 |
|
|||||
| Launched by Faster Than Light Communications on May 25, 1998, the North Central Internet News (NCIN or Ensign ) is intended to provide Internet users from the North Central area of Saskatchewan with a unique news and public interest outlet. The site contains articles on a daily basis with a strong emphasis on pictures. | ||||||
| The need for content was identified in 1996 when we first began putting photo essays on a site and this lead to the realisation that we should be involved in providing documentation and awareness of our world so that we can see ourselves on the Internet and so that others can appreciate what this part of North America is like. | ||||||
| As a source for information the site has included a set of links that at the click of a button connect to the Regina Leader Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Moose Jaw Times Herald Tribune, Prince Albert Herald, Western Producer and The Guardian. In addition, there is a link to Faster Than Light Communication's WebWorks which is a library of web links each with a note to guide the searcher. Local web sites from and about Melfort, Nipawin and Tisdale also have buttons of their own. | ||||||
| Contributions | ||||||
| Ensign welcomes contributions, just send us e-mail (timothy@ftlcomm.com) or call us at 873 2004. If you would like to send us a fax our number is 873 2155. If we are on the phone the call will be routed to voice mail and you can leave a message. | ||||||
| Publicity | ||||||
| Be sure to bookmark the site and be sure to tell your friends and neighbours about it but we would like to hear from you as well. Send us your impressions and any ideas you might have about using this site. Many articles will over time be controversial or you might disagree with views expressed, we will make room and publish as many comments or replies as we can since we cherish the right of speech in this land and expect you the visitor to respect that concept as well. | ||||||
| The Pictures | ||||||
| This site is intended to do what a paper publication can not do so we will endeavour to have pictures taken the day the article is created for the site. In order to do this we used an Epson PhotoPC 500 for the majority of the pictures (this is a digital camera that does not use film but captures the image which is then downloaded directly into the computer). The current digital camera is an Epson PhotoPC 650, this is an entry level consumer camera. There will be times when we use scanned photographs or graphics but this will be rare. | ||||||
| We also will, from time to time be using video images taken directly from a Hitachi VHS camcorder. We plan to present a few video clips and this is how they will be created. The video is digitised using an ATI Xclaim VR card. | ||||||
| QuickTime VR panoramas and objects are created using Apple's QuickTime VR Studio. The site itself and the pages are created using a Macintosh G3 266. The software used is Symantic's Visual Page and Terry Morse Software's GoClick. GoClick is a very special kind of software that allows us to use ClarisWorks, FileMaker Pro or any other regular application to create a web page. This explains the often integrated graphics and text pages you will find in Ensign. HTML does not permit the overlaping of objects so to accomplish this the overlapped section is converted to an image for use on the web. | ||||||
| Many editorials are illustrated with combination graphics that include photographic and painted elements, in all cases these are the work of Timothy W. Shire unless otherwise indicated. You can sample these images on their own web site, the Ensign Gallery has the most recent images for you to see and by clicking on the three inch version the large 8 x 4 version appears. | ||||||
| We welcome any inquiries about the techniques used in Ensign or problems you might have accessing anything you find on the site. | ||||||
| All pictures and text are the property of Faster Than Light Communications and may not be used without written permission. However, all pictures and materials found on this site may be borrowed and utilised by students in school for educational use, we only ask that credit be given for the use of the material. | ||||||
| For More Details about Faster Than Light Communications | ||||||
| Our original web site was a huge project that sort of fell upon itself because of its size and was replaced by a much smaller web site where you will find information about the company. | ||||||
|
- |
||||||
