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Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2018 NJH Music

About This Website

Work started on the Brass Band Portal in 1996, since then it has evolved into the site that you see today. Most of the input is owned by Nigel Horne, however he is by no means the only contributor (see the vacancies page for a list of the other contributors and how you can join up).

For the technically minded

The site www.bandsman.co.uk is currently hosted by Dreamhost, on a web server on Debian Linux. The site consists of two sets of pages, static HTML pages that were written using FrontPage 2000 on a PC running Windows XP Professional; and dynamic pages that are written using VWF which allows for pages to render easily in different languages on different platforms. If you are interested in translating all or part of the site, please Contact Us.

The spider for the search engine runs on a separate server that is not publically facing.

Unlike many websites, we consider testing to be important. We do not demand that you run "xyz" operating system, "abc" browser, set your monitor in 10000x2000 pixels or view the connection over a T1 Internet link. We test the website so that YOU take control, not us.

All dynamic pages are also run through the tidy program to check for HTML compliance and are tested using the Apache web server running on a GNU/Linux program and occasionally on a Microsoft IIS server running on Windows XP Professional.

If you find something that doesn't work please tell us, unlike other sites we don't blame you choosing what we call the "wrong" browser, we take the blame for not testing it properly.

Search Engine

InterWebsearch, the computer software that drives the search engine at search.bandsman.co.uk, searches and indexes many brass band sites. The software that does this is available, please contact us to get a copy. It can easily be tailored for any intranet or set of internet sites.

Tickertape server

A ticker tape server using the RSS and RDF feed technologies is now being tested to bring brass band news to your desktop. If you're running Windows, download a viewer such as Headline Viewer. Click on settings->providers->new, then fill in:

Name: The Brass Band Portal
Data URL: http://www.bandsman.co.uk/brass-band.rdf
Site URL: http://www.bandsman.co.uk
Image URL: http://www.bandsman.co.uk/favicon.ico
Category: General/Music

Then click OK. Open culture->music in the top left, then click on The Brass Band Portal in the bottom left and you're away. I would like to hear about better tickertape viewers if anyone knows of any.

I have heard reports that Google Reader, Feedreader and Wildgrape Newsdesk work, and that Trillian Professional will also talk to the server with their news plug-in, however this software is not free.

If you're running KDE on Linux or UNIX, start up knewsticker and point it to https://www.bandsman.co.uk/brass-band.rdf, set the icon to https://www.bandsman.co.uk/favicon.ico, and you'll get all the latest Brass Band news fed to your desktop!

If you're running Evolution on Linux or UNIX, you can add the brass band news to your summary page via Tools->Summary Preferences->News Feeds. Click on "Add News Feed" enter "Brass Band News" and http://www.bandsman.co.uk/brass-band.rdf, click on "OK" then "Add".

If you're using Firefox, you may find that the Sage plug-in is better than the built in RSS support.

Test Server

There is a test server which is used to test the latest version of the software. Bug reports are always welcome.

Privacy and Cookie Policy

The database kept here consists of a band's name, location (town), contact name and e-mail address, vacancies, website and some social media links. Personal names, IP addresses and e-mail accounts, along with encrypted passwords, are stored for all users registering with the forum. Personal names, e-mail addresses, instrument played, location and band name are stored in the deputy database All the above information is deleted when an account is removed. None of the above information is never, under any circumstances, sold or disclosed to any third party. If you wish your or your band's information to be removed, let us know. Most of the code is open source allowing you complete access to the way this site collects, stores and uses the above data.

Cookies are used to allow the events database, on-line purchasing system and forum to work. They are not disclosed to anyone else and track nothing else. This site uses its own cookies.

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