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PHP Solutions is back up for PHProfession!   (News)

in its original state after the hard disk crashed in the other server, lucky I had a back up of the sites SQL but not the files.

We now have our very own server and should not have any problems with it (fingers crossed) and the site looks just about the same as it used too.

Thanks to all who helped on PHProfession during this time and I'im glad to say our central discussion and test site is back.


please post any comments and updates on what has been going on since we were down here. Any changes you have made or updates you know where to add those in the message board.

Look for further developements on http://www.phpsolutions.co.uk

thanks

aidan

Generated on June 5, 2003.

Open Source Content Management Systems Make E-commerce Websites Affordable   (News)

rmation the staff had gathered and uploaded, and most of their cash reserves—because the custom developer failed to backup the site.

My first concern was how computer savvy and organized this client was. If she was going to require a lot of training and hand-holding, even implementing an open-source solution would cost more than her budget would allow. So I sent her a number of questions to answer, such as:


What kind of site do you need developed?
How did you choose php?
Is an admin interface required?
Do you need to manage banner ads?
What are your support requirements after implementation?”



After she ‘passed my test,’ I told her that I thought she’d have difficulty programming the site from scratch for $4-5,000, even in India. Then I told her that from her requirements, she was ‘re-inventing the wheel.’I told her that there are numerous free open source CMSs with all of the functionality she needed and then some. I told her that by using this approach, I could deliver a fully functional site by the end of the year within the budget she specified.

Within hours, I received a request for an in-person meeting. Because this client had a clear idea of all of the components and capabilities she wanted, I was able to recommend a comprehensive solution that would address all of the issues her specifications raised. This saved a lot of time and expense, as well as made my job much less frustrating.

After the meeting, I sent the PostNuke (http://www.postnuke.com/) manual to the client for review. I recommended PostNuke because it provides full CSS support, HTML 4.01 transitional compliance, and an advanced blocks system. However, she astutely pointed out that, according to the documentation, unique block/page configuration for multiple pages isn’t possible—a stringent requirement for the DoctorVAR.com implementation.

By examining other PostNuke site installations and reading PostNuke.com forum discussions, I quickly figured out that multiple PostNuke installs would work around the page layout problem and provide complete control over the subsite blocks. A PostNuke subsite is an additional installation of PostNuke within the ‘main’ PostNuke installation. For example, if the main PostNuke installation is installed under ‘/htdocs/postnuke’, a subsite would be installed under ‘/htdocs/postnuke/subsite1’.

Each subsite has the ability to be configured completely separately from the main PostNuke installation. This allows the administrator to manage separate topics as their own distinct ‘subsites.’ DoctorVAR.com is configured to share all information between the subsites except for the subsites’ block configuration. Subsites are configured to maintain their own block layouts—thus each page can be laid out uniquely.

The client wanted to use html blocks to handle the bulk of the content since she thought the PostNuke articles feature would be tedious to maintain. However, PostNuke only searches major modules, not html pages. To resolve the html layout and search issues, I integrated a PostNuke module called Content Express (http://pn.arising.net/ce/). This module provides the site with a very friendly admin interface for adding html pages and controlling the site navigation, as well as a search engine for html pages. However, Content Express wasn’t built for multi-site configuration, so I had to figure out what it was doing to know how to integrate it for the multi-site solution.”

To complete the site, I integrated free PostNuke modules to provide an ezine, forum, job bank, and banner/ad management. Within two weeks, my client was laying out pages and uploading data. And by the end of two months the DoctorVAR.com site was up—within her budget and without sacrificing one feature or requirement. The only software she had to purchase was a classified ads module and shopping cart for $59, plus a $30 theme. The rest of the modules were free.”

The flexibility, performance, and ease of administration of the DoctorVAR.com (http://www.doctorvar.com/) implementation is a testament to how robust and cost effective open source CMSs are.”

Additional Resources:

PostNuke.com (open source weblog/content management system) http://www.postnuke.com/

Content Express (open source Web content management system) http://pn.arising.net/ce/

WhatsNews (open source ezine module) http://nuke-modules.gading.de/

phpAdsNew (open source ad server) http://www.phpadsnew.com/one/

phpBB (open-source bulletin board package) http://www.phpbb.com/

phProfession (open source job bank) http://www.phpsolutions.co.uk/index.php

DoctorVAR.com Website Content/Stickiness Articles http://www.doctorvar.com/subsite8/?mid=12#stickiness/

DoctorVAR.com Web Presence Articles http://www.doctorvar.com/subsite27/?mid=22#WebPresence/

Web Marketing & E-Commerce http://www.wilsonweb.com/

Apromotionguide.com - Free website promotion tutorial http://apromotionguide.com/


Linda Christie, a freelance writer based in Omaha NE, is the Executive Editor for DoctorVAR.com.

Generated on April 23, 2003.

PostNuke CMS Make E-commerce Websites Affordable   (News)

e said. “So I started planning my site by analyzing how sites keep me coming back. Good content is the primary draw, but what else?”

Analyzing Website Assets and Annoyances

After a few days of surfing her favorite haunts and examining sites she’d let fall by the wayside, Christie came up with a laundry list of characteristics that she liked: short, easy to remember and descriptive site name; clear focus and organization; easy navigation; free and meaty content; plus links to additional resources.

She also identified a number of annoyances that sent her running to another site: multiple broken links, signup required to access content, popup ads, outdated content, poor navigation and/or search capability. And her number one complaint—locking you onto the site by disabling the browser back button!

Website Do’s and Don’ts

Then she went one step further and read numerous articles on what other people look for. “These articles strongly influenced not only what features were incorporated, but where they are placed,” Christie said. “For example, privacy and the ability to contact a real person are top priorities for many site visitors. So I placed both in the top navigation bar for easy access.”

She also discovered that the best sites are designed to involve visitors—to invite them to contribute content, give feedback, voice their opinions, and exchange information with and help each other. “To improve the ‘stickiness’ of the site, we expanded our plan to include a forum, polls, contributing content, free classifieds and a job bank. I also redesigned my e-newsletter tone to make it more personal, as well as to make subscribers come to the site to read the full story or fill out an opinion poll.”

Custom Development Gone Wrong

After talking to several Web developers, Christie chose a developer offering a custom designed PHP solution using SQL databases to store thousands of stories and favorite links. However, two months into the project, it became evident that the developer didn’t have adequate programming staff to launch the site within the promised three-month schedule. Unfortunately, Christie felt she had few alternatives. “I’d already spent hundreds of hours working on the site design and adding thousands of favorite links and articles to the database—work that would be lost if I changed vendors.”

Three months later and one week before launch, the site went down. The next day it was still offline, even the backend admin area. Then the dreaded call came: hackers had broken into the server hosting facility. “What about the backup? I asked.”

“The last backup file was corrupted,” was the answer. A two-month old zip file didn’t match the current software version, making site restoration almost impossible—but they said they would try. “At this point, I lost all confidence in the developer—not to mention over five-thousand records I’d uploaded,” Christie said.

Searching for a New Solution

Christie wasn’t sure what to do. “I couldn’t afford the time or money to start coding the site from scratch. I knew I would be shopping for champagne on a beer pocketbook of $5,000,” Christie said. “But I didn’t want to compromise unless I had to.”

Christie began searching online for a new developer. Soon, one of the people she contacted emailed her a slew of probing questions.

What kind of site do you need developed?
How did you choose PHP?
Is an admin interface required?
Do you need to manage banner ads?
What are your support requirements after implementation?”


“I felt like I was taking a test,” Christie said. “But the quality of his inquiries gave me confidence this person wanted to clearly understand the scope of the project, as well as my level of expertise to manage the site.”

Soon Christie scheduled a meeting with Scott Kroeger, owner of Hudson Avenue Technologies in Omaha NE, to discuss the challenges of launching such a complex site on a limited budget. After Christie reviewed her well-documented site map and specifications with Kroeger, he recommended a proven and supported open source content management system (CMS): PostNuke.

“Many developers start coding right away,” Kroeger said. “Since my background is in integration, I get more excited about finding open source software, figuring out how the code works and then using my technical skills and coding to make the modules work together. This way I don’t have to spend a lot of time programming from scratch and debugging code.”

Integrating/Customizing Open Source Solutions

The two biggest challenges Kroeger faced with the PostNuke implementation were finding a site search solution and providing unique page layout capabilities for each major category or page.

“Linda wanted the flexibility of using html blocks to handle the bulk of the content,” Kroeger said. “However, PostNuke only searches major modules, not html pages. To resolve this issue, I integrated a PostNuke module called Content Express. This module provides the site with a very friendly admin interface for adding html pages and controlling the site navigation, as well as a search engine for html pages.”

Unique block/page configuration for additional pages isn’t supported by a single PostNuke install. By examining other PostNuke site installations and reading forum discussions, Kroeger quickly figured out that multiple PostNuke installs would work around the page layout problem and provide complete control over the subsite blocks.

“A PostNuke subsite is an additional installation of PostNuke within the ‘main’ PostNuke installation,” Kroeger said. “For example, if the main PostNuke installation is installed under ‘/htdocs/postnuke’, a subsite would be installed under ‘/htdocs/postnuke/subsite1’. So my challenge was to figure out how to make all 28 installs talk to each other by modifying what database tables each subsite looked at. I configured the subsites to maintain their own block layouts—thus each major topic category or subsite/page can be laid out uniquely. Also, Content Express wasn’t built for multi-site configuration, so I had to figure out what it was doing to know how to integrate it for the multi-site solution.”

To complete the site, Kroeger integrated free PostNuke modules to provide an ezine, forum, job bank, and banner/ad management. “Within two weeks, I was laying out pages and uploading data.” Christie said. “And by the end of two months the DoctorVAR.com site I’d dreamed about was up—within my $5,000 budget and without sacrificing one feature or requirement. The only software I had to purchase was a classified ads module and shopping cart for $59, plus a $30 theme. The rest of the software was free.”

Kroeger added, “Because Linda had educated herself on Website design and defined the site specifications so well, I knew clearly from the start what was expected. This made my job much easier, which combined with my open source integration strategy, saved her a lot of time and money.”

The flexibility, performance, and ease of administration of the DoctorVAR.com implementation is a testament to how robust and cost effective open source content management systems are for supporting robust e-commerce Websites.


For additional information about DoctorVAR.com visit their Web site at http://www.doctorvar.com.


Additional Resources:
DoctorVAR.com Website Content/Stickiness Articles

DoctorVar Web Presence Articles

Web Marketing & E-Commerce http://www.wilsonWeb.com/

Apromotionguide.com - Free Website promotion tutorial http://apromotionguide.com/

Content Express (PostNuke Module)http://pn.arising.net/ce/

WhatsNews (PostNuke ezine module)http://nuke-modules.gading.de/

phpAdsNew (open source ad server)http://www.phpadsnew.com/one/

phpBB (open source bulletin board) http://www.phpbb.com/

phProfession (PostNuke job bank module) http://www.phpsolutions.co.uk/index.php


Linda Freeman is a freelance writer based in Omaha NE.

Generated on March 15, 2003.

phprofession v 2.0   (News)

this version has seen many changes:
CHANGE LOG: version 2.0.
# made jobs being displayed within a certain amount of days.
# added limit to jobs speck with 255 chariters for the details so that the database stays with only needed info.[prep for recruiters]
# took out cmd = Choice and made it go directly to upload with a link to fill out the form if they dont have a cv.
# admin index page shows lots more usefull information
# add/delete and edit departments
# add/delete and edit Salary
# jcode sql changed to int so that we can have stats on the jobs to see how many times a job has been viewed.
# added restrictions on admins for ther eto be a super admin and normal recruiter admin axcess,
# added already registered link for less forms to be filled out
# some small bug fixes and layout
# made register here go to cmd = upload and not Apply with a choice to go to apply.
# some other small sql fixes

here are some other links for resorces about this module:
This module first came from devshed article as i know of:
There is a huge tutorial there to read up on so that you can see the
changes that have taken place to create what we have today.
there has also been some developement on phprofession at sorce force,
here are some useful links.
perfect Job
phprofession
postnuke.net
nerens.com


work in the next phprofession will include:
# language files.
# more admin fetures eg: changing locations ect like salary.
# mailing users job discriptions
# sorting out the forms for easy use
any other things you would like to see comment in the forum over here!
the non-nuke version will be out shortly.

Generated on November 6, 2001.

phprofession version 1.6   (News)

this version is alot more user friendly to install, read on and enjoy.



phProfession.

This module first came from devshed article:
There is a huge tutorial there to read up on so that you can see the
changes that have taken place to create what we have today.
there has also been some developement on phprofession at sorce force,
here are some useful links.
perfect Job
phprofession
postnuke.net
nerens.com


these links should help you out abit with modifying your phprofession to suit you better.

go here for the official nerens phprofession suport forum

visit here for download

Generated on October 12, 2001.

phprofession version 1.5   (News)

CHANGE LOG: version 1.5.
# there have been many bug fixes main ones are upload file better suited for this module. admin section should login fine now.
# added tell a friend and extra info on file uploads.
# better config file set up for installing this module, also note you must add the name of your module dir to all the other pages eg:phprofession.
# added cmd functions Choice,RecruitingClient,tellafriend.

go here to download this module phprofession 1.5

this module has the potential to become a real powerful recruitment module,
here are some idea's for the future phprofession modules.
# registered users in post nuke have a added database to store there cv making applying for a job simpler for the user.
# registered users can recieve a email of newly posted jobs in there spacific area of work.
# mailing list for client and regestered users on info on jobs or news.
# jobs expire after being posted for a certain amount of days.
# admin section will not have a seperate name and pass to axcess it , will use admin login and there will also include a manual file for this module to help you post jobs and make phprofession easy to use.
thanks for useing phprofession

Generated on October 8, 2001.

phprofession version 1.4   (News)

CHANGE LOG:



added fetures on this phprofession version 1.4:

# email usr for admin fixed.

# admin menu made more effecient.

# recruiter emails in config file.

# register cv link page [ need new sql for it to work or add a joblisting with jcode=Apply and checked =0]

# cv file upload where (cmd='upload') must have a valid path to upload to in the config file you can edit this so it can upload up to 4 files at once.

# will be notified by email when file is up loaded.

# as well as the folder chmod must = '777' to do this open cute ftp or whatever you use right click and select chmod and change the number you see to 777.

# cleaned up sloppy links to work properly.

# config file has more variables to fill out makeing less editing on the other file's.

#remember to add your links.phprofession.php file to your admin/links dir.



# future addons will be a joblist page where jobs are listed only displaying a certain amount at a time at a time

# job search script where users can search for a job.

# emailing jobs to subscribed users ,about certain job listings thatare availible.



if you have changed any thing or made a usefull function to this module post it here in the downloads section.



download this version here phprofession 1.4

Generated on September 24, 2001.

PhProfession - Job/Resume script postnuked   (News)

Postnuke uses, and changed the table names to be more unique names to guard against conflict with any existing prefix_tablenames.


I have also altered most all font tags to postnuke css system, and open/close tables via postnuke system. Hopefully all should be ok ,


I have added it into my test site at www.postnuke.net and made it available for d/l from there as well.


If you find any bugs or do any major recoding please send me a note and a copy.


tim@postnuke.ne

Generated on August 9, 2001.