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Because it's holiday - and business is low this time of the year - I took the time to have a look at some other hosted website solutions. It's amazing how many hosted website solutions there are out there. I'm not going to list them over here, but why don't you search Google for "free website"?

Most of these "free" hosted website solutions have some things in common:

Their free solution is - in most cases - a limited or even crippled version of a commercial "pro" plan. In other words, "free" basically means: "not yet paying". That is a totally correct and logical business model. Me too, I have been thinking about that. And some of us are building a similar business around QuickerServer.
Most of these hosted website solutions are built in PHP, they use JQuery (or alike) driven UI's, and are very very good-looking. I'm not sure that makes them easy-to-use in all cases, but looks count these days, for sure. When you compare the basic but functional interface of the QuickerSite backsite, you can ask yourself what we are still doing??? Most of them also have an inline way of editing page and menus. The "control panel" is to be found in a layer on top of the actual website, or in a corner somewhere. In QuickerSite we have a strong line between the public website and the backsite. I prefer that. But it looks like I'm getting lonely here :)
None of them has adopted Artisteer Web Template Generator. They offer their own designs instead. I must admit that most of these designs are not bad, but integrating with a tool like Artisteer would be so much easier for their users. And in general, Artisteer templates simply look better than their 50 or 60 built-in designs you can choose from.
Unlike QuickerServer, their hosted website solutions are not for sale. At least, they are not selling it via their website. They mainly use their hosted solution for their own hosting business. I wonder why that is the case. Is it because of security issues to be exposed in case they sell the software? Is it because they fear competition? As far as I see, competition in this market so high already, that one can better focus on bigger fish and sell the hosted cms as such, instead of hosted websites. The only company I know who is doing that is Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder.
Last but not least: they all claim to host millions of websites. And they all have 100.000's of customers. I personally doubt that.

07/07/2010 12:46:37 | Pieter | Login | Replies (2)

Is .NET downsizing?

Scott Guthrie introduces Webmatrix on his blog. This new tool is a lightweight development environment for ASP.NET developers. I think this makes sense!

Many users must have tried any version of Visual Studio, or one of its Express Editions. It's true that these tools are way too heavy for creating lightweight web applications. And let's face it: most developers do not need or use 90% of what these tools ship with. It's like driving a heavy truck to go the supermarket. A Suzuki Alto would be a much better option :).

It's not the first lightweight .NET development tool by MS. Actually, Microsoft launched a ASP.NET Web Matrix in 2002. For some reason, they stopped that project after 1 or 2 years.

Maybe MS is starting to realize that they have lost too many developers to PHP? It's true that nearly all popular web applications and social networking sites are running on PHP. ASP.NET is nowhere to be found in this segment! On the other hand, where I live (Belgium), most well paid jobs are (still) for C# .NET developers.

Anyway, the question is whether a new tool will bring back these PHP users... To be honest, I don't think so. Even more: by creating yet another development tool, Microsoft might add even more complexity when it comes to develop, exchange and implement .NET applications. It's becoming a real jungle.

Why does Microsoft not come up with a new version of Classic ASP? THAT would be very useful. We would be helped a lot with a new development environment. I'm using Notepad++ for some time now. It works fine, but it's not perfect! Also, Microsoft could add basic support for handling zip files, pdf files and jpg-images to classic ASP! Can't be too difficult can it? Many companies are offering components for that purpose for a decade already.

Finally, I found this recent e-book (April 2010) on the net. I must admit, I find it very inspiring. Have a look. It takes 15 minutes to read it through.

07/07/2010 12:06:47 | Pieter | Login | Replies (13)

Voyager says: (09/07/2010 15:13:34)

All i can say is that all of us that ride the Microsoft classic ASP train, are LUCKY.

The recent economic crisis will add some more years to classic asp life.
Voyager says: (09/07/2010 15:25:55)

I would like to add my NET experience of the last 2 years.

I run a small hosting company - among other things. NET application hosting was something i avoided because it was always slow. No matter what. On MS SQL 2008 and IIS7.

The last months we switched our servers to Server 2008 R2 and that made all the difference in the world for NET. Now it work well. Also we have added cloud to our servers.

So NET have needs for server hardware and maybe 2008r2 OS to work well.

Until now, i have found only one NET portal i like and can install/use. Due to my comments they added also support for Artisteer.

But i had NO LUCK with most of other net portals. And i DO know what i'm doing.

So i'm still happy with my ASP applications.
Pieter says: (09/07/2010 19:06:57)
Most interesting story. I guess you refer to MojoPortal?

Let me add another one:

For some months now i am looking for a .NET library that creates thumbnails of a website. For QuickerServer, it would be nice to add such a auto-thumber, so you can add that your site and show some recent projects, or the "site of the day", etc.

I found several solutions. I tried them all. I got only ONE working fine. However, it only works on my old Windows XP pro. It does not work on any server (i tried them all - 2000/2003/2008). I checked the Event Log. Errors all over the place.

So I kept on looking. I finally found http://html-to-image.acasystems.com/. It's a commercial product, but it works, on any windows edition. And it supports classic ASP as well. Unfortunately it's a commercial plugin, and its license structure does not allow me to add it to the QuickerServer bundle.

Also, for the automatic image thumber in QuickerSite I have faced many issues to get it working on .NET 1.1, 2.0, 3.5 and I did not even test it on 4.0 yet. NO WAY you can seriously DEVELOP, SELL AND SUPPORT .NET applications. You will waste all your time by fixing and configuring things for customers.

For the record: QS works fine on all Windows Servers. And it works FAST on all servers, even if they are 5 years old. For the minimum requirements for any asp application to work fine and fast, you just have to look at what used to be a "decent PC" around 7-10 years ago, when classic ASP was a popular technology. That was a 1 GIG RAM server, with an early Pentium IV.
Voyager says: (09/07/2010 17:43:07)

Yes i was talking about Mojo Portal, but didn't want to post any rival of Quickersite.

Mojo Portal has anything you need IF YOU KNOW YOUR WAY WITH NET, otherwise forget it. Every move or change with NET code is very hard. Not ASP or PHP.

About Quicketsite and speed. Sure it runs fast in most cases. Could be a lot faster if you replaced the second "labels" access database with an XML file (or files). That way it could be also run more STABLE without needing a separate application pool. IF of cource an SQL database for the data is used anyway.
Voyager says: (09/07/2010 17:51:06)

Also Pieter,

Mojo Portal use some great image / file manager, i have no idea if you could also use it ....

Also NET 4 seems a lot more stable, no need to stay in 1.1 ...... in 2010 ...
Pieter says: (09/07/2010 19:31:03)
I prefer FTP for file management. Or Remote Desktop :)

Cuteeditor comes with a batch upload feature. You won't find that in any open source CMS, since it cannot be redistributed in free software...

update: oeps, I see MojoPortal also has a batch upload facility. Well done. They use the Neatupload library. It's done by the MojoPortal developer so it seems.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (09/07/2010 19:37:42)
What's amazing to me is that the Mojoportal's online demo site, they are using one of my earliest templates I had created.
Pieter says: (09/07/2010 20:21:18)
Nick, that is correct. Also, they refer their users to http://www.quickersite.com/r/free-templates-to-use-with-quickersite and tell them to go grab a template of their choice over there. I don't have a problem with that, but I think they could have at least contacted YOU about having your template on their default demo site http://demo.mojoportal.com/.

Mojoportal is developed by a single developer mainly, a nice guy I think, he is a musician as well . In general musicians are nice people. However... tomorrow I am gonne see Prince in Werchter. I have heard things about him :)

Let me perhaps tell another .NET story.

Two years ago, I told my most important customer - who is running on asp applications for more than a decade now - to look into migrating to .NET for its websites and applications. Because I am not an expert, the customer decided to hire an expert. He was assigned a study. It took 8 months to come up with a plan. One of its elements was to migrate to .NET. He attached a list of reasons why VBScript was not a good development environment. Of course he had a point, and he managed to convince the managing board of my customer to start the new development(s).

In total, the plan included 10 major upgrades and improvements. In total, this represented about 60 days of development. We decided to start the development of the first upgrade. The .NET expert started the development of the first upgrade in November 2009. It was estimated that the job would take at around 8 days.

We are July now, and over the last months, some things were added to this first upgrade. Difficult and annoying things, I agree. But the estimated 8 days turned out the be 8 months, and we're still not in production with the new developments. And that is only the first upgrade on his plate. 9 more to come.

What is your point i hear you think?

There is no point yet indeed. Except maybe that .NET sure LOOKS like a nice technology, but it gets very complex and time-consuming if you do not know VERY WELL what you're doing. In other words: the learning curve is very steep. If you loose yourself in the technical details of .NET, you will never be able to deliver a working solution to the customer. It *looks* like that is what's happening to my customer.
Voyager says: (09/07/2010 20:36:32)
Net is complex.

Even when i tried php (i have no idea about php), i was able to play around with the code easily. Same with asp.

Most companies in Greece use php. Some use NET.
Bob says: (10/07/2010 00:26:26)
If I may say so this is typical of any project like this. Once they have bought into the concept, you then entrench yourself as deeply as possible in the hope that the client will fell they are committed.

I have never known a big-company software development team accurately estimate the timescales of a job. As a sales manager it made my job really difficult.

I would have put them on notice 7 months ago, and sacked their sorry backsides after two months!
Voyager says: (12/07/2010 11:48:10)

Personally i will continue to use ASP for all my projects.

Two months ago i added a new pure classic asp website and works like a charm.

www.image-resizer.eu
Pieter says: (12/07/2010 12:00:10)
www.image-resizer.eu uses .net in the background
Voyager says: (12/07/2010 14:24:43)

oh .. you discovered my little dirty secret. Yes, actually it does for the uploading and for the resizing.

<%@ Page Trace="False" Language="vb" aspcompat="false" validateRequest="false"%>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.Drawing %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.Drawing.Imaging %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.Drawing.Drawing2D %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.Web %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.Runtime.InteropServices %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System %>
<%@ Import Namespace=System.IO %>

Rieten Zetels

COOMS - New QuickerServer

Stats

Setup mini-sites with QuickerSite

I am currently thinking about this business idea: setting up so called mini-sites with QuickerSite. Small sites that promote a single product. Most sites would be linked to a bigger site. Click here for an example. These sites "just" use a nice Artisteer template with some Flash effects, a gallery, a poll, a contact form, etc... You can easily build 4/hour of these. And customers like them, for sure. To be continued.

22/06/2010 22:24:18 | Pieter | Login | Replies (12)

Voyager says: (22/06/2010 16:43:00)

Quickersite is excellent for mini-sites. It is light, and could be online indead in a few hours.

Using Access (no need for anything more).

What is missing ?

.... to find the customers ....
Pieter says: (22/06/2010 16:56:17)
It cannot be hard to find customers for this. I have visited 2 customers who are completely wild about this. It's exactly what QuickerSite is built for. Well, Artisteer helps as well
Voyager says: (22/06/2010 17:04:03)

The "visiting customers" is the second thing you do. How do you find them at first place is the first.
Pieter says: (22/06/2010 17:37:56)
That is right! But if you manage to be invited to show the Artisteer and QuickerSite combination, you sell a site. For sure.

After demoing Artisteer and QS, I am often offered a full time job at the company.

QuickerSite and Artisteer SIMPLY REPLACES a full web team of developers and designers. CEO's like that idea very much.
Mathieu says: (24/06/2010 23:27:25)
I have the customers .
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (25/06/2010 02:49:10)
"After demoing Artisteer and QS, I am often offered a full time job at the company. "

That's exactly how I got my job 3 months ago. I resisted in the beginning, and we went from contract, to part time, to full time 10-11 hours a day within 9 days. Thanks Pieter, I owe it to you and QS. No resume needed, and no compensation negotiations. They told me how much I wanted per hour, and that was it (I should have asked for more...)!

I don't think this would have happened with Wordpress. Although I also demonstrated some of my skills with ASPRunner.
Pieter says: (25/06/2010 09:09:55)
I'm very happy to read that Nick. If QuickerSite helps people to get a job, then I think this project is a major success-story. Thanks for everything you contribute to this project, in the past, now and in the future!
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (25/06/2010 09:58:14)
Anytime Pieter,

You already know this, loyalty is everything to me.
Bob says: (26/06/2010 09:05:59)
Congratulations Nick. Is it
9-5? :-)
Pieter says: (26/06/2010 09:42:31)
of course it is! It's only 10-11 hours/day!
Bob says: (26/06/2010 11:20:49)
Aha...5 to 9 then
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (27/06/2010 07:06:29)
It's 9-6, but I'm there until 8pm most days...

.NET trick

New CMS?

After my experience with www.iseral.be, I have come to the conclusion that a very easy and simple (and free!) CMS based on Artisteer Templates is what people are looking for. QuickerSite IS such a CMS, but it does much more than that, and it is not free.

I am thinking about developing such a new Artisteer-CMS. It should do about this:

Upload and unzip an Artisteer HTML Template
Modify some fixed parts of the site (header text, slogan, footer, the default template-selector, site-wide settings and meta-tags). These site-wide settings are merged into the templates at runtime.
Both the vertical and horizontal menus need to be dynamic, so users can add/edit/remove pages in 2 sitemaps (horizontal and vertical). I want both sitemaps in max 3 levels (mainpage, subpage, subsubpage)
Pages can be edited in WYSIWYG mode. Pages have a title, content and some metatags. I would stick to 1 article/1 page. Pages can use a different template than the default one.
A way to manage banners (add/edit/remove) - WYSIWYG required
A way to manage the languages to be used in the site
A search-this-site facility
A basic filemanager

Some general specs:

Sites should be multilingual, so site-settings/pages/banners could vary from each language to the other - this is number 1 priority and I admit: this adds a lot of complexity to the datamodel.
both working on SQL Server and MySQL is a must (or can we just use XML?)
I dont care about PHP, classic ASP or .NET. Maybe PHP is the way to go?

Who's in? Or did I forget something? Or do you think this is a stupid idea? Most people use Wordpress and/or Joomla anyway right?

12/05/2010 09:59:43 | Pieter | Login | Replies (17)

Voyager says: (12/05/2010 12:05:31)

I think QS is very nice as it is. Almost perfect.

Can't be simpler, can it ? In 2010 ...

NET i wouldn't dare. Very slow. PHP yes but a 360 turn for you and your clients.

So, what is missing from QS ? Apparently advertizing. Let people knwo about it. Why don't you start a small Adwords campain for 2 months and see how it goes ?
doc says: (12/05/2010 23:51:05)
i think can be much better working for new plugin or module apps, real multilanguage, maybe ecommerce, embed some jquery useful graphics fx. on actual quickersite.
personally i didn't invest time on new free apps...except if it are a project will evolve on next quickersite re-evo-lution in php....

php...and jquery, ajax...

doc
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (13/05/2010 00:59:50)
I totally agree with both Voyager and Doc.
Pieter says: (13/05/2010 09:02:11)
@Yoyager: I'm sure that is the case. But proper advertising would cost 1000's of €'s/year. Way too much for this business. I have tried Adwords before, but it never worked. Maybe I should try again.

@Doc: I'm sure that would be nice, but remember, there are plugins for nearly everything you need: ECWID for Ecommerce, Jalbum for Galleries, etc. The only thing you need a basic CMS to do is take care of the sitemap (in different languages). All the rest can be done via custom plugins, via iframe, javascript custom coding.

BTW, I have been playing with http://simplecartjs.com/ and QuickerSite. I created a QS catalog that feeds this script: http://www.quickersite.com/r/thewojogroup-simplecart-js

There are still some visual bugs, but all in all this is not bad for an 11Kb Javascript. It's a true shopping card. It makes use of cookies (set via JavaScript) to store the shopping card. Very impressive. Check their demo shop: http://demo.simplecartjs.com/
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (13/05/2010 09:31:00)
Very nice Pieter,

Are there any plans to "incorporate" simplecartsjs in QS, or we will have to set it up manually? I'm looking forward to playing with it on Sunday. Ecwid by the way, has a basic free version and a $17/month, called the silver plan. The paid version has affiliate codes and discount coupons. Furthermore, you can have up to 20,000 items as oppose to only 200 with the free version. I'm not sure about these numbers, but I think it's something like that.
Pieter says: (13/05/2010 10:30:27)
Since it is under MIT license, I could add it indeed, but there is no need to. It's really easy. I'm sure people like Les can tweak the CSS so that it would look like a 5000$ shopping card system.

The obvious advantage of this shopping card over ECWID, is that you keep everything in QuickerSite. You can reuse the QuickerSite catalog to fill the shop items. I think you easily make categories, and create a custom ASP/VBScript that allows to browse items by category etc. Or you can use multiple catalogues as well.

And since it uses cookies, you can show the shopping card in a banner as well. It does not require any page-reload whatsoever. Very well done.
Voyager says: (13/05/2010 10:49:22)

Pieter,

Nothing is easy. Adsense or Adwords. Both can't be evaluated in a short period of time. Or you need to hire some that already knows.

For me, selling a product like QS would make sense for Adwords. A budget of 100 euros per month is low, and could bring some customers.

But again it is all trial and error.

In any case, don't make a new CMS in asp ....
Pieter says: (13/05/2010 10:55:53)
"In any case, don't make a new CMS in asp ...."

i know! however, that would be by far the easiest thing to do for me, as you know. Develop a CMS like described would only take 2 or 3 days for me in ASP.

However, I wonder how long it would take in PHP. Anyone?
doc says: (13/05/2010 13:35:59)
Simplecartjs are very easy and fast to load. ecwid are too much slower, i don't like it for that.
yes, i agree, there's a lot of external feature we can embed, i do that occasionally. but in certain case i'm not skilled enough to properly set up it.

Jquery bring useful "engine" for some special effects can "make the difference". actually we have the fantastic "Slideshows" in the galleries.
using this solutions bring to our website something of special or professional. simple, easy but fastest effect.
get a look to www.docangelika.com ,there is a post about fantastic way to "show" something, including it in header or somewhere.

can be an idea to have a panel (like for galleries) where set-up jquery script and use it via [variable]

BUT in general i agree with you about something really easy for end user, for that i suggest an easy "news manager"

doc
doc says: (13/05/2010 13:39:39)
In any case, wherever you go, I'll follow you.
i like your ideas, your "views"
doc

p.s.- i'm not falled in love for Pieter!
doc says: (13/05/2010 13:44:06)
another add-on to the list:

- multifile upload
- resize automatically jpeg (as seen before in video)
- when a set of languages are ready, have the opportunity to copy the structure to the new language
...
GazOfOz says: (13/05/2010 14:11:06)
I do not think you need a "New CMS"

You do not need to make a simple and easy CMS you just need to make it simple and easy to use QS by building a comprehensive Manual. Lots of How to's and sample scripts and code.

Just my opinion.

Gary
Voyager says: (13/05/2010 17:01:05)

Speaking of Jquery, Please Pieter make that to load from Google and not locally. It makes a difference.
r0b0-tr0n says: (13/05/2010 23:39:57)
Pieter, in my opinion, QS is perfectly positioned in a great niche. For someone with a Windows Server that doesn't want to deal with ASP.NET, what else is there?

Classic ASP is not dead. Look at these segments where it's particularly strong (stats courtesy of Google).

.MIL (US Military)
asp 1,650,000
aspx 229,000
php 49,300

.GOV (US Government)
php 25,000,000
asp 19,000,000
aspx 9,710,000

.ED.GOV (US Department of Education)
asp 41,400
aspx 2,940
php 369

.CN (China)
asp 67,300,000
php 51,600,000
aspx 38,400,000

And you can find others. (Can you find another segment where aspx > php? I've found two. Hint, they're both Nordic countries.)

Now, maybe I'm taking this too far, but think about what these groups might have in common. Decent technology but not necessarily state-of-the-art. Desire to work quickly and efficiently, no need wasting time or resources on complexities they don't need. Etc. These types of people ARE out there, in all segments, sitting there with their (often dusty) Windows Servers.

Extended support for Windows Server 2008 ends July 10, 2018. I just don't think it's time to declare QS finished quite yet, and I wouldn't let go of this niche. I'd focus on advertising, better marketing, and more improvements to QS.

Oh well, just my thoughts. You've got to do what you think is right, and what you will enjoy as a developer!
r0b0-tr0n says: (14/05/2010 07:48:48)
Although, I have been playing around with ASP.NET MVC 2...
doc says: (15/05/2010 23:27:45)
@ Gaz - sometimes i think too we need a manual, but i'm sure 80% of us don't read it.
people (read customer) doesn't have time to read manual, i think we need good videos like pieter prepare sometimes.
i think quickersite are a true swiss knife, it can easily configured to being much more complex and powerful (for us) and in same time be much simplest and esier (for end user)

@ Robo - i'm not interested if quickersite are written with that language or another. i'm interested only in an easy way "TO DO" smarter way to do things, to create. i don't care about asp or php... are important what you do with this tools, yes website, but not only that...

doc
Karl says: (21/05/2010 22:23:35)
Pieter,

You already have that simple CMS. All you have to do is set up sites using the second admin. Set up 5 blank pages. Let the people rename them and update them. TURN OFF THE ADD PAGES FUNCTION. Turn off virtually all the other functions (forms, galleries etc.)

Personally I really like QS. But there is more than one target market for QS. There are developers (that's where you use terminology like CMS). Then there are users such as clubs, organizations and maybe some small businesses, who have some computer savvy and might like to try a "website builder".) Then there are others who have no clue and depend on web developers.

For QuickerServer, there are several markets. Clubs/Organizations with multiple chapters (I'm talking to a Rotary district now), businesses with multiple departments (I'm talking to a retirement home with multiple locations), schools with athletics or divisions such as elementary, middle and high school, companies with multiple locations.QSRv is a different animal that I think will really catch on.

Karl

Crazy?

A UK customer who is on QuickerServer for a while now, has created 1000+ QuickerSites in only 5 months time. This works fine, except that it now takes at around 3 minutes to setup a new QS in IIS. And IIS is getting unstable. Sometimes the (new) sites are not available until you reset IIS. Very annoying.

Therefore I am looking into another possible breakthrough for QuickerServer.

Instead of creating individual websites in IIS, I am looking into the possibility to stick to one site in IIS, but have 1000's of different host headers (bindings in IIS7). That basically means that all websites for that QuickerServer are active under 1 site in IIS, and QuickerServer decides on which ID and Userfiles-folder needs to be used based on the "host header" (request.servervariables("http_host")). I managed to run an instance of QuickerServer this way. It works quite well. I tested it for 4000 different host headers.

This would mean a major step forward in case you want to go host 1000's of QuickerSites. Actually, you can easily enable 50 instances of QuickerServer in IIS, each of them binding to 1000's of different urls. Go figure.

There is another advantage in this setup. Until now, we needed to link the virtual directory ("/r" in case of this instance) to the main QuickerServer codebase. Even though urls like www.quickersite.com/signup work fine, they are still redirected to www.quickersite.com/r/signup. This can badly affect SEO. It sure does actually.

Another advantage could be the use of memory. 1000 different QuickerSites (even if they share the same application pool - which is the case for QuickerServer) are likely to eat much more RAM than a single IIS site would. IIS would probably only use at around 200MB of RAM in this new setup, unless you have 200 users simultaneously uploading 5 MB files. That will never be the case, for sure.

I'm sorry for this technical posting. Back to reality Pieter I hear you think :)

10/05/2010 13:55:18 | Pieter | Login | Replies (11)

nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (11/05/2010 06:31:37)
Does any one know what will happen if someone completes the form, then pushes the create button, and shuts down the browser before the QuickerServer posts the confirmation message on the screen that the site is created? Does the site get created anyway, or what happens? I don't want to experiment with this one, since I'm not sure if this can somehow "damage" the database or not.

My guess would be that the server would go ahead and complete the installation, and send out the email, but you can never be sure with these things.

A little off topic here, but still related somehow...
GazOfOz says: (11/05/2010 06:53:30)
Hi Nick
I think closing the page should not cause a problem.

I would think that the submit would then start the required actions on the server and no further interaction occurs (assuming all the fields had valid entries) with the initial page so closing it should not matter.

Gary
Pieter says: (11/05/2010 08:19:30)
Gary is right Nick. You can test that on www.quickerserver.com.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (11/05/2010 09:13:40)
Thanks Guys, that helps a lot.
Bob says: (11/05/2010 13:41:25)
I have to admit I needed to go and look up some of this stuff because it was a bit technical for me.

I think there are some major considerations for you. Firstly, you have to consider stability and reliability. You may end up with lots of customers with 1000+ sites (I hope so) and this will be a good thing - provided you have reliability and stability.

How simple is it (for an idiot) to change a site from mysite.quickersite.com to mysite.co.uk?

Getting rid of the /r/ would be a good thing. For SEO and for end-user confusion.

How will it look with reverse DNS lookup? I think it is a selling point to limit the number of sites on a server. I saw a site recently on a server with 3000 other sites and the customer was horrified.

All in all I think it is a positive move, if it's reliable and stable, but it will only benefit a small number of your customers currently. It might attract some more customers in the same business - if they understand the technical advantages.

On balance - all good

Bob
r0b0-tr0n says: (11/05/2010 17:03:13)
Hi Pieter, I think it would be a great option but I wouldn't make it the default. Or provide a choice between the 2 methods when you setup QuickerServer.

Some drawbacks to me - shared app mem, shared mappings (multiple possible URLs to reach the same resource), you'd lose custom iis settings (capping bandwidth of a specific site for example), log files would be merged together, one script gone awry could lock up the whole deal...

Now the UK customer probably wouldn't care about these issues, but they'd be kind of important to me.

I'm using the solution I posted earlier to keep my sites separate, and still get rid of the virtual dir, and it's working great. So I'd like to see that feature get included either way.
Pieter says: (11/05/2010 17:58:53)
Thx for the feedback.

Actually, this IS a crazy idea. In this scenario the userfiles and/or custom directories would all be shared by all sites.

Imagine www.site.com/userfiles1 and www.site.com/userfiles2. Even though the webmaster of site1 cannot upload/read files from site2, all userfiles from site2 would be available through www.site1.com/userfiles2. That is - from privacy/security pov not done really.

Case closed I guess...
Voyager says: (11/05/2010 22:28:47)

Just a note from my experience. Using Windows 2008 server R2, it is becoming unstable after 300-400 real websites. That is dynamic ones.

You could use special app pools, but them memory becomes a problem and you should switch to 64 bit.
Pieter says: (11/05/2010 22:51:49)
I agree that IIS7 is less stable than IIS6, and IIS6 was less stable than IIS5 (I only use classic ASP, I can't speak for other technologies). At least ... the way memory is allocated has changed over the years. If you leave the default recycling settings in IIS7, every single QuickerSite page causes the application to recycle in IIS7.

That is why I stick to my good old Windows 2000 Advanced Server. It never let me down. And it looks like it never will as long as the hardware is ok...
Karl says: (21/05/2010 19:42:33)
Bob, "How simple is it (for an idiot) to change a site from mysite.quickersite.com to mysite.co.uk?"

Here's a note that I sent to Pieter."Ok Pieter I've done that. (I found some good instructions at http://www.visualwin.com/host-header/.). The instructions indicate that I also need to make a change at godaddy to add "A" Host record to zone records. At godaddy I pointed the "@" host record of "mynssite.com" to the IP address of the kickassvps server?"
My QS website is www.nssites.com. I had created a site www.my.nssites.com. I have a domain called mynssite.com. The above changes allowed my nssite.com to act as an alias for my.nssites.com.

Karl
Karl says: (21/05/2010 20:02:22)
Hate to bring this up, but what about backup and restore with QuickerServer? Suppose one (or multiple) of the 100 sites in the server had to be restored from a back up.

Right now the only recourse I see is to have a second QSrver site that you can restore to, then copy data, and images using ftp (or remote desktop) from the restored backup to the "live" site. If Access is on the server, you might be able to copy data from backup access db to the live one, but you would have to ake down all sites to do that.

Now if we had a stand-alone utility script we could copy rows from the backup db to the live db without taking all the sites down. (It might slow them down.)

The script might have input fields for customer id, source db name, destination db name. The script could then go through each source table and check for the customer id. When found, copy the data from each row and insert it in the respective destination table (overlaying -updating -existing rows, if any).

That's a lot of work because each table has to have a separate routine. However, if Pieter put a skeleton script together with a couple of tables coded, some of us could create functions for other tables by copying what Pieter has started for the tables and customizing for the tables assigned to us. Then we give the code to Pieter and he incorporates it into the restore program.

Karl

QuickerServer

It took some months before I made up my mind about the name and branding of AutoQS (the automated QuickerSite setup system). We can now forget about AutoQS, let's just call it QuickerServer from now on.

Maarten Blokdijk suggested that name, and I thank him for that suggestion. The website www.quickerserver.com is available for some days now.

What is QuickerServer and how does it relate to QuickerSite?

QuickerServer is actually a plugin for QuickerSite. It's a set of custom asp-files that run within a normal QuickerSite web page.
QuickerServer automates the creation (and setup in IIS) of QuickerSites. When a user signs up for a site, everything is automated. No need for you to go activate something, or logon to the server to enable or to configure things.
You can setup multiple QuickerServers in a single QuickerSite. You can setup various "plans" to start from. In most cases you then have various sample sites that are copied to new QuickerSites. That's very useful for hosting companies who 'd like to differentiate between their packages.
QuickerSites via QuickerServer use the so called 2nd admin feature. That is how you can limit the functionalities of these QuickerSites. Sites via www.iseral.be are very basic QuickerSites, just the basic sitemap and page-editing features - no modules. I'm sure that's why it is a (small) hit, especially amongst younger people, kids basically. I see 2-3 new sites every day via www.iseral.be. Most of them by 10-14 year old children.

I host www.quickerserver.com on a Windows 2008 VPS. It's working very well. I created 1000 QuickerSites for testing purposes (using an evil script). And I removed them afterwards (using an even more evil script). I didn't face real issues, except that it started to take quite some time to create a new QuickerSite as soon as I had 400-500 already. Therefore I consider that to be some kind of limit. You can sure host many more QuickerSite on a single VPS (or dedicated server), but you will face delays when setting them up (>1 minute).

I also noticed that the site-creation script requires IIS 6.0 to be installed on Windows 2008 (along with IIS7). Without it, QuickerServer does not work (at all). Good to know.

From business pov, it looks like QuickerServer is starting to give more visibility to QuickerSite. That's what I had in mind when developing it in the first place. Now I will have to think about how to make some money with it. That is gonna be the hard part I guess ;)

10/05/2010 00:08:17 | Pieter | Login | Replies (2)

My laptop crashed!

So my laptop crashed yesterday evening. Processes going wild. A virus maybe. I was able to backup my 6 GIG mailbox. And some code. Not much. Most of my stuff is available on various servers anyway.

The last 12 hours were a terrible waste of time. I had to reinstall Windows and service packs. The weird thing about it was that installing Windows XP took 30 minutes, whileas installing Service Pack 3 took 2 hours... Go figure.

The good thing about it, is that my laptop is now ... cleaned up :) Very fast even. I had to make a list of software I need to do my job. Here is what I use in my daily business:

NotePad++ for my coding stuff. Very nice editor!
Artisteer for designing. No further comment!
Paint.net for image-handling. Truly the best free imaging software!
Opera and Chrome browser. Man I like Opera.
Adobe PDF reader and Flash
MS Office
an FTP client
a PDF creator

That's it.

And of course, I installed QuickerSite in IIS. I was curious about that. Would I be able to get QS up and running on a brand new XP installation? To be honest, I had to go through a couple of 500 error messages. All related to permissions. It's pretty hard to install a web application, if you don't have a clue about permissions in Windows. What I usually do on my localhost: I add IUSR to the Administrators. Pretty stupid on a live website, but very efficient on a local computer. But still, I realize how difficult it must be for non-technical users to get something like QS up and running.

I'm off now, dreaming about next-butons, "I agree" checkboxes and "your system needs to restart" alerts. Cheers!

03/06/2010 12:27:00 | Pieter | Login | Replies (11)

nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (30/04/2010 00:34:30)
All you need now is Acronis Trueimagestation 2010($50), and an external HD. Few button clicks, and you backup the image of your entire pc, if and later on, few clicks and 30 minutes later, everything is restored.
Karl says: (30/04/2010 13:18:21)
Had Malware attack 3 days before taxes were due. AVG caught it, but it still screwed up my registry a bit. I run NovaBackup and I get regular emails saying it was done.. but apparently it was not backing up properly. I'm pissed at Nova. Norton Ghost was extremely slow, but it worked. System runs but for some programs I have to start it directly from the program executable.

Don't want to put to much time or money into this 5+ year old computer. With my wife out of work, don't want to spend money on a new PC.

Nick,

I might just try the trueimagestation software.
Bob says: (30/04/2010 17:21:52)
Karl, I know there are lots of registry cleaners around. I use this: http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Although I've got the Pro version (paid version) I've often installed the free version for people. I think it's a pretty good tool.

Bob
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (30/04/2010 18:50:52)
Bob, the registry cleaners all they do is clean redundant data. I have a feeling after a virus, these tools are not going to work. A good working backup system is the only way to go.

I could be wrong though (although I was right about the vertical menus)!
Voyager says: (01/05/2010 17:39:45)

Pieter,

Nick offered the BEST suggestion ever ! Trust me !

I'm using Acronis True Image for the last 5 years and it has saved my life 3 times.

I'm doing a scheduled IMAGE backup every night, and i keep a history of seven days. So i can go back 7 days if needed.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (01/05/2010 20:48:41)
Thanks Voyager for the strong validation, I owe you one...

I make manual backups once a month or so, instead of every night (if you are into online poker, warez, or porn, backup automatically every night) yes, these 3 things were never mentioned before, and now they will help the Google rankings.

Don't forget to make the boot CD from within Acronis, so when disaster srtikes, you can boot the pc with it, and then run the backup in 1 minute. Otherwise, you will have to reformat, install Windows, install Acronis TrueImage and then restore from your backup.

This is the best backup software that I've seen.
Pieter says: (01/05/2010 21:42:21)
Thx for the comments and advice. I take a backup every now and then. But now I realize I need something like Acronis Trueimagestation. Could have saved a day. Anyway, I'm fully recovered meantime.
Voyager says: (02/05/2010 12:26:20)

Not sure if the Workstation version is needed, i use the Home.

Also True Image has an other option also, i have never used it, but it seems that you can also RESTORE your Image to a totally different computer.

I mean with different chipset, in case your motherboard is damaged for some reason.
Rajan says: (03/05/2010 10:55:42)
Acronis Trueimage is best choice, saved my digital life several times both at work and home.....
soykan@soykansoft.com says: (07/05/2010 00:37:48)
Acronis True Image is the best for this goal ! approx 50 pcs Program Installed on My PC

SQL Server
Expression Blend
Visual FoxPro
Visual Studio Express
Foxite Tools (Reader+Creator)
Notepad++
Revo Uninstaller
Virtual Box (WmWare Equalent)
....

And i can Trus my Image Backup else it cost me One Day ! :(
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (07/05/2010 00:58:34)
Wow, I thought I was the only one using Acronis, all the people I encounter use Norton Ghost... There is something about the Norton products that I don't like. They are all bulky, and very heavy on the pc.

QuickerSite v27 Preview

Watch the video (don't click that link, since that eats my server's bandwidth... duhhh)

08/04/2010 16:00:22 | Pieter | Login | Replies (8)

Voyager says: (08/04/2010 17:27:53)

Does this update require DB changes ?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (08/04/2010 17:35:41)
Love it !

However, I have a question.

How is the resizing handled? For example, can we control how the images are resized (by width, by %, etc...). Are all images resized, or there is a threshold, and once you cross that threshold, then the resizing function kicks in?

This is going to be one of those s l o w 24 hours, while checking the email box every 10 minutes for V27...
Bob says: (08/04/2010 17:37:32)
Hey, how cool is that? The template you chose features the view from my window!!

Really looking forward to this - especially the upload thing.

Bob
Bob says: (08/04/2010 17:39:04)
Just following on from Nick... is it possible to over-rule the system and allow bigger files?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (08/04/2010 17:53:38)
And I'm just following Bob:

If I'm interpreting this correctly, and if now QS will function the way AutoQSite functions in terms of the template installations, the zip upload for the templates will not be necessary any more. So we can just ftp our templates to the correct folder on the server, and from the templates screen, install it (convert it to a QS template). So for those web sites that use shared hosting (most), we don't have to find an AutoQsite etc... for the conversion.

We can also advertise that QS comes with 100s of templates. This is one more reason to have a big collection of quality templates. I urge all who are Artisteer users, and create templates, send them to Pieter.
Pieter says: (08/04/2010 20:43:44)
@Voyager: yes indeed, some minor changes

@Nick & Bob: the current treshold is 400KB. In other words, if a picture is bigger than 400KB, it will be resized to 1024px max by the resizer (which is a variant of the resizer we are using for ages already). But I will make sure you can decide on both numbers yourselves. Personally, I would rather limit it to 200KB and resize to 800px.
doc says: (08/04/2010 21:56:25)
Pieter, that's great! you're a Vulcan! (as we say in Italy! and mean a mind with a lot idea!

- Upload resizer it's great... i agree for 200kb and 800px it's enough

- intranet and newletter, finally we have html editor for message. some improvement can be:
split mass mailing in step, i mean every minutes send 20 messages. next step, the opportunity to set-up, for every website, a dedicated smtp parameter with login e password.
this can be really useful to don't appear as a spammer.

that's all, thank Pieter for another interisting feature

Doc
Voyager says: (09/04/2010 15:03:33)

While every update is good, i would much prefer some fixes for existing functions, like proper paging for List pages and Catalogs.

New AutoQS customer!

A logical next step?

For some months we have been very excited about AutoQS, the one-click QuickerSite installation robot. We have successfully launched www.iseral.be and www.freehostedcms.com, along with various other engines for various customers. Only this year (2010) we saw over 1000 new implementations, most of them via the various AutoQS installations.

So what's next?

The obvious next move is to automate the setup of AutoQS, pretty much like AutoQS automates the setup of QuickerSites. How about unversities offering problem-free, easy-to-manage, secure and good-looking websites to its Faculties? What if a city can offer such websites to all its departments? Or a national organization that likes to offer a standard website to its local initiatives? Or a Church, offering websites to local Churches? All this on a single codebase, a single database, and a single 1000 $ server? Unbelievable, but it's true!

There are many possible uses for this. And as far as I know, such solutions do not even exist. Wordpress is working on something similar. But we have a good working solution for some months now. And it has proven to be stable and very reliable, on both Windows 2000, 2003 and 2008 servers. Amazing, isn't it?

So you now know my schedule for the next few days, because that's what it will take to finalize AutoQS this way.

Not everybody likes this new development. It's true that QuickerSite is slowly moving away from "a single website solution" to a fully automated website creation and hosting platform. Especially web designers are slowly looking the other way. The main reason for this is Artisteer. Artisteer basically replaces the web designer. Setting up good-looking QuickerSite templates no longer requires any knowledge of CSS or even HTML. At least, some minor or basic knowledge now does the trick.

AutoQS in its turn will no longer require any knowledge of IIS, ASP or Windows Servers. It will be a very easy control panel that can be used by anyone who just likes to offer website to customers, pretty much what we all liked to do at some point. Just the pure fun of setting up wonderful websites. That is what this is all about.

Cheers,
Pieter

30/03/2010 00:27:44 | Pieter | Login | Replies (21)

nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (30/03/2010 00:15:38)
As an AutoQsite owner, let me say that as a web designer standpoint, AutoQsite is a must tool to have to quickly deploy templates, and let potential clients test drive QS. Right now, AutoQsite is my best tool to help me sell QS licenses, but with time, it will generate some hosted web site income too. Many hosting companies have their own site builders, but they are all very limited in functionality, and all are proprietary, not for resale. AutoQsite is the only such software that I can buy (that I know of), and have my own site builder, and with MY OWN BRANDING ! It is even putting QuickerTemplates.com out of "business", since showcasing my templates became much easier now.

Those who are concerned about the learning curve, let me say that it is much easier than a single QS, so if you know QS, you will adapt to AutoQsite within minutes, yes, minutes.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 11:55:06)
Thanks Nick. You are part of this.... oeps, we have to be careful... people may start to think we're one and the same person. Actually, we never met, and we probably never will, since we live 20.000 km away from eachother. Anyway, thanks again for everything.
Les says: (31/03/2010 12:08:17)
That will be the day... when Artisteer replaces a (good) webdesigner

Seriously, though... the reason I haven't switched to AutoQS is simply that I don't have a need for it yet... most of my customers want individual websites based on their house style, with feature-requests that can't be done with Artisteer.

That's not to say that one day I won't have a project where AutoQS will be usefull.

So please keep supporting us poor webdesigners with the individual licenses
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 12:19:26)
Les, AutoQS is not married with Artisteer. You can use your own templates to start from as well.

As a PRO, you don't need Artisteer for sure. But QuickerSite is no longer only for the PRO's. AutoQS enables real CSS-dummies (like me) to create and offer 100's of templates to customers. And that is what this is all about.

Of course I will keep the individual licenses one way or the other. But I've had no or very few sales over the last months, so I have to focuss on new things.
Voyager says: (31/03/2010 12:29:05)

While Artisteer is GREAT, it is not replacing Web Designer gurus for sure.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 13:04:53)
Les will you for that I'm sure.
I agree, but on the other hand, tools like Artisteer put the bad or lousy web designer out of business. These web designers will have to focus on other things like internet marketing campaigns. There is high demand for internet marketing professionals. In other words: how can I turn my website into a business? There is a lot to do in this area.
Les says: (31/03/2010 14:44:13)
No, no, no .. lousy webdesigners make lousy internet marketeers!!

These days you need to have good knowledge about SEO & Internet Marketing if you're a professional webdesigner, and vice versa. Me, I am already Google Analytics Individual Qualified & Google Adwords Professional so I can provide my customers the full package.

Let them get another hobby
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 14:52:12)
Les, I don't agree. Web designers are artists. You cannot expect from the artist that he is dealing with things like adwords, affiliation programs, SEO, e-commerce integrations, marketing, newsletters, etc... These are all grow-markets, that a designer can, but should not always focus on. Pretty much like you cannot expect a coder to take care of all that. A typical Internet Marketing company has 3 departments: Account Managers (for sales and marketing), Web designers and Web developers. What I was saying: lousy web designers should try to become developers, or account managers. I did the first
Bob says: (31/03/2010 15:37:02)
To me, they are different products, with different aims and goals. I love AutoQS (partly because I'm one of those lousy webdesigners!) and I think it's a real opportunity to build web-communities or vertical market services (like plumber.com or whatever)

You can't replace a good designer though and if I wanted a really cool site with some great effects I definitely wouldn't start with Artisteer.

I think that AutoQS will create opportunities to convert to single sites (to add functionality) but the only way it will take over is by sheer numbers.

The one thing I like to see improve in AutoQS is an automated payment system (ie. you can't create a site till you've paid via Paypal or whoever). I'd also like to see a "check" function so I can fill in "mysite".autoQS.com but check to see if it's available before I fill in anything else (or possibly before I pay). From a backsite POV I'd like to reserve certain sub-domains for premium customers. Sorry, turned this into a wishlist.

QS and AutoQS are similar but not the same. It's apples and pears not apples and apples.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 16:53:08)
Bob, QuickerSite and AutoQS are basically 1 product. AutoQS is "just" a custom module for QuickerSite.

The main difference between both is their users. AutoQS customers think "bigger", since they want to be able to create multiple QuickerSites in an easy way. And they understand this requires a bigger budget too (already by the fact they need their own VPS or dedicated server).
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (31/03/2010 18:00:45)
Bob, what you are asking for is very easy. Create a payment or subscription button within paypal, configure it so after a successful payment they would take him to the page where they can sign up and create their web site, if the payment was unsuccessful, then have paypal redirect them to another page.
Bob says: (31/03/2010 18:21:30)

Yep, I did that, and I've got the signup page as a free page so it's not on the menu (instead I've got a modified Browse page)

The problem is you can easily find the page (search on sign up for example)and it's just a pain to delete stuff if they havn't paid.

Bob
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (31/03/2010 18:45:18)
Do you really need a search box in your template in this case?

Deleting a web site takes less than 2 minutes. Go to the admin section, and delete the web site from the database there, and then through Remote Desktop Connection, go to into the server and delete it's Userfiles folder.
Les says: (31/03/2010 19:11:53)
@Pieter: it's not that we don't think big... it's that
1) Not one of my customers would agree that their website will be on a subdomain like mycustomer.iseral.be or so.
2) We still need a full license if the website will be on its own domain (please correct me if I'm wrong).
3) I'd hate to think what would happen if the customers decides after a few years to host his website, which he paid and owns, somewhere else if you work with one codebase.

Like Bob says, AutoQS would be an awesome tool for verticals and so - and I really hope to start something like that one day (and you can bet I'll be using AutoQS for that )... but for individual projects I rather keep a single license, single codebase, and single database.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 20:04:19)
"1) Not one of my customers would agree that their website will be on a subdomain like mycustomer.iseral.be or so."

Les, sure they wouldn't. But this is an easy (and cheap!) way to launch a site under a decent url. Migrating to a proper domain would then be a paid extra. I have welcomed 3-4 hosted customers this way via www.iseral.be.

"2) We still need a full license if the website will be on its own domain (please correct me if I'm wrong)."

Yes you do.

"3) I'd hate to think what would happen if the customers decides after a few years to host his website, which he paid and owns, somewhere else if you work with one codebase."

Well, that is basically HIS problem. He can easily copy his website manually, or use something like http://www.httrack.com. It will export a bunch of html files for him to upload or copy to a different CMS.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (31/03/2010 20:11:25)
@ Les:

1. I agree with you, that's why AutoQsite is primarily used by me as a selling tool for a QS license. Furthermore, I'm hoping to use it as a training tool for web designers to convert to QS from Wordpress, Joomla, etc... Let them test drive QS automatically. Furthermore, AutoQsite is not just for web designers. It can also be used for large corporations, government, universities, etc... where each department can have their own web sites, and linked together in their main site forming one gigantic site, with multi-editors, multi-menu structures, and multi-Intranets, etc..., so now we can compete for very large contracts, but I'm afraid we are many years behind, as ALL big corporations, universities etc..., have their extremely expensive web sites all set up.
2. How can we stop anyone when they use a URL forward to point to a certain domain to the hosted site? Godaddy, offers free domain forwards, straight up, or masked. With a straight up domain forward your server's url is going to show up, which will make your customers not happy, opting them to buy a QS license, and with a masked forward, in IE the password protected pages and Intranet do not work, they do work in google and firefox however. An example of a masked url is thevalleytech.com, where you will never see the servers URL (soldierside.com), and an example of a straight up forward would be quickertemplates.com, where you would see the servers URL.
3. I agree with you here, but looking around at most QS web sites, it would be 2-3 hours of work the most.

I don't know what will happen in the future, but right now, AutoQsite is the best tool to sell individual QS licenses with their own shared hosting account. Don't forget what they get with this:

1. Custom ASP scripting capabilities.
2. FTP access (hopefully configured to the Userfiles folder only).
3. More Disk space.
4. Email accounts, and email forwards.
5. Own Domain of course, supplied by you, and tied to the server.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 20:35:49)
Thinking a bit further about your 3rd point Les: it only takes a couple of SQL statements to remove all content related to all other sites. You then only keep the content of the site you need to migrate. Really simple...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (31/03/2010 21:01:21)
Good point Pieter, assuming the new site also uses SQL, unless there is a tool to downsize to Access. I agree with your initial reaction. As long as you are clear with them from the beginning the advantages of having their own server vs hosted solution, it should be THEIR problem. They can always hire us for the transfer, if they don't want to do it themselves.
Pieter says: (31/03/2010 21:58:21)
Nick, good idea about the masked domain. However a .be domain (and some extra services) costs at around 30 € in Belgium, so most customers do not bother to pay something more to have a decent hosting as well. But in theory, you can use that trick. But again, in general people are prepared to pay for a good solution.

It's pretty much like some families going to IKEA. I know some people who go to IKEA, not because they want to buy something, but only because they enjoy walking through these megastores (and the kids like to play around). Just for fun. But in the end, they OFTEN buy some gadgets they did not really need, but they just LIKED to have. You can look at AutoQS this way. Visitors create a website, just for the fun of it, they even might create 5 or 6. And in the end, they contact you and ask what it takes to have a proper domain, more feature, more disk space and so on. And before you know, you welcome a new hosted customer.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (31/03/2010 22:28:44)
Actually, it is a horrible idea for me, and even more horrible for you, financially-speaking. I would never use it myself unless I pay for the license, or tell a customer about it, to put ideas in his head. I would push for the license - period. But, how can we stop them from this practice, when anyone can get a domain for $10 at godaddy, which comes with a free Domain Forwarding service? The only reason I used it for Quickertemplates.com, was so I would not have to get another server for it.

Nevertheless, it is not the most professional solution, and we want to brand ourselves as the best professional solution providers. In the end, branding is very important in the long run, as well as always delivering professional products and services, without any hidden fees, or other nasty surprises to our customers. In any case, they have to understand the choices they have to make from the beginning. If they want a so-so solution, there are many free CMS out there.
Voyager says: (01/04/2010 19:04:53)

IMHO choosing a subdomain for your business is a very poor decision.

It is the same as having a gmail account for business. You are filtered out ...

Showing off the vertical menus by Artisteer

Just for the fun of it, and also to make sure we can test them in QS, I have enabled a template made with Artisteer v24 Beta 2, using both the vertical and the top menu. Both menus are the same for now. That does not make sense, but again, it's just for testing purposes.

There are a couple of issues with the vertical menus in Artisteer v24.

Underlying submenu-items are not visible until you have clicked the top level-item. That is annoying. This issue does not show in the top-menu. When you hover "Features" in the top menu, you see that there is an underlying item "Screenshots". You don't have that option in the vertical menus, unless you reload the page Features.
Here you see that vertical menu really goes crazy. The long text from the menu item floats right into the main article. Very ugly :)
Even though the menus are identical in both cases, the "active-link" feature in the vertical menus only shows when you use this link (home), and it is not visible when you use this link (ALSO the homepage, but under a different url!). That is because there is an ugly JS hack to force class-active behaviour in the Artisteer vmenu.

All in all, I think the vertical menus are nice, but there are some annoying issues with it. I hope Artisteer will come up with solutions any time soon.

Looking forward to any comment.

27/02/2010 12:02:27 | Pieter | Login | Replies (4)

nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (25/02/2010 11:27:15)
If or hopefully when all is fixed with the vertical menus, our web sites will look and function more professional. Any thoughts how QS is going to eventually implement the vertical menus?

For the record, and I don't know about Joomla or Drupal, but in Wordpress you can't separate the pages to both menus at the same time. All pages can belong to either the top menu or vertical. The same goes with their blog. So for example, all the pages can be on the top menu, and the Blog's categories on the vertical menu,or vice versa.

We can gain another advantage over them if we would have the ability to decide which menu to use on the page level. So, some of our pages would belong to the top menu, and some to the vertical.
Pieter says: (27/02/2010 12:06:47)
Nick, i like the idea to have the option for a page to belong to either the vmenu, either the hmenu, or BOTH! By default they could be set to both.

It's just that this would require QS to run in some kind of "artisteer mode". I have no plans to enable 2 menus for the built-in QS template, nor the usual template-driven sites. By the way, the pro users creating their own templates already, never needed this. They were able to create menus their way, from day 1.

Adding the menu-selector to a page (root-level only) sounds like a minor coding effort.
Bob says: (27/02/2010 14:17:55)
Maybe it's just me but I don't see the point of having both menus if it's a repeat. The idea of the menus showing different pages would be pretty cool.

At the moment I'd never use the vertical menu because I think it is too ugly and too clunky. There are some great fly-out menu around, all CSS, and I think Artisteer should look at the whole process again.

I think Artisteer has stumbled and, after we've all come to expect perfection, this is a real surprise. Maybe they'll shock us yet - after all, it's a great idea.

Bob

Bob
Tep says: (03/03/2010 11:18:49)
Is it possible to download the Artisteer beta and are the images protected in the beta or must it be purchased?
Thanks

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