Although the site may not appear any different to the average user, these are the changes we made:

• The website was transferred to our new servers and upgraded to the latest software
• The site was assigned a new temporary domain-name
• The new servers were prepared to receive the usual domain-name [wsbeorchids.org.uk]
• The software installation was tweaked to be more efficient than before
• The software has been lightened to deliver higher performance

On Monday 23^rd and Tuesday 24^th August 2010 more minor down-time may be experienced.  This will be caused by our domain name being transferred from the old servers to the new.

If you have any questions about the current tweaks being made to our website please leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

You’ve been waiting, we’ve been working, and finally we are ready to launch our ‘secret project’.  While you’ve been entertained by my image of the eye – Dan has been working with four old netbooks and seven webcams to bring you what can only be described as a unique insight into the Writhlington Orchid Project.

Welcome to the WSBEorchids GreenCams!

Bye!!

As we move into our new greenhouses, let us take a moment to look back over our old School Greenhouses.  These too outdate the Orchid Project, and come from the days of Rural Studies in school.  They have seen the Writhlington Orchid Project grow from it’s humble beginnings, to the first show, to the first Chelsea and right up to the end of last term.

There is a point where a structure becomes special, and I’m sure for many that, though the old greenhouses are gone, they will not be forgotten.

Feel free to take a trip back in time through our Media Libraries to when these greenhouses were at their peak. Have a look at what was going on in 2005, 2007 and 2008, among other coverage of the lab and our events.

This worked well, until we realised it was raining!  Not to be defeated, however, we got out the umbrellas and have quite a good looking logo substitute if I do say so myself!

Website support in all weathers!

Here’s where Dan puts my efforts to shame with some flashy looking awesome graphical design thingy!

UPDATE: I’ve now uploaded the photos of us attempting to get into the beautiful formation you’ve seen above!  These include some of our practice attempts and failed photos because everyone wouldn’t stand still!

Firstly I would like to say a big big big ‘Thank You’ to the Durban team for essentially doing my job while they were in Durban.  Zoe Parfitt, Zoe Barnes, Simon Pugh-Jones and Lauren Gardiner kept the RHS blog updated frequently, meaning that all I had to do was to move the posts from there to here.

This brings me neatly onto the second point on my little list of things to mention.  The RHS blog that you were effectively following while the team were in Durban?  We’re keeping it going!  It’s a great opportunity for you to get to know some of our younger growers, as well as getting information about specific orchids and culture.  If this is as much of a success as Dan (our web admin guy) and I expect it will be, we plan to move it here to WSBEOrchids so you can ‘leaf’ through our archives.

Thanks also for keeping with us here at WSBEOrchids.  We do enjoy watching the little graph of hits skyrocket!  We also like watching different countries on our visitor map light up as we spread all over the world!

Remember that our media libraries are open 24/7 and we are constantly working to make this website better for you.  If there’s something that we don’t do at the moment that you think we should do – get in touch!  E-mail me at microprop@wsbeorchids.org.uk with any and all comments, queries and suggestions!

Right, that’s about all from me at the moment.  Remember to keep checking back.  Subscribe to us either by e-mail, RSS or Twitter and remember to get in touch!

Proof that we're on iTunes!

Hello all iTunes users (and potential iTunes users, and non-iTunes users who I may be able to persuade!)

The WSBEOrchids podcast that we piloted last week was a hit (sort of)! And so I’ve managed to get our tame web expert, Dan to put the podcast online so it’s available for you to subscribe to in iTunes!  This means you can download the podcast when we release it, put it on you’re iPod and listen to it on the bus, or simply listen to it there and then on the computer!

Find us by searching “WSBEOrchids” in the iTunes store.

Aww, Thank-you Durban Team!

I’m sure I’ll be updating the Dates pages with dates for your calender over the summer holiday.  Of course – plant’s don’t stop when school does so we’ll be in each day to water.

Next year we’ll be off to London orchid show again, as well as the Botanic Gardens Conservation International conference in Durban, South Africa.  We’ve also got local shows coming up next year including one at the Welsh Botanic Garden and the Bristol University Botanic Garden.  We should also have a redesign active in the early stages of the new year.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for watching, reading and keeping up with me with exams etc.  It’s been a great year and I hope that I’ll see you all for the next 3 years.  No idea what then – hopefully I’ll be able to train someone else, but that’s a story for another day!

It was during our little wsbeorchids-team meeting that we realised that there was no need to write a newsletter – we update the website and people can get updates from there…

Yep, you guessed it, you can now get E-Mail Updates from WSBEOrchids.  Now there’s no need to pay our humble site a visit every few days, simply sign into your e-mail and get our updates along with all those other newsletters!

Subscribe to The Writhlington Orchid Project by Email

Thanks to Google we should now be able to have photos from all of the expeditions, shows and other events from the past uploaded to the ‘photos’ section of our Media Libraries.  Watch this space

Click here to see the latest Sikkim Photos

A personal record for me as it has only taken 1 and a quarter hours to extract the recording and upload it!

We’ve added four videos from the archives as well as Image galleries from our various expeditions, shows etc.  Once I perfect the art of shrinking photos to under our upload limit you can expect a lot more to start popping up!

Have a look around!

Firstly, all news items is now catagorised.  This makes it easy for you to find the particular information that your looking for about our projects.  These can all be found on the right hand panel.

Comments:  Since re-instating the comments system we have be getting a large amount of Spam.  Our plan to combat this is to have terms and conditions that all people commenting will have to accept.  This will allow us to trace some of the big companies who leave advertising spam and fine them.

Please do not be detered from posting comments if you have something that you want to say.  All comments are moderated by a human being so there is no chance of your orchid related comment being mistaken for an advert!

Finally, IE6 users.  Currently we are aware that this website doesn’t work in MS Internet Explorer 6.  I am told that this is because it uses different pixel sizes.  All I know is that it doesn’t work as our school runs IE6!  I am also told that a new design is in the pipeline to combat this issue.

Well, your half right, but it’s what happens when you press the button that is really exciting!  After a long day working on the website I managed to do what no one has ever done before – convert all of our seedling portfolio information pages to PDF and upload them to the website.

But you don’t want to hear about how hard it was for me to upload them, you want to hear about how it will benefit you.  Well, if you have ever bought a plant from us then the chances are that it will have an information sheet in the portfolio.  This tells you useful information such as your plant’s flowering season and at what temperature to keep it at.

So go on, press that shiny new button!

• A new look
• New Content
• New Interactivity
• The best website yet

We have not left you, we are just redeveloping. For any issues please contact daniel[dot]groves[at]erixx[dot]co[dot]uk