Big Brother in your school Day 7: Going live

Lights, Camera, Action!

After seven days of hard work, we'd built the site - or had we? It hadn't been tested yet and it's no use launching a site if it only works for half your users.

Testing sites can prove a time consuming business. You can find pages bringing up error messages, layouts with a mind of their own on older browsers, and video playing badly on certain machines. Basically it's goes without saying that what works on one browser won't necessarily work on others. We tested the site on a number of different machines in the office and tried using different browsers like Internet Explorer 4 and 5, Netscape 4 and 6. When we found a bug we'd go back to the original file, find the source of the problem, fix it, and then test it again.

Once the site was fully tested, we proof read it to spot any spelling mistakes and posted it onto the web. Seeing the site live for the first time is always a good feeling - a mixture of happiness and relief. It's so good seeing your work come to life!