Automate free blog to public, need software

[MBony]

I was thinking about offering a free blog site to the public and was wondering what software I would need to automate this.

I would have a domain (ex. blogdomain.com) and would it be possible for the user have the domain (user.blogdomain.com) as their domain?

Will something like whois.cart be a solution to all of this?

Please let me know if I am not being clear on what I am needing.

Thanks!

 

[AFB]

You could also do this with folders and make it much easier. I bet most of the things that do this are custom done and are not availible.

Anyway, you probably would do it like this.
1)Collect user info like name and theme
2)Make a folder using the user name(http://Domain.com/~bob58/)
3)You can keep the files in a non-web accessable spot and move them now to the new folder
4)Create a new table for them in a DB
5)You should have a script or function that rewrites the config files with the correct DB options do the other stuff
6)You can redirect the user to the new folder now that it is installed

Its not that hard to do it if you have one type of blog(ie MT or WordPress), but it would take longer if you gave them a choice. Hey, isn't there install scripts for these ? You maybe be able to use those.

 

[MBony]

Bump

amdfanboy, thanks for the reply. But I am wanting all of this automated. I'm not wanting to even have to come in contact with the user(s). I'm wanting to have a site where the user can come, sign up for the service, get an email confirmation, select his/her subdomain, login, and from there it is up to them what happens to their site. They will be alotted x megabytes per account and after 90? days the site would deactivate/erase.

I am not interested in giving them the choice of blog software. I have tested Wordpress and like its layout/features.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: MBony
Bump

amdfanboy, thanks for the reply. But I am wanting all of this automated. I'm not wanting to even have to come in contact with the user(s). I'm wanting to have a site where the user can come, sign up for the service, get an email confirmation, select his/her subdomain, login, and from there it is up to them what happens to their site. They will be alotted x megabytes per account and after 90? days the site would deactivate/erase.

I am not interested in giving them the choice of blog software. I have tested Wordpress and like its layout/features.

Hmm, I don't know about the auto delete thing. That would require something to constantly check it to see. The subdomain has the same problem. Most servers won't let you futtz around with the DNS stuff like that.

 

[Crusty]

As for the 90 days. Just have a perl script that runs everyday at say midnight via a cron job and checks a field in each users record in your db for the time created. if the current time is > 90 days from them disable their account.

 

[Templeton]

I don't see you finding anything that does this out of the box, this is going to be a custome job. As for how to do this yourself, what languages do you know?

 

[drag]

I'd bet you could find a generic blog service you can get for free that you can modify to suite your purposes.

check out projects like zope. Most of these projects have people that designed pages and stuff for specific purposes that they will let you freely use.

Stuff like forums, wiki's, and probably blogs.

Probably help if you know Linux, Python, Perl, and how to setup services and whatnot. Probably can do it using Windows, but your going to be using mostly free software like Apache and it would probably be easier to use a OS designed around such things.

 

[Crusty]

Well, I've exchanged PMs with him a few times, and he has hosting all taken care of from DeviousTrap, so it's gonna be Linux. *bleh* on windows

 

[MBony]

Originally posted by: Templeton
I don't see you finding anything that does this out of the box, this is going to be a custome job. As for how to do this yourself, what languages do you know?

Templeton, it does look like it'll be a custom job. As Mcrusty stated, my hosting is provided through DeviousTrap. I know nothing about any language so I understand that it will cost to have this process done. I have already talked with someone who has an exact replica of the structure I would like, but he doesn't want to sell the code off to me. He is wanting a licensing arrangement. I'm not totally against it, but I want to weigh my options. Using his service and pay him a monthly fee vs. paying for the code up front and not paying out again.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
Well, I've exchanged PMs with him a few times, and he has hosting all taken care of from DeviousTrap, so it's gonna be Linux. *bleh* on windows

Don't know anything about DeviousTrap, but chances are that if they are a full-fledged web hosting place they have something like Zope, bunch of Perl stuff, and/or mysql-type database services already aviable for you to use.

Probably have dedicated stuff for better performance and you wouldn't have to waste any disk space on modules and such that the hoster already has aviable.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: MCrusty
Well, I've exchanged PMs with him a few times, and he has hosting all taken care of from DeviousTrap, so it's gonna be Linux. *bleh* on windows

Don't know anything about DeviousTrap, but chances are that if they are a full-fledged web hosting place they have something like Zope, bunch of Perl stuff, and/or mysql-type database services already aviable for you to use.

Probably have dedicated stuff for better performance and you wouldn't have to waste any disk space on modules and such that the hoster already has aviable.

Yeah, the webserver is fine for handling what he wants. Full fledged perl/mysql/apache/php

This is more of the actual coding for the site, as per my understanding.

 

[AFB]

The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

Changing the prefix for the tables for wordpress is easy. It's just a variable in the config.inc file. Having one main DB for all the blog's would be the way to go

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: MCrusty

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

Changing the prefix for the tables for wordpress is easy. It's just a variable in the config.inc file. Having one main DB for all the blog's would be the way to go

You don't think haveing 5n tables is per DB is going to be too much ?

 

[Templeton]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

If the site had a decent amount of users, the number of tables in the db would be downright scary with this implementation. Creating a new db for each user really isn't a feasible option either, especially if on a shared host. best way to go is to modify the schema to have a userid associated with each record, will keep things much cleaner and easier to manage. PM me if you're looking to hire someone for this, I can probably help you out. (I've done most of what you need in the past)

 

[Crusty]

Better then having n databases.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
Better then having n databases.

XML it all !























')
</sarcasm>

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: Templeton

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

If the site had a decent amount of users, the number of tables in the db would be downright scary with this implementation. Creating a new db for each user really isn't a feasible option either, especially if on a shared host. best way to go is to modify the schema to have a userid associated with each record, will keep things much cleaner and easier to manage. PM me if you're looking to hire someone for this, I can probably help you out. (I've done most of what you need in the past)

But then you run into almost the same issue. You have 1 table that contains say all the posts for everyone's Blog. You have everyone's post's in the same table with just a Username/User_ID Number that specifies who it belongs too. Say you have 30 users, and each user makes 10-20 posts. That's 300-600 rows in teh db that you have to search through in order to display one person's Blog. The performance would be much worse then having seperate tables.

 

[Templeton]

Originally posted by: MCrusty

Originally posted by: Templeton

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

If the site had a decent amount of users, the number of tables in the db would be downright scary with this implementation. Creating a new db for each user really isn't a feasible option either, especially if on a shared host. best way to go is to modify the schema to have a userid associated with each record, will keep things much cleaner and easier to manage. PM me if you're looking to hire someone for this, I can probably help you out. (I've done most of what you need in the past)

But then you run into almost the same issue. You have 1 table that contains say all the posts for everyone's Blog. You have everyone's post's in the same table with just a Username/User_ID Number that specifies who it belongs too. Say you have 30 users, and each user makes 10-20 posts. That's 300-600 rows in teh db that you have to search through in order to display one person's Blog. The performance would be much worse then having seperate tables.

An index on the user id column would solve this problem. Fetching data would be as fast as a multiple table/db approach, inserts would be slightly slower.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Templeton

Originally posted by: MCrusty

Originally posted by: Templeton

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
The only problem I am finding is that you have to create a new DB for each one. Or you have to change the prefix for all five tables.

If the site had a decent amount of users, the number of tables in the db would be downright scary with this implementation. Creating a new db for each user really isn't a feasible option either, especially if on a shared host. best way to go is to modify the schema to have a userid associated with each record, will keep things much cleaner and easier to manage. PM me if you're looking to hire someone for this, I can probably help you out. (I've done most of what you need in the past)

But then you run into almost the same issue. You have 1 table that contains say all the posts for everyone's Blog. You have everyone's post's in the same table with just a Username/User_ID Number that specifies who it belongs too. Say you have 30 users, and each user makes 10-20 posts. That's 300-600 rows in teh db that you have to search through in order to display one person's Blog. The performance would be much worse then having seperate tables.

An index on the user id column would solve this problem. Fetching data would be as fast as a multiple table/db approach, inserts would be slightly slower.

You have to remember, it has five tables. One for users, one for post, one for comments, ect.