[kwlug-disc] Can someone help?

[John Van Ostrand]

----- "Raul Suarez" <rarsa at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Oh, yes, For dynamic and static content and a large number of pages
> (and I assume, contributors) using a CMS may be your best option.
> 
> Curiously, yesterday night I was thinking of doing a presentation at
> work titled: The Manual of the Lazy Knowledge worker. Tips and tricks
> to be more productive while doing less work.
> 
> One of the tips is: "The most productive work is the one you don't
> have to do". Using a CMS someone already did the work for you.

I think there are places that a CMS is overkill, there I've said it.

A CMS is good for an active web site where dynamic features are wanted, or where you want to make editing of content available without dealing with the fuss of uploading and downloading pages of HTML content.

It does come with costs though.

Consider that a CMS is a program, one with security bugs, one that needs to be updated monthly. One that needs to be upgraded bi-anually or so. It also requires a database and more files and lots and I mean *LOTS* of learning curve to get into it.

Shane, I would strongly consider investing time and effort to learn a CMS like Drupal if you intend on creating sites with lots of dynamic content and helper apps (forums, photo albums, comments, polls, etc.) and you're okay with checking up on it monthly and performing updates. Plan on doing hours and days of experimentation to get used to Drupal. Plan to attend a seminar and/or join the Drupal users group in Kitchener. Look for books.

If it's a static site, where the content doesn't change much, the author is comfortable using FTP to upload pages you can be much more secure and simpler with static pages. Use php_prepend_file, php_append_file, and CSS to provide the template for your site, so that the each page is only content with simple tags. A site like that can go years without maintenance and still be secure.

-- 
John Van Ostrand 
CTO, co-CEO 
Net Direct Inc. 
564 Weber St. N. Unit 12, Waterloo, ON N2L 5C6 
Ph: 866-883-1172 x5102 
Fx: 519-883-8533 

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