HOW WAS THE SITE MADE

Here is a narration how this site got started and how was it made.

Somewhere between November and December in 2000 I thought that it would be nice to do an own internet-site about something. It took quite long to choose a subject and other than Don Rosa I thought of for example J.R.R. Tolkien and Donald Duck. In the end I decited to make a Don Rosa -site because I knew a lot about him and I had already been his fan for a long time. But I didn't want to do the site if there would be too much same kind of sites already. So, I checked with Altavista and found only one good Finnish site: Mauri "Ankka" Eronen's DonRosaNet. So, it was a deal.

After I decited what would I made the site about I e-mailed my big brother Jarkko, who's a Sumea's desinger. At the time I didn't know anything about making an internet-site, so I asked would it be easy to do one. He told me that it's quite easy at least in principle and we agreed that when he would come home for Christmas he would teach me at least the criterias on how to make an internet-site. That was if I would get a scanner as an Christmas present which we didn't yet have and is quite important when you make the site about a comic author.

I didn't got the scanner as a Christmas present but we still started making those pages that don't require scanner with Dreamweaver 3. The plan was that I would ask to get the scanner as a birthday present (15.1). After Jarkko went back to Helsinki I made the pages alone and when I got problems I asked my younger big brother, Aleksi, who always visited Mynämäki on weekends. If he couldn't solve the problem I asked help from Jarkko with e-mail or with mobile phone message. Without my two big brothers I could've never made these pages, so they deserve a great thanks.

I did get the scanner as a birthday present and with the help of it making of the site was much easier, but of course, I did have some problems, such as that that there were too many pictures and I didn't have enough webspace. (That problem was solved by moving the whole site to a free internet server, Angelfire. The original plan was to put the site to Kolumbus.) I had also some problems when Aleksi updated Photoshop that I use to edit pictures and it took a while before I learned to use it again completely as it had changes with many of the functions I used.

When the site was about half done it came to me that it should have a more accurate name than just Don Rosa. The best one could think of was Don Rosa - The New Duckmaster and so that is the official name of this (English) site. I would've prefer a shorter one but when I couldn't come up with anything better than that, it will stay as that at least for now.

Then, on Thursday 26.4.2001 I finally finished the Finnish site after four months of hard work and I informed Don Rosa about it by e-mail. After a week from that I told about my site also to Disney Comics Mailing List and D.U.C.K.hunt's mailing list and many search engines.

In 4.5.2001 I started making the English version of the site little earlier than I had originally planned because I'd been asked to do so that the site could be connected to D.U.C.K.hunt. I had no big problems with the translation (and with the small ones I got help from Mikko Kiviharju, thanks to him) and I finished it on 4.6.2001 or exactly one month after I have started making it. Like before, I annouced about it to Don Rosa and the mailing lists. Now as the English site was ready, too, the whole site's official name is Don Rosa - The New Duckmaster/Uusi Ankkamestari, but only when referred to the whole site.

In spite of that the site had already once been moved to a larger server, even Angelfire's 50 Mb wasn't enough space, so the site needed to be moved again. With the same I decided to improve it a bit. So, I made new backgrounds to every main section, especially when the original one wasn't even made by me, but "borrowed" from another site. So, all the current backgrounds I have myself edited and "removed" from Don's drawings. In addition I checked and updated all the information of every page and made the Sitemap, banners and the Newsletter. Then, when the whole site was renewed I had to find the new server that would give us much web space as possible. After long searches I moved the site in the beginning Feberuary 2002 to Perunamaa.

I hope my site won't be like that, that people visit it once and forget it after that, because my intention is to add new things on it every once and a while. I also always add new covers and pictures to Gallery when I get them and you can always read the news on Don Rosa and sometimes also on Disney and information on Rosa's new comics from News-section. So, I hope you'll enjoy my site!

Sources:
Many internet-sites, mainly Don Rosa in Scandinavia and D.UC.K.hunt. I Also used lots of articles, interviews and foreword about/by Don Rosa.

Programs, that I made the site with:
text: Dreamweaver 3 and 4,
scanning the pictures: Canon D 660U,
editing the pictures: Adobe Photoshop 5.0 and 6.0.

Arttu Salminen