About Jay County Information

The Idea
I launched Jay County info, after becoming frustrating conversation regarding the lack of technical skills available in Portland and Jay County. The comment was made that “nobody within Jay County has the technical ability to develop a decent website, let alone one that can promote the county”.  Well that comment struck a nerve and I was out to prove a point, and the idea of Jay County info was born.

The Vision
The Jay County Information site started as simple catalog of other website links for service groups, non-profit organizations, businesses of Jay County, and website customers of Sitesby.com. But like most website projects the scope began to change and expand as other individuals and groups provided ideas and creative input like …

• Weather forecasting
• Community event calendar
• Monthly profiles of Jay County businesses
• Photo gallery

All are great ideas, and with them the Jay County Information website project, truly turned into a classic technology project with many offering innovating ideas, but no financial funding.

The Projects First Support
In speaking with Jane Spencer, the Jay County Historian at The Jay County Historical Society, she was very excited about providing historical accounts about the earlier times of Jay County.

The Technology
I had a support for content development, a good vision, but still no funds for development software for the project.

Open Source Software, was one of the ideas presented to keep the project costs down and provide the cutting edge technology needed. PHP and MySQL database was selected for two reasons.

1. Both technologies worked seamlessly together and a wide range of community development and support.
2. My current hosting company “Dreamhost” supported both.

A Content Management System was a necessity to offer the Jay County public the ability to provide and upload content to the site. Again the focus turned to open source systems that ran upon PHP and MySQL. There were three systems that I evaluated, Mambo, Joomla, and WordPress. Avotive.com another Jay County web developer and a Sitesby partner has an extensive background working with WordPress, but I selected Joomla based upon its wide range of add on packages and online support groups.

Current Project Status
A Dynamic Event Calendar was a very popular suggestion that was communicated by individuals. The calendar provides many views like daily, monthly, categories and also a content search, and is available to everyone free of charge.

Jay County Historical Society – is currently working developing content to communicate the artifacts and other interesting items at the museum. Jay County has played a role in many aspects of US history, and the information contained at the Jay County Historical Society museum is very interesting. 

A Monthly Business Profile, which would display or highlight a Jay County business. The first idea for this section was to provide small business a way to advertise without sending needed cash on websites.

Provide News Feeds, from a full range of interests like Consumer reports, Sports, Technology, World news, and more. This will provide Jay County Information site visitors a one location for all items.

Summery

The Jay County Information website project is to focus on and to serve Jay County and the surrounding area by providing a one location for local events, and other local interests. Currently sitesby.com is solely funding and posting 95% of all content. Partners are encouraged and welcomed to join this project.

More about Sitesby.com

Sitesby.com is operated by long term Jay County resident Jerry Hartzell, who has 12 years of experience in the Information Technology field and is providing website development and network consulting services. By partnering and working with local and other technology professionals, Sitesby.com is able to provide solutions that meet the technology needed in the demanding business environment of today.