http://dr-patel-surrogacy.com .
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It has only been about three weeks since the inception of this blog, but I'm already very pleasantly surprised in the level of interest. The support has been wonderful, and for those who have offered it here or through email, I thank you. It has been a fair amount of work, with plenty more to do, but knowing that the contents are seen as having some value, I have been forging ahead...
Being curious, I wanted to see if indeed this material was drawing eyeballs, so I subscribed to a temporary free service to find-out. Attached is a world map showing the location of visitors.
Pretty cool. Global indeed... With 300+ unique visitors, and over 1,000 page views, I was convinced that the information provided was deemed helpful at some level...
However, I have been contacted by a few folks who have experienced issues registering as they wanted to supply comments and participate. This is in essence what I want - interaction, not just me babbling, so I was quite frustrated. Looking at the stats for those visiting further confirmed that there is an inordinate number of folks who spent a lot of time trying to register, with the vast majority giving-up, unfortunately.
If this blog was just about me sharing, all would be fine, but that’s not the case. About two weeks ago I began exploring other options, including modifying certain aspects of the blog to make it more user-friendly. That was a major pain-in-the-butt... I re-visited various free boards or forums, which are fantastic for community-building, but I still found that I didn't like the dependency and lack of control / options they provided, including not the most ideal search functionality...
After much thought, and bouncing ideas off of a few folks on a Google board, it became very clear as to what I needed to do. I researched forum software applications in order to find an offering that I found most appealing, namely one with fantastic search capability, plenty of user options, and one that was highly customizable. After doing my homework and finding what I think to be the best option out there, I downloaded it.
I then needed to find a host or server to put it on, and after asking around, I located one. I then needed to transfer this forum software to this server, so I downloaded an File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client to make this happen. That was a little over a week ago...
Since that time, I've been building-up this board or forum, learning a lot along the way. I actually joined a forum just for those who use this forum software! As of this moment, I have a total of 56 posts there. I received an education on so many things that I wanted to set-up and customize...
After experimenting with it the past couple of days, it seems to be functionally ready to share with you all. Aesthetically, it like 95% there... It has it's share of baby colors that I hope you all will find pleasing: baby blues, a couple shades of pink and a gender neutral hover yellow also. Stuff I just recently learned to do...
If there's one thing you all know about me, it's that I find organization and search to be highly important. You will quickly see that the forum has a structure with this in-mind. And the search is not like many that just takes one to the topic or sub-forum where the word exists, leaving one to scour post after post, even page after page for the info sought. With this forum software, when there's a hit, it provides it directly in the results, highlighted even, in baby girl pink. This should serve us well.
While the blog was intended to be an evolution from the growing and un-scalable email communications, and it certainly was in several respects, it proved to be lacking in the ease of involvement. This forum will improve this aspect dramatically, and also ratchet-up the organization and search capabilities.
Please take a couple minutes to read the contents of "About this Forum". Much is the same as provided here, with some additions... For those who provided comments here, I appreciate you doing so, and I hope you will consider providing your input (copy/paste) on the forum. Ok, enough…
Without further ado, here's the creation: http://dr-patel-surrogacy.com
Below are direct links to the various topics that reside on the forum and are provided here only for better search engine indexing. Use the link above and navigate there as you wish, not the below URL's...
http://dr-patel-surrogacy.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=53
=========
It has only been about three weeks since the inception of this blog, but I'm already very pleasantly surprised in the level of interest. The support has been wonderful, and for those who have offered it here or through email, I thank you. It has been a fair amount of work, with plenty more to do, but knowing that the contents are seen as having some value, I have been forging ahead...
Being curious, I wanted to see if indeed this material was drawing eyeballs, so I subscribed to a temporary free service to find-out. Attached is a world map showing the location of visitors.
Pretty cool. Global indeed... With 300+ unique visitors, and over 1,000 page views, I was convinced that the information provided was deemed helpful at some level...
However, I have been contacted by a few folks who have experienced issues registering as they wanted to supply comments and participate. This is in essence what I want - interaction, not just me babbling, so I was quite frustrated. Looking at the stats for those visiting further confirmed that there is an inordinate number of folks who spent a lot of time trying to register, with the vast majority giving-up, unfortunately.
If this blog was just about me sharing, all would be fine, but that’s not the case. About two weeks ago I began exploring other options, including modifying certain aspects of the blog to make it more user-friendly. That was a major pain-in-the-butt... I re-visited various free boards or forums, which are fantastic for community-building, but I still found that I didn't like the dependency and lack of control / options they provided, including not the most ideal search functionality...
After much thought, and bouncing ideas off of a few folks on a Google board, it became very clear as to what I needed to do. I researched forum software applications in order to find an offering that I found most appealing, namely one with fantastic search capability, plenty of user options, and one that was highly customizable. After doing my homework and finding what I think to be the best option out there, I downloaded it.
I then needed to find a host or server to put it on, and after asking around, I located one. I then needed to transfer this forum software to this server, so I downloaded an File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client to make this happen. That was a little over a week ago...
Since that time, I've been building-up this board or forum, learning a lot along the way. I actually joined a forum just for those who use this forum software! As of this moment, I have a total of 56 posts there. I received an education on so many things that I wanted to set-up and customize...
After experimenting with it the past couple of days, it seems to be functionally ready to share with you all. Aesthetically, it like 95% there... It has it's share of baby colors that I hope you all will find pleasing: baby blues, a couple shades of pink and a gender neutral hover yellow also. Stuff I just recently learned to do...
If there's one thing you all know about me, it's that I find organization and search to be highly important. You will quickly see that the forum has a structure with this in-mind. And the search is not like many that just takes one to the topic or sub-forum where the word exists, leaving one to scour post after post, even page after page for the info sought. With this forum software, when there's a hit, it provides it directly in the results, highlighted even, in baby girl pink. This should serve us well.
While the blog was intended to be an evolution from the growing and un-scalable email communications, and it certainly was in several respects, it proved to be lacking in the ease of involvement. This forum will improve this aspect dramatically, and also ratchet-up the organization and search capabilities.
Please take a couple minutes to read the contents of "About this Forum". Much is the same as provided here, with some additions... For those who provided comments here, I appreciate you doing so, and I hope you will consider providing your input (copy/paste) on the forum. Ok, enough…
Without further ado, here's the creation: http://dr-patel-surrogacy.
Below are direct links to the various topics that reside on the forum and are provided here only for better search engine indexing. Use the link above and navigate there as you wish, not the below URL's...
http://dr-patel-surrogacy.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=53
Posts
What an AWESOME JOB Tony! You worked very hard and it shows. Very impressive forum. Great resource for Dr. Patel's clients.
ReplyDeleteHi Rhonda! Would you be the Rhonda from the SI board? Thanks for the kind words. It (this blog and mostly the forum) have been a fair amount of work, but well worth it I hope down-the-road... You are correct in that I hope the forum will become a great resource for Dr. Patel's clients. Thanks much for coming by. Tony
ReplyDeleteHi Tony,
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome site, thanks for all the efforts. We are from the Bay area too and are going to visit Dr. Patel in April and this is very helpful.
Hi Shash,
ReplyDeleteWow, you are leaving in just a few weeks! I remember how excited we were...
I'm glad you find this useful. If you haven't done so yet, check-out the forum at http://drpatelsurrogacy.comuf.com. I have not added more to this blog in the past two weeks, but I have added more to the forum. Hope to see you over there!
Hey Tony,
ReplyDeleteOne thing that would be helpful is to understand how did you pay the surrogacy fees? Dollars or Rupees, etc.
Thanks,
Shailesh
Hello Shailesh,
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to create a topic on "Money Matters", and just did thanks to your reminder. Please check out this thread (copy & paste):
http://drpatelsurrogacy.comuf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=50&p=104#p104
I'm trying to get all content on the forum instead of here as this blog is not the most ideal place to do so...
Shailesh, please post your question on the forum. Hope to see you there! Thank you, Tony
Yep, that's me from the Surrogacy Support Group Forum. Again GREAT JOB, and Congrats on your little one!
ReplyDelete