I have been involved with web development applications for more than 3 years now, using c# and microsoft stuff. I am now looking into, and researching, whether it is possible to use webservice, perhaps with Java as the core, and multiple languages and tools, such as HTML5, php, javascript, etc to interact with users. Some of the things I need to be clear about, if this is possible, are:
Is such method secure? What are the considerations that need to be taken into account and how can the security part be properly implemented?
Are there constraints to what type of interactions the web site can provide, such as sending forms with a lot of details, or long texts?
Some elaborations and examples would be appreciated.
What you're describing are called web apps. They're so ubiquitous you used one (StackOverflow) to ask whether it's possible.
To answer your questions:
Yes, it's possible to make it secure, and no, it's not easy. See Wikipedia for a starting point for how to read up on this huge topic.
No. HTML5 web apps are extremely capable. If Microsoft can port Office to the web, your online form will be just fine.
OK, the title is a bit misleading I suppose, but only because I'm not really sure how to condense down what I'm looking for.
Currently, I have my own personal site that I've built which rests on a CMS that I also built. I wasn't really interested in blogging when I started the site (it was mainly to showcase my Android apps), so I only added basic 'blogging' features like posting news items and such.
As of late, however, I have taken a keen interest in blogging, and would like to pursue it on my website. The issue I'm having is that I don't particularly want to invest the time it would take to expand upon my CMS to include things like archives, comments, search, and all of the other various blogging-related features that are standard.
So what I'm looking for is a blogging engine that I can plug into my existing site framework. I have found tons of services that are platforms that you build on top of (i.e Wordpress, Chyrp, and TextPattern just to name a few) but that's not what I want. I'm looking for something that I integrate into my site, not something I integrate my site into (if that makes sense).
So you want a third-party application that can plug in to a proprietary custom-built blogging/CMS framework? Unless you patterned your framework after some other publicly available and widely used framework then I think it is very unlikely that such a thing exists.
I'd suggest maybe seeing if there's a way to come up with a database migration script that will take the data that your custom framework is using and translate it into something that an existing blogging platform can understand. Then just completely replace your custom platform with the prebuilt one.
Hey guys im in a very confused state of mind at the moment and need some help with Word Press and generally starting a website. My parents have had a business for 20 years and have finally decided to get a website!
As im studying IT and Business i said id get it done for them. Rather than design it from scratch i used a template which i bought from themeforest.net (awesome template!) and yesterday a friend mentioned in passing using word press as a CMS which i had never heard of before, and he left before i could ask any questions.
SO basically i have a site working on my computer and i have no idea how to get it live as a .com or .com.au, so far as i can see wordpress is a blog with .wordpress.com which isnt what im looking for.
Thanks in advance
Simon
It seems like you have two questions here:
Q1. I have a site working on my computer (locally hosted) and I have no idea how to get it live as a .com or .com.au?
You will need to get a domain name (www.something.com or .com.au) and a Web Hosting Provider where you can upload your site to. Some Web Hosting Providers provide the service of registering a domain name for you, so that you don't have to do it on your own. Take a look at the following links for more info:
http://www.hostcompare.com/guide/guidetohosting.html
http://www.hostcompare.com/
However, since you are still learning this hosting thing, you may want to learn by using some free hosts and perfect your site by making the appropriate changes (if and where necessary) to make your site fully working on the web. For that period you can use the free sub-domain provided by the free host and when you've got it all worked out, you may then either upgrade your plan to premium or migrate to a premium host and buy a domain name as well. Search google for free hosting sites, there are lots of them to choose from.
Q2. A friend mentioned in passing using word press as a CMS which I had never heard of before?
Depending on your needs a CMS could be helpful. It allows you to easily update your sites content online and most CMSs come with additional components such as PayPal integration and the such that can be easily added to the site. Wordpress is one example of a CMS. Note that if you do want to use Wordpress or any other CMS you will need to make sure that:
The hosting provider you chose provides the necessary requirements for it. Ex. PHP, ASP.Net, MySQL, etc...
There is a version of the template that you purchased for the CMS you choose. If not, then you will have to do some custom coding to get the template to work.
If the site you have only contains a small number of static pages, then a CMS might be overkill. This doesn't mean that you can't migrate your site to a CMS in the future if needed.
Hope this helps.
You'll want to sign up with a web hosting provider (site5, dreamhost etc) and register a domain name. Once that's setup you can use the control panels from the hosts to install WordPress, plop in your theme and add content. It's often a one click affair to get WordPress installed, just be mindful of security updates as new versions come out.
Wordpress.com can host blogs, but if you want to install it on you own hosting server you can download the blog platform from wordpress.org and install it on your own server.
The only thing you have to be sure of is if the template you downloaded is for wordpress or not.
There is a difference between http://wordpress.com and http://wordpress.org In your case I think you might want to use http://wordpress.org It is a great free and open source CMS Most web hosts come with the facility of installing WP using stuff like Fantastico.
I mean this quite literally. A close relative wants to create her own website for her business and asked me for help. I've offered her to set up the website, take care of domain registration and all, but I don't have the time to design the website for her. So, I want to give her a software in which she can edit the page and publish it on her own.
My feature-wish-list. The software should
of course, be easy-to-use, as she's not a pro at the computer
be able to publish the website, once the ftp-connection has been entered
have some predefined themes, but also the possibilites to define a custom theme
offer a german UI, since she doesn't understand english
I so far looked at Nvu (too complicated), zeta Producer (crashed even before I could start editing the first page), CityDesk (very promising, but still too complicated and not in german). I'm quite happy with Namu6, but unfortunately, it is english only.
I'd be happy for any suggestion.
[edit]
Some were asking for a platform: She is only using windows, so Mac or Linux is not an option.
My mom uses vi for this
Consider setting up a CMS for her and let her edit the pages in the browser.
I was happy with citydesk for imachines.com, but lately I've moved towards just suggesting a blogging tool and doing it that way (e.g. wordpress, blogger, etc...). Websites are complicated because they are a 'web'. I'm not sure my mom could ever do it.
Google has a webpage service, besides Blogger, I think it' called Pages. Or if she has a Mac iLife has a decent tool set for the average non technical user
You don't mention which platform. If Mac is a possibility, take a look at iWeb, part of the iLife suite.
Depends on what she needs the site for and what you are capable of setting up for her. Google sites are free and easy to set up/use, but they're damn ugly.
Set up a free Blogger or WordPress account or run a hosted WordPress installation.
Engines like Joomla tend to be a bit technical on the admin back-end, but are also easy to edit from a front end editor's point of view - their WYSIWYG editor allows you to edit content from the front end, which I've found useful for non-technical types.
Wordpress is actually a nice and capable basic CMS system that just happens to have a blogging engine built into it.
Chances are, non-technical people will struggle with any editor. I mean, how do you expect her to do layout?? How do you expect her to edit the templates? How do you expect her to publish the site from her local machine to the server that's hosting the website?
Come on man, I know these things seem common sense to us, but really, every non-techy person around me that I can think of wouldn't have the least clue about where to begin with any of this, even my sister who knows how to use photoshop wouldn't have a clue about running a website. (I'd have to spend a lot of time tutoring her, and even then I'm not sure she'd get it).
Just give her a CMS or a blogging application like wordpress or the like (I assume you'll have to set it up for her).
EDIT
Even if you do find a good-easy-friendly editor, what about deploying her changes to the server? The problem is not only editing HTML, but running a website, managing content on it.
If your mother's business is a legitimate business that she gets her living from, wouldn't she want a professional to do it? A non-professional website, like hers is BOUND to look, is only going to make her business seem unprofessional.
If it is not a "real" business, but more like a hobby business, perhaps she would get what she needs from www.blogspot.com [or Wordpress], which is very simple to use.
I've tried this a few times with non-technical folks. For those that can handle desktop software, I use RapidWeaver (OS X only). (I don't set up non-technical folks with Windows PCs.)
But more often, I've found that something like WordPress works better. They can easily edit the site online and it's limited functionality keeps them from getting confused.
if she isn't a geek, maybe a simple cms is sufficient for her. editing html, and layout stuff can be pretty painful, as well as managing files on a server for the average user. i'd go for wordpress, which has simple admin ui, and since it's php, can be run on almost every hosting service you find. Also, using a widget-based sidebar and page layout makes her able to do almost anything she could do with an html editor (of which, imo dreamweaver is by far the best) - and even more! just think about already done plugins available through a simple plugin manager! i think there is a german translation available, too. (i found a hungarian one, there must be a german as well)
WordPress could be a good option and it has some options to install in German and other languages. See WordPress in Your Language for more information.
What about an online web site creator, something like GoDaddy's Website Tonight? It provides templates and lots of support for a simple web site. There is a monthly fee, but it's quite reasonable, and could be a good solution for someone who doesn't want to delve into the complexities.
I don't know if they offer a German UI, but it might be worth checking out.
Have you tried http://goodbarry.com ?
It’s an easy to use CMS focused to business owners.
As hasen j said: “The problem is not only editing HTML, but running a website, managing content on it.”
However I’m not sure if there is a German translation.
Movable Type is another option for a simple CMS.
My mother is using TextMate. I set her up with Subversion, so to publish her site she just commits and a hook on the Subversion server will update the site. The big benefit here is that when something goes wrong I have a record of every change she made which makes it much easier to sort out. There's some simple PHP (that was what was easily supported on her MacBook for testing and on the webhost she uses) to minimize the boilerplate stuff on each page.
CushyCMS is the only thing I would let a totally non-tech person near. It's very easy to setup an manage, and there's very little chance she can actually break stuff.
Dot Net Nuke, just copy, install and a way she goes.....
I'm in the process of adding CAPTCHA validation to one of my websites and need to know what open source solutions exist. Please note strengths and weaknesses and what platform they work with. I'm primarily interested in ASP.NET solutions but feel free to include PHP, Java, etc.
ReCAPTCHA is the same one StackOverflow uses. It has an ASP.NET implementation.
It uses a webservice to provide the captcha images; this is an university trying to digitize difficult to OCR texts. I'm not sure how easy it would be to replace this portion. There are many open source client implementations, as the API is quite well documented.
Jeff Atwood has a captcha control + source hosted on his coding horror site
ReCaptcha might be another alternative but i don't think the source is open.
Have you seen JCaptcha? Not an ASP framework, but might be useful.
Try this one... http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/CaptchaImage.asp very nice article!
One I just found but have not tried out is MyCaptcha
ReCaptcha has many benefits. The fact that google owns it is a big plus. We used to use ReCaptcha on my project, but the firewall in our production environment cannot handle add entries based on domain name, only based on IP addresses. ReCaptcha has switched to using Googles infrastructure, so the IP addresses are no longer publicly available. Our production environment is locked down extremely tightly, so there are no workarounds possible -- we have to start using a new captcha. If you're in my boat, ReCaptcha won't work for you.
In the Java world, check out JCaptcha.
Have you taken a look at ReCAPTCHA?