Website Design Forum - open-source web design and hosting firm for non-profit?

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open-source web design and hosting firm for non-profit?

Michael Vilain

2006-05-04, 11:29 pm

I'm the part-time webmaster for a small non-profit. I developed their
web site using PHP and mysql on Apache because those tools were widely
available on small, inexpensive ISPs. My primary skill is system admin
and programming, but I can do some simple design--it's just not
eye-popping or has much of a "OOOOOOOh, pretty" factor. My design
philosophy is "make it load fast, look consistent, and work on as many
browsers as possible". So, some graphics, HTML 4.01 Transitional, and
CSS make it reasonably fast. No flash or big graphics as not everyone
has DSL.

The non-profit's board wants to take the web site "to the next level".
So I wrote up a requirements document that summarizes the functions of
the site, current requests for enhancements, and day-to-day
care-and-feeding. Most of the companies that market to non-profits
provide a turnkey "one size fits all" environment with templates, web
creation tools, e-commerce modules, etc. Usually this is done under an
all Microsoft toolbox (ASP, IIS, SQL Server, etc.) with custom
programming extra.

I'm looking for a web design and hosting company that uses the
open-source tools--templates, php, MySQL, apache, e-commerce (SSL,
shopping cart), listserver, etc.--for these people. That way I can
continue supporting them on tools that run on the new webhost and on my
Macintosh development platform.

Anyone have a URL or two?

TIA,

/MeV/

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2006-05-05, 7:18 pm

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:

| I'm the part-time webmaster for a small non-profit. I developed their
| web site using PHP and mysql on Apache because those tools were widely
| available on small, inexpensive ISPs. My primary skill is system admin
| and programming, but I can do some simple design--it's just not
| eye-popping or has much of a "OOOOOOOh, pretty" factor. My design
| philosophy is "make it load fast, look consistent, and work on as many
| browsers as possible". So, some graphics, HTML 4.01 Transitional, and
| CSS make it reasonably fast. No flash or big graphics as not everyone
| has DSL.
|
| The non-profit's board wants to take the web site "to the next level".
| So I wrote up a requirements document that summarizes the functions of
| the site, current requests for enhancements, and day-to-day
| care-and-feeding. Most of the companies that market to non-profits
| provide a turnkey "one size fits all" environment with templates, web
| creation tools, e-commerce modules, etc. Usually this is done under an
| all Microsoft toolbox (ASP, IIS, SQL Server, etc.) with custom
| programming extra.

These companies primarily market towards the managers, not the technical
people. Because most managers at that level know little to nothing about
computers, they tend to favor the "default" platform, which is Microsoft.
So the companies with the products have to use Microsoft.

| I'm looking for a web design and hosting company that uses the
| open-source tools--templates, php, MySQL, apache, e-commerce (SSL,
| shopping cart), listserver, etc.--for these people. That way I can
| continue supporting them on tools that run on the new webhost and on my
| Macintosh development platform.
|
| Anyone have a URL or two?

Are you wanting to run the servers on Mac? Otherwise, which OS? You
did not mention your system platform.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2006-05-05, 7:18 pm

Michael Vilain wrote:
>
> The non-profit's board wants to take the web site "to the next level".
> So I wrote up a requirements document that summarizes the functions
> of the site, current requests for enhancements, and day-to-day
> care-and-feeding.

Perhaps you could post those requirements (or a summary thereof) online
and share a link with the newsgroup? It's difficult to recommend
anything without knowing what exactly is needed... Let's start with
the obvious: do you expect your future site to run on a shared hosting
server, virtual dedicated server, or physical dedicated server?

> I'm looking for a web design and hosting company that uses the
> open-source tools--templates, php, MySQL, apache, e-commerce
> (SSL, shopping cart), listserver, etc.--for these people.

I think you need to look for two, maybe even three, companies. Hosting
is a commodity and can be dealt with as such (translation: don't bother
looking for it until you found everything else) . You may be able to
find a company that does both design and integration / implementation /
custom programming, but you may have to separate these tasks (get a
design worked out first, then ask the implementors to work it into your
applications). Also, you can have a design developed on the side and
wrap some open-source applications (osCommerce comes to mind first)
into it by yourself...

Cheers,
NC

Michael Vilain

2006-05-06, 6:58 pm

In article <e3fu9u01s78@news4.newsguy.com>, phil-news-nospam@ipal.net
wrote:

> In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design Michael Vilain
> <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> | I'm the part-time webmaster for a small non-profit. I developed their
> | web site using PHP and mysql on Apache because those tools were widely
> | available on small, inexpensive ISPs. My primary skill is system admin
> | and programming, but I can do some simple design--it's just not
> | eye-popping or has much of a "OOOOOOOh, pretty" factor. My design
> | philosophy is "make it load fast, look consistent, and work on as many
> | browsers as possible". So, some graphics, HTML 4.01 Transitional, and
> | CSS make it reasonably fast. No flash or big graphics as not everyone
> | has DSL.
> |
> | The non-profit's board wants to take the web site "to the next level".
> | So I wrote up a requirements document that summarizes the functions of
> | the site, current requests for enhancements, and day-to-day
> | care-and-feeding. Most of the companies that market to non-profits
> | provide a turnkey "one size fits all" environment with templates, web
> | creation tools, e-commerce modules, etc. Usually this is done under an
> | all Microsoft toolbox (ASP, IIS, SQL Server, etc.) with custom
> | programming extra.
>
> These companies primarily market towards the managers, not the technical
> people. Because most managers at that level know little to nothing about
> computers, they tend to favor the "default" platform, which is Microsoft.
> So the companies with the products have to use Microsoft.
>
>
> | I'm looking for a web design and hosting company that uses the
> | open-source tools--templates, php, MySQL, apache, e-commerce (SSL,
> | shopping cart), listserver, etc.--for these people. That way I can
> | continue supporting them on tools that run on the new webhost and on my
> | Macintosh development platform.
> |
> | Anyone have a URL or two?
>
> Are you wanting to run the servers on Mac? Otherwise, which OS? You
> did not mention your system platform.

I develop the site on my MacOS X 10.4 system, so the ultimate hosting
platform and toolset should not require Windows to run (e.g. that
screens out .NET, ASP, IIS, and SQL Server, AFAIK). The hosting
platform does not need to be a MacOS X Server system.

It would be _nice_ to have a duplicate of the hosting environment
(Apache, perl, php, MySQL) running on my MacOS X system, but not a hard
requirement. I could setup a development area on the hosting
environment for testing.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

Michael Vilain

2006-05-06, 6:58 pm

In article <1146852214.763351.223890@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"NC" <nc@iname.com> wrote:

> Michael Vilain wrote:
>
> Perhaps you could post those requirements (or a summary thereof) online
> and share a link with the newsgroup? It's difficult to recommend
> anything without knowing what exactly is needed... Let's start with
> the obvious: do you expect your future site to run on a shared hosting
> server, virtual dedicated server, or physical dedicated server?

All three options need to be presented, with a cost for each. At some
point, the Board may want to go from one level of service to the next
one. They need to know the incremental cost of each step. The current
site is on a shared Linux host for which they pay $25/month. They get
10GB/month network bandwidth, 100MB local storage, mysql database, php,
perl, Apache web services, and can use the shared web host's SSL
certificate rather than buying their own ($299 setup) and paying yearly
($150/year). The ISP really doesn't like email lists as they can
generate SPAM complaints. They require all email lists be double
opt-in. I've had to explain that we can't just email all our 800
members without their expressed permission first because of this.

Basically, the non-profit's Board wants to spread the exposure they have
where currently their web site is managed by a single person who works
out of his home. They want someone they can call 7x24 to get changes
and modifications done on the site in a timely manner. They want the
site to look really professional, yet be able to make changes to it
easily from their Windows systems in the non-profit's main office or
from the developer's system (PC or Mac).

>
>
> I think you need to look for two, maybe even three, companies. Hosting
> is a commodity and can be dealt with as such (translation: don't bother
> looking for it until you found everything else) . You may be able to
> find a company that does both design and integration / implementation /
> custom programming, but you may have to separate these tasks (get a
> design worked out first, then ask the implementors to work it into your
> applications). Also, you can have a design developed on the side and
> wrap some open-source applications (osCommerce comes to mind first)
> into it by yourself...
>
> Cheers,
> NC

Exactly. The three I've gotten from the Board so far have all been ASP
shops. One said "We do maintain a companies PHP application, but we
primarily work with ASP" which translates to me "they have a person on
staff with a Linux/php background they hired and gave this application
him to support".

One ASP shop responded to the RFP I wrote up. They've addressed most of
the requirements except a biggy--integrating the database with
Quickbooks. This is key to running the non-profit's business. I can
write all sorts of code in PHP to extract or store whatever in MySQL,
but couldn't do this with ASP. Nor do I really want.

Anyway, thanks for any suggestions.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

2006-05-06, 6:58 pm

Michael Vilain wrote:
>
> Basically, the non-profit's Board wants to spread the exposure they have
> where currently their web site is managed by a single person who works
> out of his home. They want someone they can call 7x24 to get changes
> and modifications done on the site in a timely manner.

This kind of commitment will most likely have a serious price tag
associated with it.

> They want the site to look really professional, yet be able to make
> changes to it easily from their Windows systems in the non-profit's
> main office or from the developer's system (PC or Mac).

Unfortunately, this is not very specific. A "change" in a Web site may
mean at least two things, (1) change in content, or (2) change in
layout. The former is very easily done with any content management
system; the latter is best left to the more technically adept, although
a good CMS would definitely have this functionality as well.

> One ASP shop responded to the RFP I wrote up. They've addressed
> most of the requirements except a biggy--integrating the database with
> Quickbooks. This is key to running the non-profit's business.

Again, this is highly ambiguous. What exactly do you mean when you say
"QuckBooks integration"? In which direction do you want the data to
flow: from QuickBooks to the Web site (as in inventory export), from
the Web site into QuickBooks (as in order/sales reports), or both? How
often (periodically, on demand, in real time)? What version of
QuickBooks are you using?

If Quickbooks integration is that important, you might want to start by
finding a solution that takes care of that. Check Intuit Marketplace:

http://marketplace.intuit.com/

There are companies that integrate QuickBooks with online stores, but
they are not cheap. Some sell packaged solutions that combine initial
setup and ongoing hosting of the store.

You could also go for a "semi-automatic" solution that would involve
exchange of IIF or CSV files between QuickBooks and the Web site. This
will cost a lot less, but will require some user training and may
result in a mess-up every now and then...

Cheers,
NC

Michael Vilain

2006-05-07, 6:59 pm

In article <1146951645.306670.18460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
"NC" <nc@iname.com> wrote:

> Michael Vilain wrote:
>
> This kind of commitment will most likely have a serious price tag
> associated with it.

The same thing happened to another non-profit organization I belong to.
They spent $30K for a web site and paid quarterly maintenance to have
their Access database extract update the web site's database. Then the
web development firm when belly up. No more updates. They had to
scramble to get someone trained to do the updates. Now they're going
through the same process all over again, only this time the site is
really UGLY, uses cheesey FLASH animation, and many members hate it.

I don't want this to happen to my client and keep telling them so. But
ultimately, they'll have to touch the hot stove, burn their hand, and
learn this lesson for themselves.

Yes. I fully expect the sticker shock for this to generate a
"Nevermind" response from the board. Sometimes, I think you have to let
these things process themselves out so people see what the cost is for
themselves. Telling them ahead of time doesn't seem to do any good even
though I already have. At some point, the board will have to decide
they are going to spend this money and learn this lesson the hard way.

>
>
> Unfortunately, this is not very specific. A "change" in a Web site may
> mean at least two things, (1) change in content, or (2) change in
> layout. The former is very easily done with any content management
> system; the latter is best left to the more technically adept, although
> a good CMS would definitely have this functionality as well.

Well, during the time I've done their site, they've asked for both types
of changes. And I've had to do both types of things. I finally did
lots of work to use CSS and standard HTML so that changes could be done
very quickly.

>
>
> Again, this is highly ambiguous. What exactly do you mean when you say
> "QuckBooks integration"? In which direction do you want the data to
> flow: from QuickBooks to the Web site (as in inventory export), from
> the Web site into QuickBooks (as in order/sales reports), or both? How
> often (periodically, on demand, in real time)? What version of
> QuickBooks are you using?

The web database is the core. Information in it is extracted and
updated into Quickbooks, both as customer information and as invoices or
statements. We do this because the periodic billing we do doesn't work
very well with Quickbooks. These extracts are done monthly. The main
office upgraded their version of Quickbooks and didn't tell me, breaking
what I wrote. Now I have to buy that version of Quickbooks and fix the
problem. I don't envision a web company doing this for them. Nor would
I be able to do it with Microsoft products like ASP or .NET as they
don't run on my Mac. I have zero interest in running a PC and learning
those products.

>
> If Quickbooks integration is that important, you might want to start by
> finding a solution that takes care of that. Check Intuit Marketplace:
>
> http://marketplace.intuit.com/
>
> There are companies that integrate QuickBooks with online stores, but
> they are not cheap. Some sell packaged solutions that combine initial
> setup and ongoing hosting of the store.
>
> You could also go for a "semi-automatic" solution that would involve
> exchange of IIF or CSV files between QuickBooks and the Web site. This
> will cost a lot less, but will require some user training and may
> result in a mess-up every now and then...
>
> Cheers,
> NC

This is what we did. Most ISPs won't allow remote access to their MySQL
databases, so that solution was rejected pretty early on. IIF extracts
are what we use.

So far, no one's posted any URLs. Is it that hopeless?

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

2006-05-07, 6:59 pm

Michael Vilain wrote:
>
>
> The web database is the core. Information in it is extracted and
> updated into Quickbooks, both as customer information and as invoices or
> statements. We do this because the periodic billing we do doesn't work
> very well with Quickbooks. These extracts are done monthly. The main
> office upgraded their version of Quickbooks and didn't tell me, breaking
> what I wrote. Now I have to buy that version of Quickbooks and fix the
> problem. I don't envision a web company doing this for them.

First of all, it wouldn't be a run-of the-mil Web hosting company. It
would be a very narrow specialist, whose focus is integration of
QuickBooks into e-commerce. This is why it is likely to cost
$500-$1,000 in initial setup and $100 or so a month for hosting. There
are quite a few of those spcialists out there. Additionally, the
specialist simply may not have to deal with version issues... Quite a
few companies out there have figured out ways to expose QuickBooks data
via ODBC. Once you get that done, you become more or less
version-independent. Check this out:

http://www.qodbc.com/

> I have zero interest in running a PC and learning those products.

There are MacOS ODBC drivers out there...

Cheers,
NC

phil-news-nospam@ipal.net

2006-05-07, 10:57 pm

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design Michael Vilain <vilain@spamcop.net> wrote:

|> Are you wanting to run the servers on Mac? Otherwise, which OS? You
|> did not mention your system platform.
|
| I develop the site on my MacOS X 10.4 system, so the ultimate hosting
| platform and toolset should not require Windows to run (e.g. that
| screens out .NET, ASP, IIS, and SQL Server, AFAIK). The hosting
| platform does not need to be a MacOS X Server system.
|
| It would be _nice_ to have a duplicate of the hosting environment
| (Apache, perl, php, MySQL) running on my MacOS X system, but not a hard
| requirement. I could setup a development area on the hosting
| environment for testing.

I know of a business that ran it's core server databases on Mac. And
that was before OS X. You could run the environment you describe on
OS X, BSD, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and others. Your choice.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2006-05-10, 10:58 pm

NC wrote:
>
> Quite a few companies out there have figured out ways
> to expose QuickBooks data via ODBC. Once you get
> that done, you become more or less version-independent.
> Check this out:
>
> http://www.qodbc.com/

I completely forgot about the Web Connector:

http://developer.intuit.com/QuickBo...sources/?id=403

It's a Web service add-on to QuickBooks.

Cheers,
NC

Michael Vilain

2006-05-10, 10:58 pm

In article <1147306028.513803.142360@q12g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"NC" <nc@iname.com> wrote:

> NC wrote:
>
> I completely forgot about the Web Connector:
>
> http://developer.intuit.com/QuickBo...sources/?id=403
>
> It's a Web service add-on to QuickBooks.
>
> Cheers,
> NC

Thanks for the pointers. However, if you look at these sites, they only
run on Windows. Using ODBC to access mysql would require the ISP
hosting the mysql database to allow remote connections. The one we
currently have doesn't, so that's out of the picture. I guess if this
non-profit does go to a web hosting company, they'll have to hire
someone to figure out how to do this integration.

On the bright side (for me), the president got a quote from one of the
ASP houses that specializes in non-profits. As predicted, she was
shocked at the cost. They were quoted $8K-10K setup, $3295/year in
licensing, and $95/month to host the site. I don't know if you get the
web-site authoring tools to make your own changes to your site with
this. If you have to buy ASP or .NET development tools, it would be
even more.

I think the middle ground here is to find a design house that can help
with the pretty part of the site and help me architect a better approach
with open-source tools. The hard part is allowing the non-technical
office people to make updates to the site. If we go to a templating
system, that should be pretty easy.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

2006-05-11, 4:15 am

Michael Vilain wrote:
>
> Thanks for the pointers. However, if you look at these sites, they only
> run on Windows. Using ODBC to access mysql would require the ISP
> hosting the mysql database to allow remote connections.

You wouldn't be using ODBC to connect to MySQL. ODBC is only necessary
to connect to QuickBooks. Web site data, on the other hand, could be
made available via a Web service or a simple CSV download via HTTPS.

What you need is a distributed data interchange application that
consists of two modules.

Module A resides next to QuickBooks and it capable of two things: (1)
write access to QuickBooks data (via ODBC or otherwise), and (2)
downloading documents served by Module B via HTTPS. There is no reason
why Module A cannot be a command-line PHP script.

Module B resides on the Web server and is a script accessible via
HTTPS. Let's say the script is called as follows:

https://website.org/path/mB.php?use...ar=2006&month=4

When called, the script checks authentication information, and, if the
request is authenticated, outputs sales records for April 2006 in CSV
format.

So about once a month (via Windows Scheduler or manually), Module A
could start, read sales data by accessing Module B via HTTPS, and write
the data into QuickBooks via ODBC with no user input.

> I think the middle ground here is to find a design house that can help
> with the pretty part of the site and help me architect a better approach
> with open-source tools. The hard part is allowing the non-technical
> office people to make updates to the site. If we go to a templating
> system, that should be pretty easy.

Exactly. And interchange with QuickBooks can be a totally separate
(and automated) subsystem...

Cheers,
NC

Steve

2006-05-11, 7:05 am

> I'm the part-time webmaster for a small non-profit. [...]
> [...] I can do some simple design--it's just not eye-popping or has much of
> a "OOOOOOOh, pretty" factor [...]

It looks fine to me, professional rather than flashy. Maybe the forms
pages could be neater. Anyway, if you just want to add some eye candy
the cheapest option would be to specify and shop for a suitable
one-shot customised layout/template from somewhere like SitePoint
<http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=219>. You can
probably get what you want for well under $500. Don't buy more "web
design" than you need; what you have built does the job, you just need
some glitter.

Outside the look-and-feel issue, you've got some technical requirements
for content management; so ask around the F/OSS offerings and target
your template(s) to your preferred CMS.

> I'm looking for a web design and hosting company that uses the
> open-source tools--templates, php, MySQL, apache, e-commerce (SSL,
> shopping cart), listserver, etc.--for these people.

<http://www.php4hosting.com> offer hosting at reasonable rates with an
OS stack and SSH root access; SSL extra but not too extortionate.

--
Steve