UK based and provides receive only pop email for this domain free.

  • The website is hosted by Google sites. It was necessary to verify the domain was owned by me using Google Webmasters. This is not straight forward. Freeola is listed and marked accredited by http://www.nominet.org.uk/ But because Freeola is not one that Google list so you need to use a setting called "other" {Google list a lot more domain provides that will integrate, more than the short list of partners for google apps business users}.

  • The domain is handled using the Advanced method. Freeola's simpler Domain forwarding method was not permit for this google hosted site possibly because my site is a subdomain page of off; https://sites.google.com/site/engineerperspective at first. The Freeola standard forwarding method did not allow me to sign-in to my google host from my purchased domain unsurprisingly.

Domain forwarding method which when I used before (andrew-lohmann.uk.tc provided by www.smartdots.com) did not work well as it did not show the names of individual pages. Freeola's domain forwarding methods has the same shortcoming.

It is not apparent from the Freeola website but you can only have CNAME for sub-domains and you need to enter in this case the string; ghs.googlehosted.com (see google help).

Freeola call; andrew-lohmann.me.uk the raw domain so, to make the point again, you can not have a CNAME for this. The entry of an IP address is required but that belongs to Google not me so that option is not available to me. Consequently there is an error reported by https://www.whois.net which Google Webmaster has drawn my attention to.

I have also looked at mixing the advanced method and the simpler domain forwarding methods in order to forward the sub domain www.andrew-lohmann.me.uk to the domain andrew-lohmann.me.uk. This is not possible but something similar is.

Domain verification to Google sites host;

I did not use the CNAME method of verification that was also offered by Google Webmaster.

This step may not be necessary but this is the way I did the verification. If you bypass this step you should be offered another way of doing the verification.

Open Google Webmaster and add you new domain; andrew-lohmann.me.uk You can also add sub-domains if you wish it does not matter at this stage as they don't need to verification once the domain is authorised. The method of verification is; Alternate, Domain provider, TXT method, Provider "Other".

To verify my domain ; andrew-lohmann.me.uk, I used the method called change DNS record (Freeola) [* Create/Modify TXT and SPF records (Advanced)] then pasted text provided by Google Webmaster, Domain Provider, TXT verify website. This verified the domain and all sub-domains I have or will create. There is a delay between setting up the verification and the verification occurring (the delay can be 24 hours). I returned after 3 hours and the verification had occurred.

Point the sub-domains to the hosts;

I carried out this step after the next step.

This step can be carried out at any time unless you have chosen not to take the verification step above. I don't know what the procedure for verification is, if you have not taken the step above, but this would be the time to enter the sub-domains to be verified.

The DNS CNAME for each of my required sub-domain's can be entered at the Freeola control panel. I did that for; http://www.andrew-lohmann.me.uk [using Create/Modify Custom Web DNS Records (Advanced), CNAME method] - Finish.

Because it is not possible to enter an IP address or a CNAME for the domain andrew-lohmann.mem.uk, Google webmaster will report a problem that there is no IP address for the Domain. You should ignore that error.

Setting which hosted site is associated with which sub-domain;

Using Google Webmaster* to advise you when the site is verified is the best way of checking. Then proceed to the next step after verification has occurred.

*Is now called google search console.

In my Google sites website, Click on the top right Tools (any page); Manage Site, Select; Web Address; You can add all you domains and sub domains here. Note; Google will not let you add them until the site is verified.

Because your Google sites website is now verified that you are the owner of the domain you can add more sub-domains perhaps one for each google hosted website. Google sites are intelligent enough to remove a sub-domain from one site if you chose to add it to another.

Indecently; I find that google page manager is very good at relocating things when you renaming pages on a hosted site. Similarly to the way Google's add website automatically deals with and prevents duplication.

What I have at completion and what I can do now;

I run two Google sites and I added the sub-domain family. to one of the hosts and the other (main) host I added the provided sub-domain www. and I also tried unsuccessfully to add the raw domain this was not beneficial and added noting. Once the domain is verified it does not matter which you do first add sub-domains to you hosted Google sites Or create sub-domains on Freeola Domain management.

Once the domain is verified - the addition and association of sub-domains to host sites are not checked. If you misspell something it won't work so check every sub-domain added using your Web-browser.

The domain when entered into my browser reports that the server was not found, this is correct But the sub-domains works fine. There is no way of pointing the "raw" domain to my website host.

Sub-domains added to Google Webmaster can be added to Google Analytics, there is no further verification required. Webmaster tells you about searches for your website and Analytics tells you, if visitors allow it, about the visitor to your website. Bing have similar tools they all give you a lot of information about visitors but you don't need Bing Webmaster (which you can not use in google sites) if you have Google Webmaster (which you can use in Bing's Wordpress).

The two Freeola pop3 email accounts I have are receive only and need to have security set to None in Thunderbird, for example.

There are Freeola Control Panel settings that will release your domain email to another host. I avoided these settings but generally things can be undone and restored easily.

The raw domain; andrew-lohmann.me.uk can be forwarded by Freeola to a sub-domain that you have created with Freeola. I do not use this feature.

You may have trouble with the history in your web-browser if you change or correct a subdomain name. That is because the web-browser will automatically try and correct what it has interpreted as a mistake. For example;

To illustrate the point;

    • Created a sub-domain starting ww. using the DNS and Add Web Address steps as above.

    • Set Freeola forwarding to forward the domain and sub-domain www. to the sub-domain ww.

    • This unfortunately hid the name of the sub-pages being viewed, or left the new ww. sub-domain in the url history of the browser.

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Another sub-domain for Google Blogger;

My domain was authenticated to Google before I added a sub-domain blog. see above. I added the sub-domain to my freeola sub-domains plus the authentication Google web address which is something blogger will give you just look for ? help. In blogger enter the full sub-domain; blog.andrew-lohmann.me.uk in this case. Now try it and you will see it does not work. But wait a working day and it should then all work fine I found it all worked after about 10 hrs.

Blogger works differently to Sites in that the sub-domain is more tightly integrated and you will only work with your sub-domain for viewing and you can edit with one click not two as with sites. It is also very plane and simple by comparison. Therefore http://yourname.blogger.com effectively does not exist but if you use it the url will change in the browser path to the sub-domain that you have selected.

My Website history;

blog.andrew-lohmann.me.uk (January 2016 - present) Domain used with host; www.blogger.com this is a google product.

family.andrew-lohmann.me.uk (August 2014 - present) Domain used with host; sites.google.com

www.andrew-lohmann.me.uk (August 2014 - present) Domain used with host; sites.google.com

https://sites.google.com, (2011 - Present)

Tiscali.co.uk, (The host is now Talk-Talk and they are unwilling to delete these sites) I am pursuing this at the present time.

Btinternet.com (not available now 1999? - 2013),

First created on CompuServe’s home page summer 1997 - 2000?.

I have briefly used Wiki sites; Pbworks.com (2009? - 2011?) and wordpress.com (2010? - 2015).

PBworks is particularly good tool for a group who wish to organise an event or draft a document for example.

Checked with;

Find broken links on your site with Xenu’s Link Sleuth (TM) http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html (does not work well with a wiki type website, which this is)

Website promoted and monitored using:

Out of date websites & domains;

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andrew1lohmann/

http://engineersperspective.wordpress.com/

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ahlohmann/