ECF Website

[Chris Majer]

Sean wrote

Apparently, the motherboard has gone pearshaped on the ECF's website PC, meaning they cant update the website at the moment.

Surely this is a critical issue - and as we have an IT committee shouldn't they be purchasing a new machine PDQ?
Apparently, the motherboard has gone pearshaped on the ECF's website PC, meaning they cant update the website at the moment.

Surely this is a critical issue - and as we have an IT committee shouldn't they be purchasing a new machine PDQ?

Unfortunately. it has not proved possible to obtain a replacement motherboard and a new PC has been ordered. The configuration of the new PC within the Office network is non-trivial and will have to be done by the IT team next week.

[Edward Tandi]

Sean wrote

Apparently, the motherboard has gone pearshaped on the ECF's website PC, meaning they cant update the website at the moment.

Surely this is a critical issue - and as we have an IT committee shouldn't they be purchasing a new machine PDQ?

Unfortunately. it has not proved possible to obtain a replacement motherboard and a new PC has been ordered. The configuration of the new PC within the Office network is non-trivial and will have to be done by the IT team next week.

You don't use a hosting service? Surely it is more cost efficient than maintaining your own Web servers?

[John Upham]

You don't use a hosting service? Surely it is more cost efficient than maintaining your own Web servers?

Edward,

The PC being referenced (I would surmise) is the one Sophie uses to edit HTML via Dreamweaver before being FTP'd to the hosting server.

The hosting server appears to be a Demon Internet one running Apache/1.3.26 living in Docklands, London.

I suspect that the recently demised PC was "mature" and that sourcing a new motherboard would have presented a challenge.

Therefore the existant media will have to be transferred to a new build and the list goes on....

Maybe a disk mirror existed for each crtical piece of hardware? : I don't know is the non-useful answer.

Hopefully, the license key for Dreamweaver still exists and the version is compatible with the OS of the new PC.

I'm sure it is all in hand and will be resolved in timely fashion.

J.

[Edward Tandi]

I suspect that the recently demised PC was "mature" and that sourcing a new motherboard would have presented a challenge.

Therefore the existant media will have to be transferred to a new build and the list goes on....

Maybe a disk mirror existed for each crtical piece of hardware? : I don't know is the non-useful answer.

In general mirrored disks is a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't help when it comes to motherboard failure.

Having the main board fail is quite rare, the PC must have been very old.

[John Upham]

In general mirrored disks is a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't help when it comes to motherboard failure.

I was referring to getting the data from the old hard drive to the new one on the assumption that the old drive was also very old and was not going to be reused.

Anyway, luckily the PC wasn't mission critical....

J.

[John Upham]

Please note that the home page, even now, shows

Free Chess Sets for Schools in England

In order to be able to plan the production of Chess For Schools it is necessary to know the size of the production run. To that end applications for participation in the scheme will not be accepted after Friday 5th December 2008.
Chris Majer, ECF Chief Executive

I can't quite believe my eyes.

[John Upham]

Following an exchange of emails (and subsequent agreement from the "IT Committee" : Dave Thomas is the sole member AFAIK) there is good news for the main ECF site :

The new ISP is to be Zen Internet and the hosting has been purchased.

A new site will be developed on a WordPress CMS platform (rather than the Joomla! CMS) and tested / trialled via a test URL on a Zen Linux server. This is almost complete.

An SSL certificate (for englishchess.org.uk) will be purchased and deployed. This means that the new site will support the https protocol and therefore allow financial transactions to be transmitted encrypted rather than en clair which was the case when the ECF shop last operated (don't ask!)

The ECF Shop will be enabled once again and trialled.

CoM credits will be offered via the shop and tested.

The DNS A record will be updated by the IPS tag holder (DEMON Internet) to repoint englishchess.org.uk from the Hey Joes hosting emporium to Zen Internet (Hurrah!)

CoM can go live subject to sponsor and other parties sign-off. (Hurrah!)

Andrew Walker and Kirstie Lapworth will do the bulk of the work with myself available if need be and I will carry out the final two steps.

[Carl Hibbard]

A new site will be developed on a WordPress CMS platform (rather than the Joomla! CMS) and tested / trialled via a test URL on a Zen Linux server. This is almost complete.

But using WordPress is almost as bad isn't it?

The ECF site has already turned into more of a "blog type" solution which is something that doesn't really work for the sort of site that is needed does it?

I will watch this space

[E Michael White]

An SSL certificate (for englishchess.org.uk) will be purchased and deployed. This means that the new site will support the https protocol and therefore allow financial transactions to be transmitted encrypted rather than en clair which was the case when the ECF shop last operated (don't ask!)

Let's hope the ECF board and governance committees understand the full implications of PCI DSS then.

[John Philpott]

E. Michael White wrote

Let's hope the ECF board and governance committees understand the full implications of PCI DSS then.

The Chairman of the Governance Committee has to confess that he has never heard of PCI DSS, but would be happy to be enlightened.

[Adam Raoof]

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. Since it's inception in 2003, WordPress has grown to become one of the largest self-hosted CMS and blogging tools in the world, used on hundreds of thousands of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. WordPress is completely customizable and can be used for almost anything. It is also an 'Open Source' project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything without paying anyone a license fee. For all of these reasons (and many more), WordPress is now the platform of choice when a quick, robust CMS/blogging solution is required.

No idea how true that is. Mind you, the most important thing is that we can use it create a site that works, and that it does what we require it to. Staff need to be able to add and edit pages simply.

I would like to see more articles, and photographs and interesting games (illustrated by diagrams) and puzzle positions to solve on the site. However, it is probably not the role of the ECF to create that kind of site - it's better done by dedicated chess players with the time and enthusiasm to devote to it.

We just need a simple site that is easy to navigate, that has (amongst other things) big buttons for the grading information, the shop, links to other sites, accurate details of officers and a tournament calendar that works.

http://www.sportengland.org/ or http://www.uksport.gov.uk/ are both good examples of a clean website, that does what it says on the tin.

@John Philpott: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/se ... _dss.shtml

[John Upham]

Let's hope the ECF board and governance committees understand the full implications of PCI DSS then.

In your very own words what are the implications? (No copying and pasting allowed!)

[Carl Hibbard]

We just need a simple site that is easy to navigate, that has (amongst other things) big buttons for the grading information, the shop, links to other sites, accurate details of officers and a tournament calendar that works.

Fair enough but I would not have chosen WordPress for the ECF site as clearly it's the wrong choice in my opinion!

I am happy to be proved wrong as always

[Michael Bennett]

Carl - just out of interest what CMS would you have recommended?

[John Upham]

Carl - just out of interest what CMS would you have recommended?

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