New Domain (1 Viewer)

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We voted to change domain hosts for HDCruisers at the last meeting. We are going to move to one like one of these:

http://www.top10webhostingservices.com/html/index.php?oc=bandwidth&aod=desc

That way any member of HDCruisers can post a large number of videos, images, etc.

Does anyone have any experience with any of them? I think the extra dollar per month would be worth the almost doubling of space and bandwidth if we used AN Hosting...

Comments?
 
I don't know that much about it, but if it seems to make sense to you techie guys...

One possible downside - we get occasional posts from TLCA members in other clubs (Ige, Romer, etc.). We may not be as accessible to those folks who want to check and see what's going on with HDC, if we're not on Mud right next to the other TLCA clubs. At least that's my impression - true or not? Would those types of people be able to find us easily?
 
Evan,
Steve's suggestion is to pick another hosting company for our web site and attempt to get the domain name (hdcruisers.org) from Dave Alley. Technically, he owns our domain name and he is paying the annual fee for that domain name.

This HDC forum is hosted by Woody (IH8MUD.com) for free as a courtesy to TLCA and a courtesy to us. He does not charge our club for hosting this "HDC" discussion forum. This forum is completely separate from our web site.

The suggestion by Steve is so we can find a web site hosting company that will allow:
1. Moving hdcruisers.org to their servers
2. Domain name registration and other similar services
3. Provide hdcruisers.org with unlimited (or sufficient) bandwidth (recall the HDC video fiasco a few years back.)
4. Provide for file storage (images, jpeg maps, GPS tracks, Word docs, etc.)
5. Provide for all HDC members a way to use a GUI "control panel" to gain access to the storage area in #4.

I am OK with #1-4. I am concerned about #5 since it is unlikely we will be able to find a hosting company that will allow multiple logins and a hierarchical security model that would support an HDC admin, sub-admins, and regular members. What this means is we will probably have 1 login and share that login ID and password with all HDC members. This means non-techie members have full access to everything on our hosted site; all of the web pages, all of the files, all of the images, ... everything.

If a member doesn't know what he is doing then we could have a problem. (I will leave it at that.)

I sent Jon the contact information that I had for Dave Alley. Hopefully Dave will release the domain name (hdcruisers.org) to us. If he won't then we will have to think about plan B. (Yes, there is a Plan B.)

My 'druthers would be to keep the arrangement with Dave. He doesn't charge us anything for the web site... at least he hasn't for several years that I know of, so basically our web hosting is free right now. Moving our web site will take some time and Jon has a 40 to build so time taken to move the web site is time he doesn't have to wrench.

Then we can look at a hosting service that would enable all the members to load files and videos and other images. That could be a generic HDCRUISERS account... maybe on Flicker or Photobucket or something like that. I really don't know much about those but maybe Steve could do some research.

Bottom line is we voted to do this so now we can do it if we want to.

Steve...? ? ?

-Mike-
 
Also consider plan "c". If you keep the domain where it is, and we still have access to modify it, but with limited space, we could still get another domain just for video/image storage. Then you can embed(link) images/video on the current site.

Its been a while since I have done it, but I can help out with any modifications/maintaining the website. I know the basics, and can figure out the more advanced stuff (flash etc) if we decide to go more advanced.
 
Also consider plan "c".
Ron,
Plan "C" is what I said was my 'druthers.

Plan "A" is moving the web site and the hdcruisers.org name.
Plan "B" is moving the web site and using another domain name.
(Assuming Dave chooses not to release hdcruisers.org)
Plan "C" is keeping the web site and hdcruisers.org with Dave and get a new hosting site for our other stuff.

We voted and approved Plan "A" but I think how we implement it is up for discussion.
It would be best if Steve gave his thoughts on this; it was his motion and his idea.

-Mike-
 
Last edited:
Mike -

Thanks for the clarification. This makes more sense now.

Evan

Evan,
Steve's suggestion is to pick another hosting company for our web site and attempt to get the domain name (hdcruisers.org) from Dave Alley. Technically, he owns our domain name and he is paying the annual fee for that domain name.

This HDC forum is hosted by Woody (IH8MUD.com) for free as a courtesy to TLCA and a courtesy to us. He does not charge our club for hosting this "HDC" discussion forum. This forum is completely separate from our web site.

-Mike-
 
It would be good if we had a place for everybody to upload files, and that's what we voted to do. Plan A, B, or C doesn't matter to me. I suggest we try to get the domain from Dave (any luck Jon, or who is doing that?) We can then have subdirectories like HDCruisers.org/steveh or /jstewart or /beowulf or whatever, for each individual user. As long as we restrict the login to members I don't think we will have a problem. I'm wondering if there would be a way to have a dual login (not to start making this complicated...) but we could login to the site, then to do anything have our local login that people could make like their mud login or something. Looking at the site Ron posted, AN Hosting or glob@tcom look to be the best, although hostgator has unlimited domains, for anyone interested in that. I'm not sure how good 1000 gb space would be with a limit of 3000 gb bandwidth (which I assume in this context means gb transferred per month)

I say we bounce it around for a week, then have a poll to pick a host.

Sound good?

Nominations?
 
My dos pesos (about 18 cents are current exchange) ... Having the ability to upload trip stuff would be great and we certainly have a need. Giving out a general password to everybody scares me. Is there some freeware, or cheapware out there like a basic forum package that would allow us to do this with individual passwords and user names?
 
Is there some freeware, or cheapware out there like a basic forum package that would allow us to do this with individual passwords and user names?

Not that I know of but maybe we could task Steve or Ron to find us something. Generally, there are 2 options for hosting; Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, etc) hosting or Windows hosting. This is the OS and server-side software that our "web site" would run on. There is some overlap in the tools between the two so we would need to find an authentication application that would run on the hosting platform we select.

It is important to understand that these hosting companies are not interested in having "multi-user" accounts. They make their money by hosting a single user.

If you think about it, what would stop us from buying a $10/mo account, then setting up our "multi-user" web site and selling/renting/sub-leasing accounts to all Cruiser lovers in NM for $5/mo each. If they made this multi-user mode easy to do then they have shot themselves in the foot. Not a problem in our case because we don't intend to sub-lease the accounts so if this was covered in the TOS then we would be OK.

My 2c.

-Mike-
 
If you think about it, what would stop us from buying a $10/mo account, then setting up our "multi-user" web site and selling/renting/sub-leasing accounts to all Cruiser lovers in NM for $5/mo each. If they made this multi-user mode easy to do then they have shot themselves in the foot. Not a problem in our case because we don't intend to sub-lease the accounts so if this was covered in the TOS then we would be OK.

My 2c.

-Mike-

Mike, you are right on the head there.. although, they do have options like this, its considerably more per month.

I just talked to AN hosting via web-chat. They do have something that may fit what we want. When you get an account, you get a login to their control panel (Cpanel) which allows you all the administrative privileges, of creating email accounts, modifying the site, etc. You can also create a separate ftp login for each domain you host. Since we would only have one domain, we could have the Cpanel login (used for all admin services) access limited to one/few people, and the ftp login available to everybody to upload content.

During initial setup, the "admin" could create subdirectories for each user, and it would just be everyone's responsibility to upload to their own directory (though there would be no way to prevent from browsing/uploading to other's directory.
 
During initial setup, the "admin" could create subdirectories for each user, and it would just be everyone's responsibility to upload to their own directory (though there would be no way to prevent from browsing/uploading to other's directory.

That would work for those that use and understand FTP. It would be nice if there was a GUI front end that would guide users through uploading images, give the user the URL to their image/video, and tell them how to use and share that URL. Kinda like Photobucket or Flicker or You-Tube or even the files section on Yahoo.

-Mike-
 
There is freeware FTP software out there. I don't remember the one I use.
 
GUI FTP app is not the issue. There are dozens out there. You need to experience a well done "Control Panel" to see where I am coming from.
-Mike-
 
GUI, FTP, XYZ.

Why can't we continue to link pictures to this page via photobucket or pay for a Mud star.

G
 
GUI FTP app is not the issue. There are dozens out there. You need to experience a well done "Control Panel" to see where I am coming from.
-Mike-

So how do we get this "well done Control Panel"?
 
The admin will get access to a control panel to manage our site. Some hosting services have better control panels than others. The issue is whether we give the admin PW to all HDC members.

This is much less of an issue if we keep the web site where it is and just use another hosting service for other files.

-Mike-
 

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