Our new site was launched in February 2005. I call this Version 4, since it is the fourth major upgrade since I've owned the inn. It's really not an upgrade -- it's a complete rewrite of the site, using style sheets and an entirely new navigation scheme. Over the years, I've continually added material to the site. I passed some threshold recently where I felt it was important to redesign the navigational structure of the site to provide more coherent access to all of the information. I also felt it was time to take advantage of Cascading Style Sheets to improve the look of the site. As a matter of philosophy, I've worked to keep the interface clean and simple, while providing a large amount (about 100 pages) of information for the asking.

Here are the various tools I've used in the preparation of the site:

• Dreamweaver MX: this is the workhorse. I've been using DreamWeaver for 5 years now, and it is a superb Web site tool. I tried out GoLive when I bought the CS Studio, but I found it to be crude compared to a mature program like DreamWeaver.
• JavaScript: while embedded in the browser, it's still an important tool. My years of experience in programming make it easy for me to build custom things, or modify other code to work for me. Even though I rarely programmed in my last years at HP (I became "strategic", and also spent time as a manager), I've never lost the enjoyment of it. If I had my druthers, I'd program in Lisp all the time!
• Photoshop CS: I do image manipulations in Photoshop.
• Illustrator CS: I use Illustrator (my favorite program of all of these!) to create bits of line art: banners, buttons, and (of course) maps.
• JustButtons: while I am quite adept in Illustrator, sometimes it's nice to use a focused tool that does one niche thing well. JustButtons is like that.
• Webcam32 and Creative Webcam: together, these provide my Webcam service. The Creative-600 Webcam is the hardware, and Webcam32 is the software that takes the pictures and uploads them to my site.
• ZoneAlarm: everybody on broadband needs a firewall. My router provides a hardware firewall, and ZoneAlarm fills in the rest of the gaps.
• WxTide: a freeware program that gives almanac info (including tides) for any location.
• Webtrends: this is a service that provides detailed information about aggregate browsing patterns by visitors to the site.
• GroupMail: another of those niche tools that fills a need. This handles mailing lists very well, including supporting an arbitrary number of lists. There is a concern about spyware coming off this, but I found an excellent program out on the Web that defeats the adware portion of the program without damage to the functionality.
• Webring: I use the Webring facility to manage a small ring of Mendocino Village lodging properties. A lot more places claim to be in Mendocino than actually are, and this is one way to be sure.
• Nikon N70 and Kodak DC280: the cameras that make it all possible. My old Kodak digital camera has been a real workhorse for the Web site -- I've taken well over 6,000 pictures in 5 years. Thank God for huge hard drives!