Startup community website - tips on getting known - php

I realise this is probably not the best place to post such as question but thought I'd try anyway. I'm developing a new community driven website in the same vein as SO. I'm just wondering the best way to get the website out there and visible.
I'm wondering if anyone knows of any websites used to promote new startups and such? I'm aware of SEO techniques, etc.
The reason I'm wondering is that since it's community driven there won't be much content to get indexed by search engines.
thanks,
Jonesy

I think you have already missed some things if you need to ask this question. The following article explains in depth on what you need to do to at least come closer to getting successful with a community site: http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/if-you-build-it-they-wont-come/
By the way, the whole blog is worth reading.

Related

Using Joomla to Display Products

My question might be a stupid questions. But need to get help from experts. I have worked with Magento, so by using Magento we can simply handle this work. But we got a new project recently and unfortunately they are demanding to develop the system using Joomla where they need to add products and need to display in their web site. They do not need to handle cart and payment related stuffs but they need to handle the products dynamically.
My bad luck I have been allocated to this development and stuck with how can do it in a easy way since this is first time I am going to work with Joomla. Welcome all the ideas. I tried to find some solution in internet but I could not get any:(
Thanks in advance.
Use Virtuemart, the Joomla Component as a catalogue, it has a templating system just like Magento. Everything can be a challenge to learn, but I actually see Magento more difficult to grasp than Virtuemart.
The Forum is okay, if a little lack luster.
I have always used JoomShopping as I find the backend much more simple than the like of VirtueMart. However VirtueMart might be more suitable for your needs. You might also be interested in HikaShop or redShop.
Each have their advantages and disadvantages so it might be worth testing each one to see which you prefer.
Hope this helps

application review request

just coming to the "end" of a project that will probably live for a long time...
Have looked at the FAQ and having not really found a definitive answer, I want to ask if its OK, to kindly ask if it is OK to ask for some thoughts on our system we are about to publish. (wow what a sentence! :)
So, before I post the link, because I don't want to be thought of as a spammer, is it ok?
This is a programming Q&A site. If you have a question related to programming, you may ask it. If you ask us for a vague review of a candy shop website, you may not ask it.
The answer is yes it's ok.
If you are really want a feedback from design/architecture, database schema, performance, reliability perspective, better would be to ask objectively, for instance post your schema, design, etc.
And since you've already developed the web site, this may be a bit late, but its always worthy reading, my fav SO question: What should a developer know before building a public web site? This covers 360 degrees of whats and hows of building a website.

Advice on using Wordpress or a PHP Framework?

I am currently building a blog type website for myself. I have used wordpress in the past and really enjoy it, but when it comes to building more than just a blog I usually get bogged down in writing hacks for it.
The site I'm building is going to pretty much be a blog, but with a 'question and answer' side to it (NOT A FORUM - purely Q&A). Therefore, bbPress and buddyPress doesn't quite hit the mark. I have used CI for awhile now, but when it comes to security I fall short. CI does not have an auth library, however, Kohana does.
My question is: I would like to have full control over my site, but I'm worried about my lack of knowledge in the security department. Would I be better off using Wordpress as a base, or would it be beneficial for me in the long run to use something like Kohana?
Your advice is greatly appreciated.
First of all, I would like to say that you can't compare Wordpress and Kohana. One is a content management system and the other is a programming framework.
As for your question: Since you've stated you're not that experienced with security I suggest you stick with Wordpress; It's maintained by developers who know what they're doing.
If you want to go ahead and create something yourself then make sure you keep up-to date with all the current security issues and how to resolve them. Here are a few resources you might be interested in: PHPSEC, OWASP and PHP Security. You should probably read those anyway (as you're writing Wordpress plugins).
Good luck with your choice either way.
Hmm, if you can write the "hacks" for wordpress, than modify it to your needs.
If you think you can write the security better, than use Zend Framework since it has a Auth lib.
http://framework.zend.com/
I dont realy know about kohana
Hmmm... for the Questions and Answers, have a look at Qhub. I'm aboutto implement it for a client of mine who's an adoption counselor. She gets tons of questions via emails and it's always the same ones over and over. I saw it on Design Reviver a while back and I thought it was a great idea. Plus I got in contact with one of the co-founders of Qhub and they told me that they are implementing some more privacy and privileges controls which is really good news since I only want my client to be able to answer the questions.
I would use WP with Qhub to be honest. If it's a blog-type site and you're already comfortable with WP, why not stick with it?
Hope this helps!
Check out the TDO Mini Forms plugin. I think it may serve your needs perfectly!

Q & A site similar to stackoverflow in PHP

I am developing a Q & A Site for my students. I find stackoverflow an amazing example and would like to have something similar(if not this feature rich) for my course.
I am a sytem programmer not much familiar with web-application development. How do I begin. Database scheme, features, AJAXness etc. Can I get some existing codebase I can build on top of? Something opensource?
Language of choice is PHP. Any pointers are welcome.
Thank you in advance.
Edited: Added info
It would be reasonably trivial to create something similar as a learning exercise, but the real value behind the stackoverflow site is the polish, attention to detail and vision that's gone into the site and associated branding/marketing, etc.
Irrespective, you'll probably find that you get more answers if you do the ground work yourself and then post questions for any specific architecture/design/implementation issues you get stuck on.
It shouldn't be hard to replicate using PHP/MySQL. It's not a very complicated site. plan out how you want all of the tables/classes to be laid out (Questions, Answers, Users, Tags,Rep,Badges,etc.) and start coding.
Is there any particular part that you are confused about or looking for advice about?

ColdFusion/PHP Compatibility

Hey I have a question regarding the compatibility of ColdFusion and PHP.
We built a community website which is based on ColdFusion. Is it altogether possible to add features such as blogs, and other community features to our website in PHP?
I mean to combine both PHP and ColdFusion together.
Thanks very much for the help!
I think it can be done, if you're using ColdFusion 8. I know that Sean Corfield has a project on RIAForge doing this sort of thing, and there are a string of posts on his blog, starting with this one:
http://corfield.org/blog/index.cfm/do/blog.entry/entry/ColdFusion_8_running_PHP
All of this being said, it will be easier to integrate products from the same core language. There are hundreds of open source options for different things in ColdFusion. RIAForge.org is a good place to start.
Yes, it's possible. You would have to probably integrate the PHP application's session management into your Coldfusion application's session management.
I recently did that with a PHP shopping cart into Coldfusion because I didn't have the time or resources available to get the same results in Coldfusion -- often the great and polished pieces in CF can cost some money, and with PHP its a gamble or a time pit to get it to dance how you want.
Second, there might already be blogs, forums, etc that suit your needs made in Coldfusion. Check them out. You might be able to stay more towards one platform. Chances are you might want a PHP solution because it has addons or something else that you don't want to program.
I like your best-of-breed approach, Coldfusion overall has a lot more commercial development than open source when it comes to large packages that are incredibly featured.
Best of luck, be sure to share what you end up doing.
Your question wasn't really focused enough to give a single direct correct answer.
We built a community website which is
based on ColdFusion. Is it altogether
possible to add features such as
blogs, and other community features to
our website in PHP?
I mean to combine both PHP and
ColdFusion together.
When you say you want to "combine" them, what exactly do you mean? They can both co-exist on a web server and both have access to the same database; so if you want both PHP and ColdFusion applications to have access to the same data, that is not a problem at all. There would be some concerns about locking and race conditions, but from an "is this possible?" standpoint, the answer is undoubtedly YES.
Sharing session, client, or other special scopes/variables from CF to PHP should be possible with some clever programming, but would be tricky. It would depend entirely on your needs and your implementation.
If you're looking for applications to add to your community, I would recommend that you try to find something in CFML that suits your needs before you go the route of attempting to mix CFML and PHP. There are tons of free open source applications including blogs and wikis written in CFML available on RIAForge, and other websites. Canvas Wiki, and Codex Wiki are solutions that focus strictly on Wiki functionality, and there are others that include Wiki functionality as part of a larger package. Searching for "blog" in the ColdFusion category on RIAForge shows no less than 6 blogging applications like BlogCFC and others, and that doesn't even include my personal favorite, Mango Blog.
I think Corfield's way is not (very) suitable for standalone apps like blogs and forums. But it can help with sharing sessions.
On the other hand, these types of software are not so good in CF world.
I'd better proposed to play with webserver settings. Can't say much about IIS, but in Apache you are typically using different handlers for .cfm and .php files. Possible problem here is index file, that can be index.cfm or index.php. In this case .htaccess rules should help.
So, tuning webserver allows to use PHP apps in subdirectories of CF application.
Additional possibility is using subdomains, this even easier to set up, that can fit your needs. Say, blog.website.com and forum.website.com
Hope this helps.
To question owner: sorry for such odd reply, I just can't comment here yet. And sorry for small offtop too.
To Ray Camden: yes I am saying that there're not so good opensource forums/blogs for CF as for PHP. I am happy to know about Galleon and BlogCFC. But if talking about features -- they in 2006 of PHP analogues, especially Galleon. BlogCFC grows and getting better fast.
Anyway, I have a suspicion that many of BlogCFC users using it because it is written in CFML. And me too, partially.
Problem is not these two applications, they can fit someone's needs. Problem is that there're no alternatives. Or maybe I am wrong here and there's lots of another cool apps of these types?
And yes. Maybe there're another amazing proprietary blogs/forums, but we're not talkin about them now right?

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