I need some Techie/WEB/Geek Squad type help

[djturnz]

I need help from you website/software/geek squad/ types.

I don't know enough about what I am asking, so I'll try the stream of consciousness approach and maybe somebody will know what I am talking about.

Currently, to post a special message or to post a cancellation to an event at ACSHA, I have to call or email the Webmaster and have him post it on the website. We are looking to implement a procedure that if any event (like last Sunday's Action Shoot) is cancelled or changed, it will be posted on the site by a certain time the day of.

To accomplish this with the current set up, I have to call the Webmaster, or email him to make the post. Which means that if we decide to cancel due to weather at 11am, he has to be ready and waiting to do it.

What I would like to have is something on the front page of the site (or perhaps on the schedule page) that I can post a message to instantly. Like maybe a crawler or an information block. It would be really cool if I could do this from my cellphone (I have web) or even better if I could send a text message that would instantly appear on the site.

I am not very familiar but I believe this is similar to what Twitter is. I don't want to have to start an ACSHA Twitter page, nor have members (and non-member that attend shoots) also have to join to get the message. I just want something that I can post to that will appear on the site without having to have access to edit the actual webpage, and do all the HTML code, which I don't remember, and was never very good at anyway.

Is there a software that would let me do this? Being able to do it from my phone would be great, but if not, I can use my home PC.

I would just like it to be as simple as making a forum post, or a text message.

Any help with this is appreciated.

[fingers80002]

Keep checking back, DC should be seeing this soon.

[camper]

Have your webmaster setup a blog or something like Joomla or Mambo, and give you an account with permissions to post comments.

Twitter might do this too, I don't know...I really haven't gotten into twitter or facebook or any of that crap.

camper

[Dredly]

I agree, DC is going to be the man on point for this as I'm pretty sure thats what he does for a living

But there should be a bunch of different options that can be done without the web master doing it manually, anything from a "blog style" format, to just a simple form you could submit and have it post the text to the front page... etc

[mojo]

I'm not DC but ...


This has to be accomplished one of 2 ways.

1. You have to have access to the computer that is hosting the site. If you can do this then the easiest route is to have the webmaster update the main page to include a separate file (say called update). All you would have to do is put what you wanted in "update" and over write the old file with the new one. Once that's done, the new info will be "live" on the site.

2. Someone would have to create a way for you to update the site via a web page. This could be done via a content management system like Joomla but someone would have to re-do your whole site to use it. Or they can create the a simple form that you can update with the info. That info can than be stored into a database. The front page will just pull whatever data is in the database.

PM if you need more info or if you have any questions.

[Kaos]

It's not difficult to do, would be massively simple with something like php - it would just take time.

It really depends on how the site is set up now (static pages - or dynamically populated using a database as a backend) if it's the latter it's a lot easier and could be done from ANY machine.

If it's static pages it can still be done from any machine you would just need to know what to edit and where in the HTML and have FTP access.

Do you know how it's run now (even just as basic as static HTML pages, or dynamic from a database) ?

[mojo]

If the site your talking about is http://www.acsha.com/ ...

Then that webserver runs Apache to host the site. That's a good thing. It's very easy to work with, and means that it will run PHP. It would be very easy to set something up. Maybe 2 hours of work and it would be done.

[Kaos]

If the site your talking about is http://www.acsha.com/ ...

Then that webserver runs Apache to host the site. That's a good thing. It's very easy to work with, and means that it will run PHP. It would be very easy to set something up. Maybe 2 hours of work and it would be done.

Apache's a lot easier, but PHP will work with IIS as well...just for others who may have similar questions. The database platform matters a bit more than the webserver. PHP plays nicely with mysql out of the gate while other platforms require a bit of extra configuration.

[dc dalton]

Keep checking back, DC should be seeing this soon.

Just noticed this

This is the problem when websites are built in a static language with no back end control panel. (meaning built in HTML where someone has to manually edit the files to make changes)

Dynamically built sites (e.g. in a programming language like PHP, Java or ASP) can be set up where the page data is written to the output (what the public sees) either from a database or files.... then you build a 'control panel' that allows members or an admin to update info.

It's not hard if you know how to do it but there's a lot of 'old school' webmasters and developers that still built sites in HTML and that's where a problem like this starts.

The only 'simple' way to fix this particular problem would be to 'flip' the site into php and have an include that would put up messages like this dynamically. Then a small module would have to be built that allows members to log in (has to be secure or some hacker will find it) and update the shoot information.

Without seeing the code and what's being used in the back end that's about the best I can tell you.

[dc dalton]

If the site your talking about is http://www.acsha.com/ ...

Then that webserver runs Apache to host the site. That's a good thing. It's very easy to work with, and means that it will run PHP. It would be very easy to set something up. Maybe 2 hours of work and it would be done.

Yeah that looks like the site and sure enough it is 'old school' html ... which means someone has to * UGH * manually edit each HTML file any time a change is made.

Man I HATE seeing people stuck with these old fashioned sites and trying to do what the OP wants to do .... time for some * cough cough * webmasters to wake up, smell the decade, and start learning how to build a dynamic site. But then again that's all I do so I guess it seems easy to me when to some it seems like building an engine from scratch.