Re: [PLUG] How to Design a Great Web Site

Another vote for WordPress, if you want something quick and dirty. A lot of people say it's insecure, but I tend to disagree: it is a big target, but their security team is large and responsive, and they get patches out quickly, with an auto-update feature for security patches. If you wanted something more complex, I'd recommend something like Django or Rails, but for simple sites, my choice is still WordPress.

All of that said, be aware of one thing: WordPress sites, as they get more complex, tend to "lock you in" to WordPress. It becomes increasingly difficult to move your content to another platform in the future. Only add plugins and themes as a last resort, and do you homework on plugins and themes you do add: these are often the biggest security hole there is. For example, do a simple recursive grep on any themes you get; if you see anything mentioning "timthumb", run the other way! (reference: https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/06/timthumb-webshot-code-execution-exploit-0-day.html) The reason I mention TimThumb is from experience. We run a WordPress multisite install at work, hosted with WPEngine. We allow our users to pick their own themes. WPEngine security regularly reports our users trying to install themes with the TimThumb security hole, so it is definitely spread far and wide in the theme community. Google is your friend for finding any security concerns with plugins / themes you're considering installing. If you need recommendations for typical things people like to add, feel free to hit me up off-list.

Regards,

-Tim

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Doug Stewart <zamoose@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey all,
If you're interested in WordPress, the Philly WordPress Meetup meets the third Thirsday of every month at City Coho (24th and Walnut) starting at 6:30. We're always looking for fresh faces at the meetup and we generally field a decent number of questions, so we'd be happy to help however we can.

Also, we have the first(!) WordCamp U.S. (national WordPress conference) coming up December 4-6 of this year at the Convention Center. Two days of speakers and networking opportunities with around 2,000 WordPress community members and professionals. Tickets will go up soon at https://2015.us.wordcamp.org (site is still in progress -- our designers are a bit tardy with the final site design, alas).

--
Doug Stewart

On Aug 28, 2015, at 10:05 PM, Eric Lucas <eric@lucii.org> wrote:

Since you're familiar with html and static pages I'd recommend a theme of some sort to "wrap" your pages in. If you're going to do more than 5 or 10 pages, or if you're going to be changing them frequently, then yes, wordpress. It even updates itself.

I don't know where these themes are but google is your friend (or at least a knowledgeable associate.) About 10 years ago I used the Aura theme from Leorex pty. and was happy with the result. Sadly, those urls are now "not found".

Eric

On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 8:08 PM, Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:
I've been tasked with quickly designing and deploying a web site for my local
political group. I run my own web servers, so I don't have to pay for
anything.

I'm reasonably proficient at creating static web sites, but this one has to
look more elaborate and "modern" than I am able to do without lots of grunting
and cursing (wow! css is confusing and aggravating!).

If I were to buy web hosting services for $50/month, I could simply do a pull-
down design from the hosting company and get something that looked
professional pretty fast. However, I am too stubborn and too cheap to use
somebody else's web hosting when I've got all these megacycles sitting idle in
my basement <grin>.

I've played around with a few HTML programs like Kompozer, but they don't seem
very nice. I'd like to use Drupal, but I found it too confusing to master
quickly.

Ideally, I'd like to find an on-line design tool that will generate the html
and css files and let me download them to run on my server.

Anybody got any suggestions? If I can't figure this out by this weekend,
I'll probably go the expensive route.

TIA!
--

Casey Bralla

Chief Nerd in Residence
The NerdWorld Organisation
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Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug