dad has put me in charge of maintaining the company website...of all the folks here i know the most about computers and the internet. we use GoLive and so far i've figured everything out easily. someone else wrote the site using golive...i'm just changing pictures, adding text, fixing links, etc. i've been doing this via the Source tab b/c that makes more sense to me than the Layout view. so we want to set up client access via ID and password so that we can transfer files back and forth. i really have no clue how to go about doing this and google isn't being very helpful right now. this is the page i want to add this feature to: http://www.oakleycollier.com/clientconnection.htm

if anybody has any suggestions or can point me towards a website/tutorial i'd greatly appreciate it.

1/12/2007 8:25:57 AM

convince your dad that you're not up to the job and he needs to hire a real website developer (yes that means spending real money. OH NOES - I WANT TO BE ON THE INTERNETS BUT I DON'T WANT TO SPEND ANY MONEY ON IT!!)
if you're going to implement a client login system where you can share architecture files with each other, there are just too many things that can go wrong if you don't know what you're doing. See how your dad will like it when two of your competing clients all of a sudden, inexplicably, get access to each other's files when the log in.

1/12/2007 8:30:37 AM

i'm the marketing coordinator & renderer. we could use a website developer but we're a small business and well that's not gonna happen right now. so if you have something else to say that would be helpful i would appreciate it.

1/12/2007 8:34:33 AM

contract somebody to set it up

1/12/2007 9:02:16 AM

Do a google search on mySQL. And get ready to spend many hours studying. It's the most popular open source database. Most web hosts support it, but check with your host first. I'm not sure how GoLive works and if it provides you any database functions. So far, it doesn't look like any database has been implemented. Looks like a mostly static site.

If you know how to program/setup databases then you will catch on quick. If not, then it will take you a while. Once you have the database setup, you can work on coordinating your website with the database and all the gui related features.

Like everyone else has suggested, you're better off contracting someone who knows what they're doing.

1/12/2007 9:23:58 AM

thank you. i just needed somewhere to start. muchas gracias.

1/12/2007 9:38:25 AM

Quote :

"so if you have something else to say that would be helpful i would appreciate it."

here is the most useful thing anyone here will have to say:

if you consider someone suggesting that you "do a google search on mySQL" as "somewhere to start", then you're in big trouble.
You may be a small company, but that's no excuse for not spending money where it's necessary. Your dad wouldn't skimp out on print marketing, would he? He obviously spent a good amount of money for someone to create a nice looking, professional website already, so why stop there? I'm telling you, if you give your clients a sub-par experience, or you manage to fuck up one of their document exchanges, it will cost the company much more in the long run than this upfront cost of hiring someone to do this job for you.

1/12/2007 10:26:40 AM

Even if your dad is only paying you $10/hour to work, the time it's going to take you to learn and correctly apply what you've learned is going to cost more than hiring someone to do it.

You'll also have the peace of mind knowing it was done correctly and securely.

However I'm not saying its a bad thing to try and learn and do it yourself for self improvement and later applications, but if you saying you want to do it yourself to save your company money than thats not going to happen.

1/12/2007 11:08:14 AM

there is a large chance you will not implement this securely. there are many consequences to poor web accessible database security.

1/12/2007 11:27:41 AM

i'm a fulltime salaried employee (hired to do the marketing and rendering), thank you. i didn't volunteer for this website mess, it was given to me by my boss. i'm trying to fix and change what i can before we go out and call someone else in to do it. part of this involves determining what is required to do these things. i learn very quickly but i can't learn everything and i'm not going to give up immediately just because i don't know how to do something. i'm willing to try, i'm not afraid of new software, i'm willing to learn.

i'm just figuring out what can be done in house between me and our other supposed computer semi-guru. think of it as putting together a report that says, "okay, we can do this that and the other thing, but we need to hire someone to do this and this".

so i will reiterate: if you have something else to say that would be helpful i would appreciate it.

there's no need to get your panties all in a wad.

1/12/2007 11:27:42 AM

^ I think what people are seriously telling you is that you're not qualified to do the job that your boss thinks you can. And that you need to tell him that. Hire someone else who can do it right or else risk a security breach and then face those consequences instead.

1/12/2007 11:37:33 AM

If you're a fulltime salaried employee then it makes my point even more valid because you are probably making much more than $10/hour.

Research the basics about what you want to do, do as much as you can to make the person who is actually going to be doing it have an easier job, and then report to your boss what you've learned.

I don't know exactly what the purpose of the client access is but if your business is small and not trying to spend much money and just using this for file distribution, then just creating private FTP logins for them to a private directory on your server might be the most economical way. This depends on who your host is and how many seperate FTP logins they allow though...

No one is trying to insult you saying you shouldn't/can't do this yourself. It is just very complicated for someone not very experienced in internet protocols and security. I'm not near qualified to attempt it myself. When I was doing freeland web development years ago I always "outsourced" things like this to my brother.... and if you actually want to do this then I suggest you do the same.

[Edited on January 12, 2007 at 12:06 PM. Reason : typo]

1/12/2007 12:05:53 PM

1) Pay for the hosting and some tools that will make some static content for you. Nice for advertising, but sucky for anything e-commerce.
2) Hire a CSC senior as an intern for a semester for $15/hr and take a short-term hit. Gets the job done, but god help you if you anything breaks or you need to change something.
3) Go to a company which specializes in creating websites for small businesses. There are plenty out there. Write it off on your taxes.

If you want a cost-justification, for #2 or #3, take the hourly equivalent of your salary, double-it, and multiply it by 20 hours per week. Thats how much the company will be losing by you spending your time on it rather than hiring somebody more specialized to do it.

1/12/2007 11:28:08 PM

Damn you fuckers love to get off topic and talk shit...

This will probably do what you want:
http://www.opendocman.com/
Click "screenshots" and login as demo password demo to see it.

It has the following requirements

Quote :

" Apache Webserver 1.3.x (or any other webserver, that supports PHP) (http://www.apache.org/) MySQL Server 3.22+ (http://www.mysql.com/) PHP 4+ compiled with MySQL-Support (http://www.php.net/) Linux "

Chances are good your web host already meets all of them. I could help you out if you need help installing it.

[Edited on January 13, 2007 at 3:46 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on January 13, 2007 at 3:54 PM. Reason : .]

1/13/2007 3:45:21 PM

Quote :

"there is a large chance you will not implement this securely. there are many consequences to poor web accessible database security."

Seconded.

And people are telling you this, not to put you down, but to go back and tell your boss he needs to have it done properly.

And the whole argument "I'm on salary, so it's saving money versus hiring someone" is a myth. The amount of overhead time you will eat up "learning" will vastly outweight what it would take to hire a consultant to implement a secure, safe system. Then you can be doing billable work instead of floundering around learning something entirely outside your realm of expertise.

Now if this is being given to you because there isn't enough other work to keep you busy, then I can understand it.

^ is an excellent solution and if you have the server capabilities to run it, it will do what you need. As an FYI, make sure you change the admin/config directories from their default locations, CHMOD them to 644 to prevent any possible outside attacker from viewing the files, and if at all possible, place the database on a separate server.

1/13/2007 4:49:23 PM

Quote :

"i know the most about computers and the internet."

1/13/2007 4:54:39 PM