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[Wayne]

Hi guys,

As you know from the recent server swap and my own blog post (what? you all don't worship my blog?! How 1998 of you!), we are now operating under a large reseller account.

As of right now, we have a lot of room to breathe for the future, but the whole experience has made me very curious about the concept of providing Web hosting to the Amiga community.

I know there are a lot of you out there who are interested in running your own site, either for your own blog, or whatever (like Amigawiki.com does).

I have space, you want space. How cool would it be to have an Amiga-oriented web host out there?

All I know is that *if* I do something like that, it would be small, low cost style hosting unless you needed more.

Anyone interested?

Wayne

[Amiduffer]

I've had the idea of having a little space in order to post the odd picture or anim that I put together now and then. It wouldn't hurt to practice web design either.

However, life is a little chaotic at the moment, so anything like that would be for the future.

[buzz]

I'm glad you have new flexibility with your hosting. I did kinda mention that you would get a better deal shopping around. Anyway. good that you did it, and I hope it works out well.

[rednova]

Dear Friend:
I would be very interested in having an amiga-hosted website.Then I can upload amiga stuff plus my new amos games and aladdin 4d stuff.
Thanks !!!

[yogisumo]

More info? Estimate of cost/space, etc?

[Methuselas]

Woo hoo! I broke the tie! =D

[GadgetMaster]

I already have UK based hosting otherwise it is quite an interesting development.

[alx]

This is rather interesting - just came across this thread and it ties in very closely with some ideas I've been having for the AmigaWiki.com domain (which, frankly, isn't doing anything much now).

Problem: There are loads of small Amiga-related sites out there with really cool information - e.g. tutorials on specific hardware upgrades, support sites for old 68k software that's still usable, historical information etc. But over time, a lot of these websites become unmaintained and at risk of being removed by the host; link rot sets in. Also, there are probably loads of members of the community who have knowledge they'd like to share but don't want to bother learning HTML and getting a server.

Potential solution: Rebrand AmigaWiki.com (or set up a new site entirely like amigasites.com) that lets any Amigan create their own microsite. It'll include some sort of basic CMS (or wiki-style markup) so there's no technical knowledge required, and users can customise the look of their site using CSS etc. Sites will all have simple domains of the form [amigawikiorwhatever.com]/[sitename] which we guarantee will stay static. It would be made clear that, in the event of the site closing down, a full backup would be made available to anyone else interested in running the service. We'd be able to offer services particularly relevant for Amigans, such as the ability to automatically download the contents of the microsite as an AmigaGuide file (this is really easy to do providing we limit sites to wiki-style markup). The main page of the site would also act as a directory for all the microsites, which otherwise might just get lost on the web. It'd also be possible for microsite owners to open up any pages as a wiki for anyone to edit.

Interestingly enough, the more active pages on the existing Amiga Wiki tend not to be the encyclopaedic articles (which are obsoleted by Wikipedia these days) but pages that would work well on the site I've described - for example:

OS4 68k compatibility list - back in the very early days of OS4, and before anyone had created a dedicated compatibility list, this was an easy way for people to see and update the list of working applications without going through thousands of forum posts
The Amiganisation of FOSS - original article by someone on ways in which AmigaOS-type features could be carried over to Linux and friends
SpamFryer - the author of this package updates this page with new rules between releases

I'd guess that some people would want greater freedom than a basic CMS can provide. So they'd be able to get a standard account like Wayne mentioned, along with a subset of the features provided to CMS users - e.g. the guaranteed persistent domain and promotion on the front page of the site.

Any thoughts?

[skilgannon]

Slightly off topic, but how about sticking a twitter feed on to the site for the Amiga.org followers? Is that even possible? Would be good to have little conversations going in almost real time?

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by skilgannon

Slightly off topic, but how about sticking a twitter feed on to the site for the Amiga.org followers? Is that even possible? Would be good to have little conversations going in almost real time?

A twitter feed of what? Amiga.org's already on twitter at twitter.com/amiganews

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by alx

Potential solution: Rebrand AmigaWiki.com (or set up a new site entirely like amigasites.com) that lets any Amigan create their own microsite. It'll include some sort of basic CMS (or wiki-style markup) so there's no technical knowledge required, and users can customise the look of their site using CSS etc. Sites will all have simple domains of the form [amigawikiorwhatever.com]/[sitename] which we guarantee will stay static.

The problem is, we already offer user blogs which are essentially usable for the exact same thing. Setting up a web-based "site creator engine" wouldn't be a simple task, and I'm not really aware of any currently available OTS software (like vBulletin) that does such a thing.

Besides, people around here seem to be much more about taking than giving anyway, so the idea that they'd actually want to put up a site would be... well let's just say the odds are slim.

Wayne

[Wayne]

To continue, I still have space available, but no one has taken me up on it in all this time, so I'm guessing no one really needs such a service.

It's a good idea in principle though.

Wayne

[persia]

I'm using Webhostgiant and they provide me with more space than I need for a cheap price. I had Godaddy but they were so f****** slow that it was painful for any users I might have.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by persia

I'm using Webhostgiant and they provide me with more space than I need for a cheap price. I had Godaddy but they were so f****** slow that it was painful for any users I might have.

I'm not quite clear as to the point you're trying to make.

Wayne

[alx]

@Wayne

Yeah, if there's no interest then there's clearly no point, although the kind of thing I'm suggesting would definitely have some advantages over a blog system - e.g. easier to create self-contained static pages that look and feel more like a standard website than a blog. I might look at eventually implementing a very simple version as an exercise in php development (the existing open-for-all system at AmigaWiki.com is nothing but a spam magnet at the moment).

BTW if anyone is thinking about taking Wayne up on hosting, I can confirm that the server's been nice and reliable for the last few years