Quanta Webmaster wrote, on 27/Sep/12 22:30 | Sep27:
Hi All (my apologies if this mail has been sent twice but I seem to have
difficulties sending from my main account)
This year I took over as the web master, but I had been working alongside
the previous web master as the web admin for some time before that, so I
have a bit of the history.
The issue started when one person was tasked with maintaining the website
and updates were being passed to the website but the website was not being
updated due to work commitments etc. The committee tasked the web master
and myself with finding a solution. We came up with two main CMS systems,
Joomla and Typo 3 both of which use PHP and MySQL and the committee was
shown these systems and ultimately decided to go with Typo 3 as it provided
a nice structured format for maintaining the system and allowed users to be
given different privileges from front end user where a user can log and see
sections hidden from general users through to being able to edit and create
pages.
Typo 3 was implemented with the then provider (Continum) under a free
agreement, but they had no experience with Unix, PHP or MySQL (as they were
a Windows, IIS and .net based company). So we then looked at moving the
service to a paid for provider who would not only support the underlying
platform but also Typo 3, and hence the current provider was chosen.
When the provider was chosen various other options were also considered. We
could have used my personal space (I use a VPS which I pay less than $100
and can install any services I require on) or we could have used the then
web masters space (which was a reseller space) however both of these were
considered to be conflict of interest as we were both on the committee.
I have no experience with Tony's website as a provider, and had not been
advised it was even an option (though I don't know what facilities he
offers).
As for updating the content, we would love to have more people writing
content for the website and the magazine, I personally work full time and
find it difficult to commit time to writing them (plus I am not the best
when it comes to writing articles, I cannot remember if an article I wrote
was ever published in QL World!!). The CMS makes it easier to do this by
allowing me to create accounts to edit different parts of the web site and
not relying on one person to update the whole site, but if there is no one
to contribute (without re-posting full articles from other publications)
then the site will become stale. The news articles are where we will post
news and links to other peoples websites/articles.
On a personal level I think there are too many fragmented QL websites, and
I feel that all these sites should be brought together into one site, but I
don't think all the different QL groups/publications would group together
to make a unified resource like that as each would want to have complete
control.
One thing I have been working on is posting all the latest magazines on the
site. These are there but the emails have not yet been sent out with login
information.
BTW if someone feels that they can run the website better and more cost
effective I will gladly ask the committee if we can co-opt them onto the
committee and they could become the web master next year!
The committee is meeting a week on Sunday (sorry if the committee have not
been notified yet) and I will raise these points with them.
The options I think we should consider are:
1. Move to a static based website to maintain a web presence (if there is
no new content to put on a website then there is little point trying to
maintain it the way we are currently trying to)
2. Find some thing to add value to members on the website - recruit new
authors for new articles.
3. Shut the site down and no longer maintain a presence.
I run my system under debian Linux, and php and mysql are installed.
Typo3 is available via apt, but there are 404 issues (probably
temporary) trying to install it. I reckon there is a major issue with
the databases apt uses, as even apt-get update fails with loads of 404
errors. IP 83.142.228.128 (one of many 404s) is moved or down.
If Quanta decide to go for a fixed site, and there seems to be no reason
why not if only one person is updating it, then my server can support
the Quanta site right now.
Tony
--
t...@firshman.co.uk http://firshman.co.uk
Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 Skype: tonyfirshman
TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG
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