Colophon

This site is designed, developed, and maintained by Sox.
I am a USI member (since 2002) and the webmaster of www.usicycling.org.
Professionally I am a web designer and developer. (Resume)

Site Design and Development

This web site was originally developed in 2002 (original design shown here →) in order to establish USI's online presence and to provide a common source of news and information to all members and people who are interested in learning more about our cycling club. As it grew in size with continually added content, it needed a redesign to help solve some of the issues that existed with the original design. In short, I wanted to redesign the site to be simpler, cleaner, and clearer. Although the basic information structure of this site has been left unchanged, virtually all design and technical aspects have been radically modified during this redesign process in 2004. You can read more about some of these changes below.

Web Standards

This site uses Web Standards and valid XHTML (eXtensible Hyper Text Markup Language) for markup and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for its presentation and design. There are many beneifts to creating sites with web standards, including increased accessibility, decreased page size, easier maintenence, flexibility and forward compatibility. While the design of the site is handled with CSS that most modern browsers can handle, the entire site's contents are still readable and functional in older browser versions as well as devices such as phones and PDAs. I'm a very strong supporter of Web Standards movement as a professional web designer and developer &mdash why? Because using Web Standards feels like being on a good pair of wheels. It's lighter, accelerates quicker, and stays true longer.

PHP and Template System

In order to reduce the time it takes to update and maintain this site, I've implemented a basic PHP-driven template system I've developed. This means that some of the common recurring elements you see on the each page such as the header(top↑), navigation(under the header↑), footer(bottom↓), and the "sidebar"(to the right→) exist as a single file which are then being dynamically "included" into the page layout via PHP. PHP is also a wonderful scripting language for adding other dynamic functionalities to a web site. For instance, the photo display page, articles, and race reports on this web site was developed with PHP, and it allows me to have a single page template that can display many different photos and textual content — It's like a clip-on aero bar. All you need is one and you can use it on multiple bikes.

Requirements and Suggestions

If you wish to experience this web site the way it was intended, then the best step forward is to update or upgrade your web browser — You wouldn't go to a crit race on a pair of old, worn-out tires, would you?. There are many wonderful browser applications that are available for free download. Here are few of my personal recommendations:

• For PC Users:
  • Mozilla's FireFox
  • Mozilla's Mozilla Browser
• For Mac Users:
  • Apple's Safari
  • Mozilla's FireFox
  • Mozilla's Mozilla Browser

The default set of fonts specified in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for this web site are "Verdana" for the body text and "Tahoma" for various headings text. Most PC and Mac users should already have these fonts installed on their computers, but even if you do not, the CSS also specifies "Helvetica", "Arial", or generic "Sans-Serif" font as alternatives.

The layout of this web site is designed with fixed width of 620 pixels. Most users should not experience any serious problems with having to scroll horizontally, but if you do, please try maximizing your browser window and/or turning off any browser "sidebars" using your browsers' preferences menu.

I hope you will visit often and enjoy this web site.
– Sox, USI Webmaster (webmaster@usicycling.org)