Dubai Megaprojects Website

Sky Tower · #1 Posted **Nov 4, 2006, 1:45 PM**

For the benefit of SSC/SSP forum members, I've devised a website as a one stop shop for information on the massive projects ongoing in Dubai, with content requested and posted by forumers.

First of all I've created a working template of what I personally think should be included in the site, which you can all view during the construction process.

For the time being, I would like forumers to post a wish list of any content they would like to see added, including any links or projects that they feel deserves to be included as a megaproject.

This will be a daily updated site when I get going, but anyone who wants an active role in the construction of anything they percieve to be their niche or expertise; then please send requests through the 'contact us' links which are now active.

When the majority are happy, I hope this thread will become a plethora of information for website submission, with text, photo's, video and content links to start building the Dubai information website that we collectivly want.

This is a site predominently for SSP/SSC forumers, created by SSP/SSC forumers.

BTW, hearsay, rumours and politics will have no place here, but serious proposals will have their own listing.

All suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

http://www.dubaimegaprojects.com

wiki · #2 Posted **Nov 4, 2006, 5:08 PM**

Tabks For Posting The Website

malec · #3 Posted **Nov 4, 2006, 9:25 PM**

Cool idea.

Will be a huge amount of work though

Why not post this on SSC aswell since there are more people who'd be interested over there.

q8_shaggy_17 · #4 Posted **Nov 5, 2006, 9:03 PM**

guys, plz tell me how to download the damn videos by using bit torrent, cuz i just don't know how 2 use that thing

i also tried doing it from filefront website but still no use

Sky Tower · #5 Posted **Nov 6, 2006, 5:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by q8_shaggy_17

Guys, plz tell me how to download the damn videos by using bit torrent, cuz I just don't know how 2 use that thing.

I also tried doing it from filefront website but still no use

First of all you need to download the Azureus bit torrent program which when installed will start automaticly when needed.

You can download this at http://azureus.sourceforge.net/download.php

Then download the high res version of the video (772Mb)

http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/81...ects_The_Video

It will probably take a number of hours to download the high res version; but trust me, it's well worth the wait.

q8_shaggy_17 · #6 Posted **Nov 6, 2006, 9:01 PM**

thnx sky tower

Sky Tower · #7 Posted **Nov 7, 2006, 12:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by malec

Cool idea.

Will be a huge amount of work though

Why not post this on SSC aswell since there are more people who'd be interested over there.

Thanks malec. Well some idiot was going to do it....might as well be me

.....anyway I've got some top notch help from a few friends

Not sure yet about a dedicated thread on SSC just yet as it means twice the work (I'm quite a busy boy you know!!) ;but I'm sure someone else will start one soon!

Although I've registered and let all the guys know at SSC

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...0&postcount=99

Voila!!!

malec · #8 Posted **Nov 7, 2006, 1:32 AM**

BTW you say that rumours and hearsay will have no place, but loads of towers start off as rumours anyway. Some actually start construction before any info is released so what counts as a rumour and what doesn't?

Sky Tower · #9 Posted **Nov 7, 2006, 3:46 AM**

Ok then, substansiated rumours (with drawings)

If enough people complain it's not included, I suppose I'll have to

Beyond 1000 · #10 Posted **Nov 7, 2006, 4:38 PM**

This would be a good website Skytower. I'm in. Let's get the show on the road.

malec · #11 Posted **Nov 8, 2006, 4:18 PM**

I made a thread about this on SSC
http://www1.skyscrapercity.com/showt...9#post10403609

Have you started any work on this yet?
Here are a few threads to help you get started:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...t=83082&page=8
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...=110747&page=2
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...t=91069&page=3

Sky Tower · #12 Posted **Nov 8, 2006, 8:47 PM**

Thank you malec. I had a feeling you would

I'm going to have a brainstorming session with myself tonight, start trawling through the forums and saving any text, pics etc and start saving them in dedicated folders to try and make sense of it all.

I was thinking about having the homepage dedicated to the Burj Dubai Tower updates, as I imagine it's probably the most popular project that people around the world wish to know about.

I will be telling Mr Googlebot where evey page is this evening too and ask him nicely to trawl each page hourly to give everyone up to the minute updates.

I need to create a sitemap.xml file for my google account as well to ensure I plan the necessary backlinks properly for a good search engine placement on launch.

Most of the hard work will be hidden, encoding meta tags, keywords, link farms, alt tags etc; but will be worth the effort in the long run.

I'm spending some time developing a user operated program that I will embed into a hit counter that will allow me monitor users identities via cookies rather than having a login page.

From this program I should be able to monitor popular pages, find missing links, find users website entry and exit points, find users browser types and IP address, times on each page, time on site, crawler activity, point and country of origin, search engine keywords used, etc, which comes in very useful in tweaking the site later on for maximum impact.

If anyone else has anything else they'd like to see on the site then let me know soon as all the links are now active.

Sky Tower · #13 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 3:37 AM**

Okay guys, a home page teaser is now posted and is about 50% done but you can get a good idea of the layout with more content added later.

At the moment it's a bit raw as I'm just playing with a few ideas.

I was going to have the home page just as an introduction to the site but I think I will create a flash intro page to introduce the site instead, with animated graphics and with sound, just to grab peoples attention!

I had some problems with the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) I made, as the content is designed to move with different sized screens so centralized content and photos appear in the same place and the text moves around it all, negating the need for annoying horizontal scrollbars to read text and view pictures. It took me while but I think I've sorted it.

If you minimize the window and then drag the bottom right hand corner to make different size windows, all the text should move to fit the new screen size. To me it looks okay from 15 - 24 inch monitor sizes but if anyone has any viewing problems (including issues with netscape, aol and firefox, please let me know.

jixline · #14 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 9:39 AM**

nice design and i like how u place the information.

keep up the good work

p.s: no problem with firefox

Sky Tower · #15 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 4:19 PM**

Thank you jixline......and welcome to SSP

bikes · #16 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 4:41 PM**

Sky Tower, answer to your PM, or you could just drive up to London for a talk..

Bergenser · #17 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 5:20 PM**

I must say you have a nice lokin' website! Can't wate for updates.

ZZ-II · #18 Posted **Nov 9, 2006, 7:11 PM**

great website, thank you

malec · #19 Posted **Nov 10, 2006, 1:53 AM**

Here are some ideas I think would be good to include:

1: First of all I don't think it'd be good to become an archive for construction photos because there is already a very good one, SSC, and also here but not for all projects. Better would be to have a page showing the main information such as a few pics, stats, 2 latest construction photos, a bit of a description and of course a more detailed one for the more important projects.

2: Also since dubai projects are really confusing there'll have to be a good deal of organisation. Some might want to search by name, others by location, or by use (skyscraper project? villas? island?) so there should be this option. It'd be great to have a map where when you move the mouse over and area it'll be highlighted and you can zoom in. I could help with that. Also eventually the main skyscraper projects should also have a map where you can click on individual towers

3: As you've seen taking any old image isn't always OK and sometimes images of projects are posted up before the project is even launched. In that case it's also not always OK to release this sort of info on a website like yours.

Sky Tower · #20 Posted **Nov 10, 2006, 2:20 AM**

Thanks malec.

I definately agree with your first point. Nothing could come close to the archive of information on the SSC/SSP forums.

Your idea about location maps is really cool. I hadn't thought of that!

What do you propose we use to navigate? A static 3D model shot of an area would be fantastic! If I had a sequence of shots I could build a flash animated zoom sequence as most people have flash viewer embedded into their browsers. Or, maybe a 3D video file or something?

Google's 3D maps are getting kinda out there as well.
You've got my creative juices flowing now!