HOW to be your OWN WEBMASTER Andrew Mallis CFC Media Lab

1. HOW to be your OWN WEBMASTERAndrew Mallis CFC Media Lab

2. Why do I need a website? • who is my audience? • what is my purpose? • what can a website do for me that other media cannot? • Do I really have time for this?

3. What do I need from a hosting company? • storage • bandwidth • performace • price • service • specific technologies? • PHP, ASP, MySQL • number of databases? • one-click installs? • media streaming • shell/ VPS / WebDAV

4. TYPES of HOSTING PLANS • Shared hosting • VPS - virtual private server • Managed services • Dedicated server • Co-location • BEWARE the reseller! More information

5. What Software do I need? • FTP client • RAW Text editor • Textmate, TextWrangler, Notepad • Firefox with extensions • Developer toolbar • Firebug • Colorzilla • Measure it • Apache distribution for your testing environment • MAMP or XAMP • Image Editor • Photoshop, Graphic Convertor

6. How Do I Register my Domain name? • Check to see if someone owns your domain. Maybe choose another? • Do a WHOIS Lookup: • dnsstuff.com • Networksolutions.com • BUY IT: register your domain name with a registrar • .com = godaddy $6.99 USD • .ca = reg.ca $14.95 • Point your registrars’ name servers to your hosts’ DNS server (with a CNAME record) • WAIT: Once you've told one particular DNS server about your new domain, it will have to transfer that information to all the other servers on the internet, which could take a couple of days. So be aware that your new domain won't necessarily be working instantly.

7. Security Certificates In order to conduct secure transactions, you will need to purchase a security certificate. This is basically an algorithm that authenticates and encrypts data between a user's browser and your server. The algorithm is encoded and decoded with a key. Users are increasingly demanding security from recognized certificate brands. Current industry leaders are Thawte, Geotrust, and Verisign. You need a certificate if you want to: • Host an anonymous FTP site • Conduct e-commerce • Encrypt email from your domain • Secure the submission of users’ personal information • names, dates of birth, drivers license #, addresses, etc.

8. Why open source software packages • Open source is great and FREE • Instead of coding, you’ll be configuring • Help is always close at hand online in forums and documention • opensourcecms.com – test all packages before you install !!!

9. joomla.org Joomla! CMS and community web platform FEATURES • WYSIWYG web-based editor • Templates and extensions (not all are free) • Polls • Blog TYPICAL USES • Small business websites • Non-profit and organizational websites • Corporate intranets and extranets example sites: SamuelLJackson.com, girlscantwhat.com, imperium.ph

10. drupal.org Drupal CMS and community web platform Is Drupal right for you?More about drupal FEATURES • Advanced user managent and permission based feature access • Node based flat architecture • News (RSS) Aggregator • Polls • Multi-lingual • Collaborative book • Searching • Extensive online help • Web-based administration • Themes and templates • 100s of modules TYPICAL USES • Content Management • Blog • Discussion-based community • Collaborative environments example sites: The onion, Terminus1525, Spread Firefox, Project Opus, BBC The World, 43folders, more…

11. phpBB.com phpBB bulletin board/forum More about phpBB FEATURES • Private messages with attachments • Advanced moderation • Private forums or topics • Search • Advanced user management • Registration options • Custom profiles • themes TYPICAL USES • Interest-based communities • Support forums • Development example sites: mozillazine.com,area51

12. wordpress.org Wordpress blogging software More featuresMore about Wordpress FEATURES • Multi-paged posts • File/picture support • Auto-saved drafts • User management • Configurable sidebar • Lots of great themes • Many extensions • Easily set up a podcast • Dynamic page generation • Web-based admin • Edit themes in browser TYPICAL USES • Blogs • Podcast sites • Personal homepages example sites: icanhascheezburger, lifehack, CNN Political Ticker, andrewmallis.com

13. gallery2.org Gallery photosharing web application More features FEATURES • Supports unlimited galleries and albums • Slideshows, printing, • Rating & comments • E-commerce • Many themes (not many beautiful) • Manipulate, rotate, resize images online • Set size and quality defaults • Auto-watermarking • IPTC aware • Multilingual (over 30 language translations) • Multiple upload methods • iPhoto plugin • Stand-alone Gallery Remote application • Easily embedded into other CMS like Drupal, Wordpress, phpBB, Joomla • Supports movies too! TYPICAL USES • Portfolio site • Personal photo gallery example sites: andrewmallis.com

14. rubyonrails.org Ruby on Rails web application framework Video demostutorials FEATURES • Rapid prototyping • Simple programming language • Easy AJAX • Customizable applications • NOT for the beginner TYPICAL USES • Web applications • Collaborative environments • E-commerce example sites: basecamp, shopify

15. QUESTIONS?

16. THANK YOU!