[GRLUG] Cloud VMs, Hosting, & CMSs [Was: NOT LINUX - broadband]

[John J. Foerch]

On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 12:33:31PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:28 PM, John J. Foerch<jjfoerch at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 12:10:46PM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> >> A system that renders to static files after a post, and where those
> >> static files are all most users ever see, already takes some of the
> >> biggest attack vectors and makes the window small.  A system
> >> consisting <em>entirely</em> of static files on the server would be
> >> nice, but that puts the onus on the post authors to create them before
> >> uploading them, and I don't see how it would support a comment system
> >> without pulling from a comment server app. (Though the idea of
> >> separating a page and its attached comments is something I've pondered
> >> for a year or two...)
> >
> >
> > I made one website that is entirely static on the server.  This allows the
> > customer to have *really cheap* web hosting.  Basically, I installed a web
> > server on the person's computer, along with the CMS and website.  Then I
> > wrote a program that fetches the website from the local server, and
> > transforms all the hyperlinks to turn it into all static html.  It's not
> > the most elegant setup, but it does the trick.
> 
> Not to be pejorative, but that reminds me of how FrontPage used to
> work, and how DreamWeaver works today.  Honestly, I think it's rather
> clever.
> 
> I'd still like the ability to host comments and the like, but still.  Hm..


  Well, it differs from wysiwyg programs because it is a finely
hand-crafted pile of php, html, js, and css. :P It just happens to have a
"compile" step.  I wrote the transformation program in php and it honestly
sucks.  I would like to rewrite it some day, possibly even as a GUI
program, since the target audience is webmasters who are not programmers.

  The nice thing about this setup is that it makes the website testable
before you publish it.  I always try to build testability into my
websites, aiming for zero down-time.

-- 
John Foerch