Cruise Bruise Blog
January 22, 2009
January 22, 2009
Lost In The Depths Of Cruise Bruise
A Cruise Bruise visitor says that he "gets lost in the depths of Cruise Bruise", and needs some help.

This data base is becoming huge, and it can be a challenge to find your way around. Here are some tips for finding what you are looking for.

The Top Site Map Link
At the top of every page there is a row of button links. On the right side on that button bar, you see the words "Site Map".

When clicking that link, you will go to a Google Site Map feed, that includes the last 1000 pages added to the data base.

It is a searchable feed, so you can look for cases by the keywords you know would exist in the story. If you like, you can sort the Site Map by date, or alphabetically.

I update this site map every day or two, so it stays fairly current. If you would like to add it to your feed reader, the address for it is:

http://www.cruisebruise.com/Sitemap/RssMap.xml

If you don't use a feed reader, you can just bookmark that address, and then pop into it as you please. However, if you use an older computer, not configured to give you the most version of page each time you go to a bookmarked page, you will always see the same content, and think the page is not being updated.  You will need to configure your browser in the Internet Properties to be a bit smarter than the machine came out of the box.

The Bottom Site Map Link
At the top of every page there is a row of text links. On the far right side of that strip of links are the words "Site Map".

This site map I update manually. The cases are sorted by type, then by name. It is a nice, short page, with at-a-glance information.

The Left Side Text Links
At the left on every page is a list of links to other pages. For the most part, those links are part of a main navigation, that takes you to every category on Cruise Bruise.

However, once you enter major categories, those left side links now become sub-navigation, taking you to pages within the specific category only.

Because you are now in the Blog category, the links to the left are for pages within the blog. At the top of those links, on this page you will see a link that says "Cruise Bruise Main - Home". That text link will take you to the main page, where you can access the main navigational text links again, to each category.

The Cruise Bruise News Feed
This feed updates with the latest news stories on Cruise Bruise. It quite frequently does not include archived cases. What it does do, is give you the hottest new stories, including ONLY THE LAST 15 CASES ADDED. The plus of this feed is it is short, very limited, not a lot to wade through.

Now that you can understand how the site is maintained, you can get a real feeling for how much time it takes to add a single case.

1. Add the case
2. Add it the subnavigation of a category.

If the case is a missing person case, it has to be added to numerous pages, such as the Overboards, the Missing By Name, Missing By Date, Missing By Day Of The Week, Missing By Day Of The Month, Missing By Age, Missing By Gender.

3. It gets added to the top site map, the bottom site map, the News Feed, the main page and the Blog.

If the case was an Overboard and then the body is found, all those additions to the Missing Category pages are pulled, and the case is moved to Deaths.

If the case began with no victim name specified, I create a case page with no name, and wait to see if we get a name. If we get a name, I create the new page, link from the old page to the new page, and then have to change every link in the categories the case was added to.

In addition, I have to remove it from the Sub-category for those with no names, to the Sub-category of victims by name. Whew, I got tired just think about it.

This is a very complex web site to maintain, a lot of work goes into adding just one case. Now, imagine adding 15 to 60 cases a month, and one very important element becomes obvious. I must be a very fast typist.

This is true. It is also the reason the site has so many typos. There are only so many hours in a day, so I have to focus on priorities. My priority is to get the news out and update the data base as quickly as possible. To that end, I have to sacrifice perfection.