Website Wonders

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Ian Grace
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Website Wonders

Post by Ian Grace »

The following is the text (with username and password deleted) from an article in the upcoming M133 issue of the Magazine. Remarks on another thread indicate that the website resources are under-utilized - possbibly because using them is a bit of a black art to many. Hopefully, the following will throw some light into the darkness!

If you need the username and pasword for the Members' Area, and you are a member, then e-mail me at vintageminor@gmail.com and ask. If you don't have the username and password because you are not a member, then please join us!

Website Wonders

The advent of personal computers and the internet has been a two-edged sword. They have opened up a whole new world of instant communications and information exchange for old car owners, but they can become a considerable distraction from real life and not everyone has a PC, a fast internet connection, and the ‘tribal knowledge’ to use them. This results in the membership of a club like ours diverging broadly into ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, which is not a good thing, the ‘haves’ holding an advantage over the ‘have nots’ in many respects including having the first crack at For Sale adverts, and so on.
The VMR has had a website since the early days and, on balance, the advantages have hopefully outweighed the disadvantages. At one time, we considered dispensing with the printed Magazine and hosting it solely on the website. Uploading the Magazine to the website takes around 60 seconds, while printing, packing and posting takes about a month. However, this approach would further divide the ‘haves’ from the ‘have nots’ and so the policy going forward will still be to distribute printed copies of the Magazine to everyone, while also making it available for download from the Members’ Area of the website.
The purpose of this article is to provide some of those members who might be somewhere between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ with some information which might help them obtain more value from the website content, and in particular the spreadsheets contained therein.

But first, how to access the Members’ Area, which is not obvious to everyone. Go to the website (http://www.vintageminor.co.uk). At the top right you will see a blue text link – ‘Members’ Area’. Click on the link. A members’ login page will be displayed. Enter XXXXXX as the username and YYYYYY as the password. Then press the ‘Login’ key under the entries, or simply hit the Enter key on your keyboard. You should then find yourself in the Members’ Area. Scroll down the page. Below the header photograph, you will find a number of links to the Members’ Area content. The top link is the Membership List. Click on this link. If your PC (or Mac) has Microsoft Excel installed (and it will if you have Microsoft Office), then the membership list will open as a spreadsheet, which is simply a table of membership numbers, names, addresses, contact details and members’ cars. Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are listed where known. If you find any information missing or incorrect, please let the Register know so that the list can be updated. It is particularly important to keep the e-mail addresses up to date, as they change far more often than home addresses or telephone numbers, and this membership list is used as the basis for the addressee list for the monthly e-mailed Newsletters. At the top of the page is displayed the date that the list was last updated – it gets updated every few days as details change and new members are added.

So far, so good, and all of the foregoing has been published in the Magazine before. So now, let us look in some more detail at the Chassis Register. Hit the back button on your web browser to get back to the Members’ Area home page. Scroll down until you see ‘Master Chassis Register’. Click on this link and another Excel spreadsheet will open. This is a slightly more complicated spreadsheet than the Members List, as it contains a number of pages – like a book, rather than the single page of the Members’ List.

Once again, the date of the last update is displayed at the top, and this document is also updated on a regular basis, whenever its content is changed or added to. Along the bottom of the page, you will notice a number of tabs, with Morris and MG model names on them. You can click on any of these tabs to bring up the chassis register for that particular model. But since there are more models in the chassis register than there is space to list them across the bottom of the screen, you can scroll horizontally and bring more tabs into view by using the four small left/right arrow buttons at the extreme lower left of the page. The first tab on the left is for the Bullnose Cowley and, without scrolling, you should be able to see OHC Minor, SV Minor and M Type MG tabs on the right. Click on any of these tabs to bring up the respective chassis register for those models. (The reason for so many model tabs is simply because we share the chassis register with our sister organization – the Early Morris Society and much work is saved by having a single web document and linking to it from both websites. Since all VMR members are automatically members of the Early Morris Society, every VMR member is welcome to browse the chassis registers of these other Morris models.) The next trick is to be able to scroll up and down the registers. The three registers of interest here (OHC Minor, SV Minor and M Type) each have hundreds of entries and so only a small part of the data fits on the PC screen. Used the vertical slider button on the right of the screen to ‘click and drag’ the body of the page up and down, but note that the header information remains at the top of the screen, so you can always see the column titles.

Now take a look at the OHC Minor chassis register. All known surviving cars have a line entry in the chassis register, and are ordered by chassis number, the earliest known car appearing at the top – in this case, Jon Rose’s tourer PK 6922, chassis number M328 (we don’t bother with the ‘M’ prefix in this document, but we have included the ‘MM’ prefix for the very early cars where we know that the dumbirons of these cars have been so stamped –that was a bit of research we did some time ago.)

The far right column lists the owners’ VMR membership numbers. The absence of a number in this column indicates that the owner is not currently a Register member, and, in some cases, is unknown to the Register, although we know the car is a survivor – much Register time is spent trying to find these cars, and any information relating to any of them would be most gratefully received. Note that full contact details of owners are only provided for Register members – this does not mean that the Register does not hold contact details for the non-member owners, but we choose not to publish it for obvious reasons. If you would like to make contact with any of these owners, let the Register know and we will forward a request for contact if we have contact details for that owner. In addition to chassis number and ownership details, several other columns provide engine number (original and current), registration number, date the chassis was laid down (taken directly from the Morris build data), body style and body number where appropriate. Finally, note that many of the chassis numbers appear as blue, underlined text. These are clickable links. Click on one and a photo of that car will appear. If you have a photo of any car which does not have a blue link, we would be delighted to receive a copy and add it to the chassis register. Similarly, if you wish to change or update the photo of your car, simply send in the photo you wish to see displayed.

Now scroll right down the list, watching the chassis numbers count up. Somewhere around line 296 (line numbers appear at the extreme left) you will come to chassis 38359, Mike Coleman’s long wheelbase saloon, and currently the highest chassis number we have on record for a surviving OHC Minor. Immediately below that are listed the Australian ‘Y’ chassis-numbered survivors, and below them, the chassis numbers run out, but the register goes on! The next hundred or so vehicles are those for which we do not have a chassis number on record, and can therefore not take their rightful place higher up the register. Some of these are owned by members, so, if you are one of those owners, please send in your chassis number, and any other information which might be missing so that we can fill in the blanks. For all the other cars, any additional data would also be welcomed.

While we are on a roll with these spreadsheets, there are a couple more in the Members’ Area which are well worth becoming familiar with. Go back to the Members’ Area home page and look for the link titled ‘Morris Motors Vintage Minor Chassis Progress Book Data’ (I must see if I can shorten that mouthful!). Click on this link and you will launch a spreadsheet which contains the full chassis build data for nearly 300 known surviving OHC Minors. This data includes chassis erection date, rolling road testing date, body shop date, final road test date and dispatch date, together with the number of the original engine fitted and the body type fitted. Note that vehicles which left the works as chassis – either for export or to satisfy orders from outside coachbuilders have dashes in the ‘Body Shop’ and ‘Final Test’ columns. Note also that some vehicles have two engine numbers quoted. That is because these vehicles had their engines swapped at the works – either because a problem was found with the original engine during test, or because the engine needed to be changed under warranty after delivery to the new owner. The majority of this data was extracted from the eight volumes of hand-written build data kept at the Heritage Motor Center at Gaydon, Warwickshire, and supplemented with data provided over the telephone by the Gaydon librarians over subsequent years. However, this free service has now been discontinued – only pre-approved club registrars can obtain this data now (and your registrar is on the list), and even then, there is a five Pound charge per chassis, and so this particular spreadsheet is now getting updated less frequently than we would like – particularly when ‘new’ survivors pop up and chassis numbers are discovered. Once again, if you have a Gaydon-supplied Heritage Certificate for your car, and have build data that does not appear on the spreadsheet, please pass it along, so that we can build as complete a record of surviving cars as possible for the future.

The next link to check out is immediately below the build data link, and is titled ‘The Vintage Minor Genome’. This was a term we coined some time ago to describe the contents of this spreadsheet which details the body type fitted to every OHC Minor chassis. Unlike with the previous spreadsheet, the full build data is not listed here, since copying all of it would be a monumental task. Just the data shown took two full days to transcribe from the eight volumes of original build data. Clicking on this link does not take you directly to the spreadsheet, but to a page describing the Genome in more detail. Scroll down to find the link to the spreadsheet, and also note that there is also a link to download a zipped copy of the Genome which you can save on your PC for reading off-line. We would very much like to have a similar Genome for the SV chassis, but there are 14 volumes of build data for these chassis, and I have not yet had the opportunity to spend three or four days at Gaydon to carry out the necessary transcription task. Any volunteers who might live a little more locally to Gaydon, and who might be able to transcribe the data in chunks over a number of visits? The task is not as onerous as it may sound, since around 70% of the OHC chassis (and presumably a similar proportion of the SV chassis) were bodied as saloons, so it is only necessary to write down the chassis numbers of the other models – or about 30% of the chassis. Moreover, Morris tended to body their chassis in multiples of ten, so not every number has to be written down.

So now let us look at the Genome itself. Like the other spreadsheets, the chassis are listed in chassis number order, starting with 101. Full build data is included for all the cars listed in the Build Data spreadsheet already described, plus some other significant chassis – the first and last of a calendar year or production season, and for the first 20 production chassis. Note that the Gaydon build data does not include the dozen or so prototype and pre-production chassis we know were built. The extreme right hand column is titled ‘Notes’ and the contents of this column were directly transcribed from the original build data, and many of these notes make fascinating reading. (Remarks in brackets are those of the Register.) Finally, the clever part. Notice the little clickable down arrow at the top of the Type column. Click on this and a table appears which contains all the body types which appear in the column. Click (for example) 2-seater. The entire Genome will now be filtered for the 2-seaters which will be listed by themselves. The same is true for all the other body types, including the bodiless driving chassis. What this Genome does not include is the aforementioned Australian ‘Y’ chassis – to date, no original build data has come to light for these chassis. Happy browsing!
ian judd
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 6:01 pm

Re: Website Wonders

Post by ian judd »

Hi Ian,
Is there a way that the wonders of which you write can be made accessible to Mac owners. I can only get 20 odd cars of the Master Chassis Register and thats just in tiny type. It is just a list with nothing else, nothing at the bottom etc. It seems to be 'translated' by something called Maclink which just garbles everything.

Ian
Ian Grace
Site Admin
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sun Nov 19, 2006 12:55 am
Location: USA

Re: Website Wonders

Post by Ian Grace »

Hi Ian,

First, what are you doing up this late - it must be the middle of the night over there! Its' about 1125 pm here - and I'm just starting the evening's VMR work!

Second, I'm afraid I don't have any Mac experience except I seem to remember that Roger Lucke had issues downloading .jpg images on his Mac if the filenames had spaces in them. Do you have a similar problem? I'm not sure what I can do with Excel to alleviate your problem. Anyone got any ideas? I'd love to be able to help.
RLucke
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:13 pm
Location: Cambridge

Re: Website Wonders

Post by RLucke »

Hi Ian.
I have an eMac here at home and a more advanced Mac at work. I used to be able to view the membership list perfectly using Microsoft Excel, which just opens automatically. I have not seen Maclink which you mentioned. Assuming that you have a copy of Excel installed, I can only assume that for some reason your machine has a default which tries Maclink first. Use the finder to make sure that you have a copy of Excel, download the file, and open it through Excel. Once the Mac has found it, it may be fine. Regards. Roger.
Roger Lucke
cammy
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:24 pm

Re: Website Wonders

Post by cammy »

Ian,

Don't know if this is the best place to post this but here it is.

Just thought I'd say Best Wishes to Jayne and hope she gets over her problems soon.

I'm sure other members will join me in this once they have read their e mails.

ATB
Clive & Bren
cammy
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:24 pm

Re: Website Wonders

Post by cammy »

Ian,

Don't know if this is the best place to post this but here it is.

Just thought I'd say Best Wishes to Jayne and hope she gets over her problems soon.

I'm sure other members will join me in this once they have read their e mails.

ATB
Clive & Bren
Tony Gamble
Posts: 180
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:16 pm
Location: Selby , North Yorkshire. UK

Re: Website Wonders

Post by Tony Gamble »

Ian & Jayne

May I too add my thoughts and best wishes for a swift recovery for Jayne.

I can speak from very recent experience in this field , and hope that Jayne gets the excellent care that I received.

It is more than marvellous what they can do in the area of heart surgery these days.

Take care , our thoughts are with you both

Tony G
halbe
Posts: 447
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:08 pm
Location: holland

Re: Website Wonders

Post by halbe »

Ian and Jayne

The same wishes from all of us in The Haque

Halbe & Monique
Ian Grace
Site Admin
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sun Nov 19, 2006 12:55 am
Location: USA

Re: Website Wonders

Post by Ian Grace »

The website has been edited and maintained using Netscape for many years. Netscape ceased to be supported about 20 years ago and does not run on current versions of Windows, so I have been making all edits on my ancient desktop PC whose life hangs by a thread and in any case won't be any good on 240V when we return to England in June.

The Pre-War Prescott website was developed using WordPress, which i hate with a vengeance as it is menu driven, and everything I want to do isn't on the menu!

However, with assistance from my son, over Christmas, I downloaded Microsoft Expression which is also 'sunsetted', but therefore freeware and does run on currently Windows, as I have on my new laptop. The great thing about Expression is that it is a WYSIWYG editor, so, unlike WordPress, I can edit the existing pages at will, with no formatting or other restrictions.

So now I can update the website anywhere I have my laptop (including the UK) which means that I will be able to make far more frequent updates!
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