Hi all,
I think the time has finally come to revamp the VV website:
http://www.velovision.com/
...and I'd be grateful from advice from any IT gurus as to which way to go with it. Money can be spent within reason.
Currently as you can see it's basically text-based. I do the HTML myself, and the interactive bits (news stories, RSS, banner ads, site search) are done using Perl/MySql stuff, written by a programmer friend some time ago and maintained by him as required. There's a password-protected back end for me to add stories, manage ads etc. There's also a Phorum forum. There are various static pages with misc content. Styles are fairly erratic :-)
It's hosted by UKLinux on their standard 'Gold' package. They've been pretty good overall, though there has been more downtime than I'd like. Occasionally when I put up a story with lots of pics, it clearly runs out of bandwidth and falls over... site files are currently around 60 meg, mostly images.
It all works fairly well at the moment. A few years ago it was getting 2500 unique IPs a day and around 400 Mb bandwidth/day average. Unfortunately I can't tell what it gets right now as despite several emails UKLinux still haven't sorted out the logging - the log file is a 1.3 gig monster that I can no longer download, instead of being archived in chunks as it should be.
I would like any revamp to include a number of improvements including:
- More modern look/feel, but still clean and fast. Perhaps use a few more photos/visuals from the magazine to make pages less texty.
- Improved/more flexible advert display
- Consistent styles, especially with forum pages
- Sort out news story archiving, improved search
- Either decent CAPTCHAs for news story comments or use forum log-ins - currently I wade through reams of spam daily and pick out legit comments.
- I also want eventually to populate the 'reviews index' section with actual review content from past magazines, in a structured and searchable way, presumably database-driven.
- Need to import existing forum, news etc content into any new system.
- I need to be able to update it myself daily and free of charge (happy with basic HTML etc but not really a programmer).
- I would like not to be tied into working with any particular supplier, so if it were to use standard software etc and be fairly portable that would be good.
As I see it the options might be:
- Get a proper designer to revamp the look of the site, using existing programming. Basically a cosmetic upgrade, doesn't address many of the other issues. Presumably relatively cheap and easy, and something I could easily enough roll out over any new pages so just a one-time cost.
- Find a hosting company offering e.g. hosted Drupal CMS installs and learn enough to modify/manage it myself. Took a brief look at this and it all looks a bit daunting, so not sure this is a realistic option for me.
- Shift it to third-party sites like Wordpress for the news blog and some standard forum software for the forum e.g. vBulletin. Modify the templates for each to get close to something like a consistent look and feel. Not sure how practical this is, and I don't like putting my site at the mercy of large third-party companies.
- Find someone who will offer a full management service for the site - basically rebuild from scratch then integrate the old content I assume, using some sort of CMS most likely. Then offer continuing maintenance/support while I handle content and day-to-day management. Should be a 'proper' solution, but presumably high and ongoing cost.
Any opinions/advice/recommendations?
Any idea of ballpark costs for that last option?
TIA...
Pete
(Peter Eland - Velo Vision publisher)
I think the time has finally come to revamp the VV website:
http://www.velovision.com/
...and I'd be grateful from advice from any IT gurus as to which way to go with it. Money can be spent within reason.
Currently as you can see it's basically text-based. I do the HTML myself, and the interactive bits (news stories, RSS, banner ads, site search) are done using Perl/MySql stuff, written by a programmer friend some time ago and maintained by him as required. There's a password-protected back end for me to add stories, manage ads etc. There's also a Phorum forum. There are various static pages with misc content. Styles are fairly erratic :-)
It's hosted by UKLinux on their standard 'Gold' package. They've been pretty good overall, though there has been more downtime than I'd like. Occasionally when I put up a story with lots of pics, it clearly runs out of bandwidth and falls over... site files are currently around 60 meg, mostly images.
It all works fairly well at the moment. A few years ago it was getting 2500 unique IPs a day and around 400 Mb bandwidth/day average. Unfortunately I can't tell what it gets right now as despite several emails UKLinux still haven't sorted out the logging - the log file is a 1.3 gig monster that I can no longer download, instead of being archived in chunks as it should be.
I would like any revamp to include a number of improvements including:
- More modern look/feel, but still clean and fast. Perhaps use a few more photos/visuals from the magazine to make pages less texty.
- Improved/more flexible advert display
- Consistent styles, especially with forum pages
- Sort out news story archiving, improved search
- Either decent CAPTCHAs for news story comments or use forum log-ins - currently I wade through reams of spam daily and pick out legit comments.
- I also want eventually to populate the 'reviews index' section with actual review content from past magazines, in a structured and searchable way, presumably database-driven.
- Need to import existing forum, news etc content into any new system.
- I need to be able to update it myself daily and free of charge (happy with basic HTML etc but not really a programmer).
- I would like not to be tied into working with any particular supplier, so if it were to use standard software etc and be fairly portable that would be good.
As I see it the options might be:
- Get a proper designer to revamp the look of the site, using existing programming. Basically a cosmetic upgrade, doesn't address many of the other issues. Presumably relatively cheap and easy, and something I could easily enough roll out over any new pages so just a one-time cost.
- Find a hosting company offering e.g. hosted Drupal CMS installs and learn enough to modify/manage it myself. Took a brief look at this and it all looks a bit daunting, so not sure this is a realistic option for me.
- Shift it to third-party sites like Wordpress for the news blog and some standard forum software for the forum e.g. vBulletin. Modify the templates for each to get close to something like a consistent look and feel. Not sure how practical this is, and I don't like putting my site at the mercy of large third-party companies.
- Find someone who will offer a full management service for the site - basically rebuild from scratch then integrate the old content I assume, using some sort of CMS most likely. Then offer continuing maintenance/support while I handle content and day-to-day management. Should be a 'proper' solution, but presumably high and ongoing cost.
Any opinions/advice/recommendations?
Any idea of ballpark costs for that last option?
TIA...
Pete
(Peter Eland - Velo Vision publisher)
