Possible Website Hosting for the QCLUG Site

[Michael Brennan]

All,

Paul and I have been talking for a couple months now about Content
Management Systems (Drupal vs Joomla), how to pay for hosting and a
long term solution for maintaining the website.

I decided to check out Google Sites and Paul and I created some test
sites to mimic the existing website:

https://sites.google.com/site/qclug1/
https://sites.google.com/site/qclug2/

There are a couple of benefits that I'd like to point out by moving to
a solution hosted by Google:

1. Its free. This would reduce how much our group needs to raise to
maintain a website. It would save Jim a good chunk of money per year
since he has footed the bill for the webhosting since it was migrated
away from Steve. Jim could instead contribute his $5 to pay for
meeting space or projector fees of the library.

2. It's easy. If you can type, then you can easily edit the content
on the page. Files to be uploaded are transferred via your browser.

3. It's robust. With the previous hosting, Paul and I have noticed
where the forum site is unavailable or there are database problems
connecting from the forum to it's backend database. Also, there is
revision history with google sites, so if someone makes a mistake
editing a page, we can revert back to the last version.

4. It's transferable. It just requires that you have a google
account. This will make transferring the site to any future webmaster
and other officers extremely easy. Because it ties into your existing
google account, there are no additional passwords to remember.

5. It's portable. If the next webmaster wants to move things around,
it's as easy as creating another google site and then mapping the
qclug.org domain from the old site to the new site.

Ex. I created qclug1 and that's where the site exists. Paul creates
qclug2 and it's ready for prime time. It just requires a
configuration change to point from qclug1 to qclug2.

6. It's extensible. It allows for embedding of content, so we could
embed videos or integrate outside content (like a forum) into the
site. Most google related functions are built in, so there is a
plugin for a calendar and maps. With Drupal or Joomla, it would have
taken a lot of effort to get this functionality, which for Google
Sites is out of the box.

7. It separates the role of domain trustee and webmaster. In past
meetings, Jim has stood by his position that he wants to be the
trustee of the domain in case anything were to happen to the group or
the officers. This still gives him the ownership of the domain, but
gives full control of the website to the webmaster and other officers
of the group.

Paul, Jim and I have had website problems in the past because Jim
controls the webhosting and there were technical hurdles that Paul and
I could not overcome because we didn't have complete control of the
webhosting. We ran into this problem with the lack of a good mailing
list from IXHosting and whether they supported Joomla and/or Drupal.
Paul and I never had control of the webhosting control panel, so
although Paul and I at different times had worked on the website, our
control of it was limited and we were forced just put a bandaid over
the old site.

This cleanly separates the trustee of the domain from the webmaster,
so this will not be an issue in the future.


It is possible to point a domain, like qclug.org to a google site per
this article:

http://support.google.com/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99448


I'd like to suggest this solution to the rest of the group as the
webhosting platform based on the above reasons. Paul and I have
agreed to this and are looking for your review of the test sites
listed above.

Paul and I can show you how easy it is to post news/announcements and
modify the site at the February meeting.


Jim,

I think the IXHosting renewal is up in March, so you wouldn't have to
renew. You would just need to have a CNAME record in DNS to point
www.qclug.org to ghs.google.com.

[Jim Hall]

I'm expecting a very important phone call at the time of the meeting.
I can't reschedule it, so I won't be there. Please discuss and decide
the site issue, I'm expressing no opinion since I can't be there.
Sorry.

Jim