[kwlug-disc] Hosts....

Sat Mar 27 11:23:07 EDT 2010

>>1. Did you research other autoresponders and settle on this one? If
so, what were the selection criteria that led to this decision.

I researched several. We settled on this one. It is in PHP. It uses ioncube for obfuscation, which I only half understand. The criteria was that it run on our servers IIS6 PHP4, ASP. My boss is a hard core windows person.

>>Again, Mailman is a great candidate here
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html
This looks great, omni mailer is okay as well, but again I don't want to have this hodgepodge of different technologies; that are hard to setup in windows( I'm not sure my host would do it anyway ), to keep track of. It seems that the bosses requirement of using ASP and building up the existing site might have to go.

>>2.
Are you happy with Windows/IIS/ASP as a platform, or were you forced to
use them because of ASP? Do you want to use Linux here, but you are
hampered by ASP being the blocker?

I don't really like the windows platform. I am inheriting this. The problem being that my boss wrote the site from scratch using asp. I'm sure he has invested a lot of time and effort, and doesn't want to see it wasted. Now he has hired me to keep the site going, as well as, add a lot of  functionality like automailer, and he wants me to put in a authenticated download site with different folders for each user that uses http not ftp.He also seems completely attached to the current look and feel of his site. I just feel that I am putting band aids on stuff. At what point do you cut your losses, and move to a proper CMS? How do I break the news to him?  I showed him a Drupal site I've been playing with on my laptop. I would like to show him some good drupal sites that are in production (any suggestions?).

>>Should I switch hostng companies? 

>>Because they are ones providing you with omnimailer? NO
Why? 
No It's because I can't change Folder/File permissions myself ( My boss says it's for Windows security reasons ) every time I need to change a permission I have to send an email with the requested changes and it takes anywhere from 1-4 hours. I made a couple of mistakes  setting up omnimailer ., and had to re do some stuff, and it's taking me days to do what should take hours, or even minutes. Also I needed to run a cron job for omnimailer that uses wget, and windows doesn't have cron, or wget, So I had to go find wget for windows and send it to them and explain that on windows cron is called scheduled task. It's like I have to spoon feed them. So 8 hours and 6 emails later my tasks are running. It is frustrating.

Joseph Wennechuk

________________

Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:09:07 -0400
From: kb at 2bits.com
To: kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Hosts....

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 1:08 PM, Joe Wennechuk <youcanreachmehere at hotmail.com> wrote:

I am setting up an autoresponder called omnimailer. It is in php running on Windows 2003 Server standard edition, the version of IIS is 6.0. The PHP version running on the server is 4.3.6. 
PHP 4.x HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED. You should really be using PHP 5.2.x now.

http://php.net/releases/index.php

Th site is in asp and html and written in frontpage. I need to upload my whole customer database to the site for marketing campaigns. 
Before we can answer these questions, let us step back a bit and find out some parameters:

1. Did you research other autoresponders and settle on this one? If so, what were the selection criteria that led to this decision.

2. Are you happy with Windows/IIS/ASP as a platform, or were you forced to use them because of ASP? Do you want to use Linux here, but you are hampered by ASP being the blocker?

Are there any security issues surrounding the customer data being comprimised by an attacker? 

One possible attack vector is PHP 4, which we know is old.

Should I switch hostng companies? 
Why? 

Because they are ones providing you with omnimailer?

Need more info here.

How would linux LAMP server handle frontpage extensions? 
Frontpage extensions are simply for uploading web pages to your servers, as well as some rudimentary macro facilities.

Apache has an extension for FrontPage, but now in the date and age of content management system, this is an antiquated method of doing things.

What are the options for migrating this site to linux?

Well, there are ways to run ASP under Apache, but as with all technologies that are Microsoft they will keep changing the goalposts and it will not be pretty chasing the ever changing APIs (e.g. WINE, Mono, ...etc.)

Consider using something totally free and open that does autoresponding and be done with it.

Again, Mailman is a great candidate here
http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html

It powers this very KWLUG mailing list that we are communicating on ...
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
http://2bits.com
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci

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