** Talked with Murli on 02/02/2002 evening - Administer Mailing Lists - Host discussion groups - Search and other minimal functionality - Separate content / articles - Move data to MySQL - Pages to PHP - Use XML to transfer data (if needed) ** About Website - http://www.isn.org - Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) PHP/4.0.4pl1 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 on Linux - Create framework using PHP Modules - PHP files will contain static content and get the dynamic content from MySQL as needed - Link to FAQ at the end of the "About ISN" page does not work - link needs to be updated - We should also put up a page showing what have we done with the money raised. I do get such reports from other organizations that I contribute to, and it does make me feel good about that organization (and myself) ! - The ISN logo and ad needs to be improved. Request members to add the ISN ad / punch line to their website with a link back to ISN - add howto do this in FAQ - Upgrade apache to 1.3.23 - Migrate from PHP3 to PHP4. - Show anonymous contributions in "ISN Member Contribution Report" - Search Engine: mnoGoSearch (http://search.mnogo.ru/), SWISHE (http://swish-e.org/), htdig (http://www.htdig.org/) - Add keywords section to HTML headers META section, so that search engines can list them better - Add Feedback / discussion on each article / page - Add a link to "Request a new discussion board" to the list of discussion boards - Add mailing lists - Dynamic content: - Discussion boards: User membership, board messages - Discussion messages of each page - News History - with link to PHP pages - Event History - with link to PHP pages - Organization chart - Database design / contents - Search Database: - all PHP files (News / Articles) - Discussion messages. - Previous ISN newsletters - ISN Member database - Volunteer database - with searchable capabilities - Mailing list members - Survey database - Reporting for various databases (internal and external) - Why ISN should not use frames: (Use PHP to generate header bar and left navigational bar) - Easier to create links and bookmarks to specific pages - Easier for search engines to accumulate data from the web site and add it to their database - Frames are not supported uniformly across all browsers - Framed websites can be problematic for smaller browser windows or laptops, or those preferring to keep their browser windows relatively small - It is difficult to print the entire page - Many (including myself) find frames annoying. I tend to stay from sties with frames - Copyright issues. You'll need to ensure that all links within your site that point to external sources open in a new window to avoid copyright wrangles. There have been legal precedents in relation to this issue - Scroll bars can prove to be unsightly - Special care needs to be taken with coding otherwise when a visitor tries to refresh a particular page, they may be taken back to the original frameset ** Queries - Do we have any existing PHP3 code ? - Do we have a regular backup utility ? - What Linux etc are we using ? - Webmin ? - Physical location of the server ? ** Find out - MySQL text field limits - since we are planning to store messages / feedback in DB - How does PHP support modules (for framework) - What are the available search engines that can be used ** ToDo / Findout - I have not recd. any newsletter from ISN, whats up ? Mail to Anish / Murli Hello Anish, I had a discussion with Murli recently. He mentioned you and told me he would be introducing us to each other. Murli might have passed on my interests / summary and resume to you. If not, do let me know, I will do so. For the past few days, I have been looking into PHP, and http://www.isn.org I have a few comments / things to do: - Link to FAQ at the end of the "About ISN" page does not work - link needs to be updated - We should put up a page showing what have we done with the money raised. I do get such reports from other organizations that I contribute to, and it does make me feel good about that organization (and myself) ! - I see that we have a way for people do donate anonymously, but these contributions do not show up in "ISN Member Contribution Report". I think, such donations should be there as well. - The ISN logo and ad needs to be improved. We should find member volunteers with artistic abilities. We techies are no good at such things. - I think, we should request members to add the ISN ad / punch line to their website with a link back to ISN. Also we need to add how to do this in FAQ - There are various open source search engine, such as: mnoGoSearch (http://search.mnogo.ru/), SWISHE (http://swish-e.org/), htdig (http://www.htdig.org/), available and can be used to perform searches on the site. Using an already existing search engines will help us save on precious time and resources. - We should add keywords section to HTML headers META section, so that search engines can list them better - We should add Feedback / discussion on each article / page, similar to what guys at http://www.slashdot.org have done ! - We should add a link to "Request a new discussion board" to the list of discussion boards - I have gathered information from the website, PHP web pages to find out how we can move our website to PHP and MySQL. Let me know, when you would like to discuss it. I guess, we can create a mailing lists for all admins of ISN.org to discuss such issues, if it already does not exists ! - I did not like the usage to frames on the ISN website, so decided to write this up: Why ISN should not use frames: (We can use PHP to generate header bar and left navigational bar, if need be) - Without frames, its easier to create links and bookmarks to specific pages - Without frames, its easier for search engines to accumulate data from the web site and add it to their database - Frames are not supported uniformly across all browsers - Framed websites can be problematic for smaller browser windows or laptops, or those preferring to keep their browser windows relatively small - It is difficult to print the entire framed page - Many (including myself) find frames annoying. I tend to stay from sites with frames - Copyright issues. You'll need to ensure that all links within your site that point to external sources open in a new window to avoid copyright wrangles. There have been legal precedents in relation to this issue - Scroll bars can prove to be unsightly - Special care needs to be taken with coding otherwise when a visitor tries to refresh a particular page, they may be taken back to the original frameset - I also have experience with CVS (admin and usage) and can handle CVS related issues. My wife used to do web programming, but right now, she is at home. I have asked her to brush up on her web programming skills and look into PHP. I guess she can be a tremendous help with redesigning the website. Let me know, what / when / how can I get started. Thanks