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About the Web Site

Washington Heights & Inwood Online is a project of Eduardo Gómez, a WaHI resident since 1998 who hopes to provide his neighbors with a space where they can find everything they need to thrive in the most beautiful neighborhood in Manhattan. WaHI Online will strive to be the most comprehensive source of information on Washington Heights and Inwood. Its mission is to encourage communication, empower our citizens, and help build community.

History

This Web site started out as a simple resource list for residents of NaBors Apartments, the co-op where Eduardo lives. In November 2002 he decided to make the list available to a wider audience and purchased the washington-heights.us domain to house it. The list grew quickly to a database of more than 250 community resources. In the spring of 2003, he realized that there existed no comprehensive online community devoted to Washington Heights and Inwood. So he set out to create one. This is the result.

The resource list is now only one of several sections of WaHI Online. The site has expanded to include new features to make it more useful to our neighborhood and to others who want to learn about our neighborhood: History, Events Calendar, Discussion Forums, Photo Gallery and Classifieds.

Design

WaHI Online’s design was done using Macromedia Fireworks for the logo and images and Dreamweaver for the layouts. The author tried to use XHTML and CSS as much as possible to control the layouts and formatting. Unfortunately, bad habits are hard to get rid of and “bad” code may have slipped in, plus some of the CGI and PHP scripts used for the dynamic sections of the Web site (described below) do not always generate valid XHTML.

Scripts

WaHI Online uses several extraordinary CGI and PHP scripts to generate the dynamic sections of the Web site. The History section is generated using MovableType, a powerful blogging script that can be customized easily to fit the needs of a Web site, enhanced by several MT Plugins. The Discussion Forums are done with Simple Machines Forum, which is easy to set up, incorporate into a Web site, and use. The Photo Gallery is done with Gallery, an elegant and fairly easy-to-set-up and -use script. We manage the banner ads using an amazing ad server called phpAdsNew. Finally, the Search feature is powered by Zoom Search Engine.

The PHP scripts for the Resource Directory, Events Calendar and Classified Listings were coded by the Webmaster because he could not find the right script for the job.

If you have suggestions for new sections or know of better scripts that can do the job better in the existing sections, please send your comments and suggestions to the Webmaster; they will be much appreciated.

Recommended Web Browsers

If while you browse WaHI Online some or all of the pages are a big mess or don’t look quite right to you, it’s because you’re viewing them with a very-old Web browser. Get with it, already! Download and install the latest version of one of the following free Web browsers to view WaHI Online properly:

Firefox	Windows	Mac	Linux
Mozilla	Windows	Mac	Linux
Opera	Windows	Mac	Linux
Safari		Mac