My web hoster actually does most of that for me (the backups, rollbacks, etc). I do my own updates to wordpress, customizations, etc - but they do everything else. But then, it's a small, service-oriented web hoster shop primarly for library-related blogs and websites (how's that for a niche market?). If I have a server type question or prob, I just email or IM and it gets fixed, pronto.
I'm very spoiled. David Lee King davidleeking.com - blog davidleeking.com/etc - videoblog twitter | skype: davidleeking On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Mike Meiser <[email protected]>wrote: > Sorry Markus, > Everyone fears coming home from vacation to find their website burned down. > > Maybe you can hire a website security company, buy some website insurance > or > find a website sitter. > > Seriously though, analogies are not only fun, but how's the following for a > business idea. > > A company that you give FTP or sFTP access to your website. > > It not only backs up everything, and tracks every single change through a > web based versioning control system, but can automatic roll back and even > flags malicious changes. > > Make it general consumer friendly. > > Give it a nice "web 2.0" interface. > > Sell it to self hosters regardless of whom they're hosting with as > "insurance, security, and backup". > > This not only can be a transparent service instead of bogging down would be > DIY types with the need to buy your designs or run their workflow through > you or use you as a host. > > But it will let the end user go crazy customizing their code, playing with > open source, using whatever host provider they want. Giving them true > *fredom to tinker*... now that they now have a saftey net. > > websaftey.net, it's actually available. > > > Does something similar already exist? > > > Now build on it... add in security analysis... > > ie. making sure permissions are correct on all your files... > > i.e. giving you status on wether your software installed on your server is > up to date > > > > Maybe... if the technical requirements aren't to bad it could even install > certain open source packages automatically regardless of hosting provider. > > What about the ability to switch hosts? > > Or mirror a website on a different domain with the click of a button? > > The ability to edit or upgrade or test a service and then roll it to the > users main site. > > > > Perhaps this webservice could orient the market in a different way. Perhaps > it could focus on a particular niche say video, customizing it's services > for videobloggers...i.e installing wordpress themes vPip, etc. > > > > At it's core the backup and versioning is more then enough to sell to every > web2.0 person out there for $5 - $10 a month and make mondo money, but the > possibilities on where it can go from there are endless. > > The key is you're doing the same thing to hosting providers as so caled > "web2.0" services like gmail have done to Outlook, Eudora and other email > desktop clients. > > You're moving key services from the hosting providers into the "cloud" as > services and thus reducing the dependancy on hosting companies proprietary > features. In a sense your comoditizing the hosting provider the way the web > is commoditizing the Microsoft OS, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Word, Excell, > etc. > > You could go on to make this a gateway and a security net for not so tech > savy people so they can try out open source packages regardless of > different > hosting providers. > > Perhaps one day... if you base this webservice on open source and work on > building standards everyone from drupal to wordpress will work toward you > to > create a sort of web based "package manager" for the internet. > > In this way your webservice might install software cleanly onto any host > that uses a standardized linux install base. Thus you created an > ecosystem. > An new sort of API by which hosting providers can interact with > webservices. > > This "package manager for the internet", would be like the package managers > used on desktop linux, but instead of installing software on your desktop > they'd install it on your website... think CMS, wikis, blogs and more. > Perhaps even custom videoblogging solutions such as themes, vPIP, etc. > > The internet is after all the new desktop. The desktop computer for many is > just a dummy terminal you use to access the internet. Hence the rise of the > netbook. > > The internet is where your email is, where your photoalbum/editor are, > where > your write and where you publish. > > So why not think of the domain, your website, as the new desktop. > > Using this metaphor, what other services could be stripped off of the > hosting provider? > > You could possibly even avoid the problems inherent with running server > side > code on joeblowsblog.com buy creating an "ultra secure" option where all > the > code is run on this new webservice (similar to what blogger.com does) and > only static html and files live on joeblow's domain. > > You could run this whole service through Amazon S3's hosting and computing > cloud so it scales like the devil, and only charge the user for that > processing and hosting that they require. > > If such "web 2.0" type service could handle the domain management and > subdomain it could assign a subdomain to itself, i.e. > code.joeblowsblog.comto run, manage, and update joe blow's code > securely while leaving only > static code (HTML, images, movie files) on joeblowsblog.com. > > In this way such a service could avoid the pitfalls of setting up different > open source packages on different hosting providers whom may be using > anything from Microsoft, to Debian to unix. > > Though perhaps if done in open source you could forge relationships with > hosting providers that use standardized open source and thus create an > interaction model... an API, by which you can create "a standardized > package > manager for the open source internet" > > This idea in the end might be two ideas > > 1) security and a saftey net for self hosters websites > > 2) and in the bigger picture... a "web based package manager" or "package > manager as web service" in the grand web 2.0 style, to install and > automatically update open source packages that run on webservers. > > Not sure I got the point across, maybe / maybe not, but heh I was > brainstorming. :P > > -Mike > > On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Tim Street <[email protected]> wrote: > > > MIke? > > > > Why did you have to say that? > > > > Now I want to go on vacation for a month. ;-) > > > > > > Tim Street > > [email protected] > > http://1timstreet.com/blog > > http://twitter.com/1timstreet > > > > On Feb 8, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Mike Meiser wrote: > > > > > To use your car analogy most people simply take it to the dealer for > > > maintence. > > > There is no dealer for self hosting. Dreamhost nor any other provide > > > that > > > sort of support. That type of structure does not exist. > > > > > > Most people are not technically literate enough to manage the constant > > > stream of upgrades. I myself while technically capable, cut a hard > > > edge on > > > maintence issues. If I go on vacation for a month, I simply don't > > > want to > > > worry about it. And a month of ignoring it is all it takes... now > > > multiply > > > that by the rest of your life. Most people underestimate how much > > > the long > > > term maintence costs are while underestimating their own capactity > > > to handle > > > that constant maintence. > > > > > > These people should simply NOT be self hosting... unless they use > > > blogger.com which requires no maintence. > > > > > > It's that simple. > > > > > > -Mike > > > > > > On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:41 PM, David Howell <[email protected]> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > I'm sorry but the Wordpress site owners that are having their sites > > > > hacked are the same people that buy a car and expect to never have > > > to > > > > change the oil in it. > > > > > > > > Running a self-hosted site means being able to manage one as well. > > > If > > > > you don't want to manage it, then you use sites like Blogger. > > > Blogger > > > > is great for that. No frills. No muss. No fuss. No extras. > > > > > > > > If you dont want to manage it yourself, you hire people like me that > > > > will not only design and build it but manage it as well. If you want > > > > to do it all yourself, please read the manual, secure it and keep it > > > > up do date with patches. Your unsecured site causes problems for > > > everyone. > > > > > > > > If you dont change the oil in your car, dont cry when it's > > > eventually > > > > sitting dead on the side of the road. > > > > > > > > David Howell > > > > http://www.davidhowellstudios.com > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], Mike Meiser > > > > <groups-yahoo-...@...> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Sad to hear. :( > > > > > I'm assuming he was running wordpress? > > > > > > > > > > I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just > > > > maintence, > > > > > you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security > > > > holes. If > > > > > you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server > > > > side open > > > > > source. > > > > > > > > > > Many times I've wanted to redo my blogger.com blog in wordpress, > > > indeed > > > > > wordpress is simply better, but the truth is blogger.com is > > > > virtually hack > > > > > proof since there's absolutely no server side code running. It's > > > all > > > > handled > > > > > by blogger.com and written to the server via sftp. I've really > > > come to > > > > > appreciate this rock solid security and ZERO maintenance, and to > > > be > > > > honest > > > > > it's the primary reason I simply recommend blogger over > > > wordpress to > > > > anyone > > > > > who wants to self host on their own domain. The exception being if > > > > they're a > > > > > developer and already running code on their server, in which case > > > > they're > > > > > probably aware enough of the maintenance issues to run wordpress. > > > > > > > > > > Lately I've been doing a lot of work in the bike industry and it > > > > seems the > > > > > entire industry from shop owners, to racers to bike makers runs > > > almost > > > > > exclusively on a blogspot hosted ecosystem. It simply works. > > > > > > > > > > P.S. a good auto-backup system or version control system for your > > > > blog is a > > > > > MUST if you run wordpress. A lot of hosting providers include this > > > > stock. > > > > > > > > > > -Mike > > > > > mmeiser.com/blog > > > > > flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Steve Watkins <st...@...> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the > > > site got > > > > > > hacked. > > > > > > > > > > > > http://twitter.com/joshleo > > > > > > > > > > > > Cheers > > > > > > > > > > > > Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], David King <davidleeking@> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)? > > > It looks > > > > > > > like it is gone ... & I really like his videos! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Just curious > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Sent from my iPhone > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
