Web Services

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Hi All,

As you know, ACC is run by my little company, Maia Internet. I also provides sqn.ac for those who would like great hosting at a price that suits RAFAC Sqns. (£10 a year).

With recent ‘advances’ in website hosting, I’m going up against the big guys - wix, weebly, squarespace etc. !!

Maia now has the option of a Website Builder - drag and drop editing with one click publishing - it’s quite fancy even if I say so myself :wink: you can see the themes and try a demo of the editor here: Demo Editor

With that in mind, I’m changing sqn.ac to be a service that provides just that, a simple way for cadets and staff to make a website without worrying about getting deep and dirty in code - at least not to start with. It’s a great project that could kickstart cadets into learning to code.

The benefit over the bigger rivals is you get a personalised, special, domain name, there’s no branding and you get to keep your data (unlike the others) and doesn’t rely on flash or other plugins - straight HTML files here!

Additionally, and that’s why I’m here, as a webhost I can provide anything really. So…

What would Sqn’s like to have for their daily running in addition to their website?

collaboration, projects, staff management, communication, office software, marketing?

Not just on a sqn level but a corps level - sqn interaction, sharing knowledge, that kind of thing.

sqn.ac isn’t here to make money, I want to provide a service that you might not be able to get through ‘official’ sources. We all know how ‘great’ MODnet is going to be!! :mrgreen:

so, over to you…

thanks

DJ

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Hi DJRice

I notice in the content builder screenshot that it looks alot like the one provided by Weebly, is this a similar plugin? If so I would be very interested as I have just created a website for a friend using this and found it to be super useful.

I work in databases but realised how easy it is to knock together websites using this method that I am considering having a side business doing web design. One thing that puts me off is the big hosting providers having control of the pages. Your prices look competitive and Im much more inclined to trust a smaller business like yours that offers other features like virtual servers!

For reference the screenshot I am referring to is the one next to the text “Easy!”

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Hi,

yes, it’s in the same style as weebly, wix etc, but it’s not; the files are stored on my servers and are accessible separately.

The system works by editing the site on my plugin providers servers, then ‘uploads’ it to the space the client has purchased on my servers, and there the site sits. Seems like a more friendly and secure way of doing things. Also there’s no branding from the supplier, your site is yours!

the editor is all drag and drop and feels a little bit like the wordpress backend for those that know that. But page creation is all on the screen and everything is editable.

When sqn.ac comes back - this weekend hopefully; a website will be £10 a year and as I add additional services they’ll be included in the price.

Cheers

DJ

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With the launch of the new .sqn.ac what would you like to see us provide in addition to your new website?

Cheers,

DJ

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A restricted access area that can be used to post details of upcoming events etc.

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Having played around with .sqn.ac for the past few days, do you, or could you, offer storage for photo hosting, or some sort of plugins for various 3rd party image hosting sites?

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An interesting idea :slight_smile:
would you be looking for full integration into the .sqn.ac website builder or something slightly separate that could be easily incorporated?

cheers,

DJ

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I imagine full integration would be of more interest as far as sqn’s using sqn.ac are concerned, but separate but easily integrated is probably just as good, and more flexible.

Basically where I currently only host photos on a facebook group and/or page, my ideal would be a hosting service that you can then take a link from (or auto generated iframe (or whatever)) and embed into a sqn.ac page.

Of course this could also be achieved by a plugin for dropbox or google drive/photos etc.

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Sounds like an idea that could be incorporated into another plan i’m hatching for .sqn.ac

I’ll carry on my research - at the minute you can transfer images in from a url using the Image module, but I know wnat you mean by a central storage area.

How big do you think you’d need? Gb? Tb?!!

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well I was thinking separate photo grids of events over the past few months or something like that.

for compressed photos we’d probably only be talking a few gig max. (of course this is all depending how many months/years of photos you want displayed on your website. lol)

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Very true! and lots of storage costs, and we’re trying to keep costs down - I’ll look into pricing etc.

How are you finding the builder?

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aren’t we all! :wink:

I’m really liking the builder so far, however i think i’m missing a few bits, like how to add extra rows (contaners?) to a page or how the default gallery page works with its buttons to magically filter photos.

additionally it would be awesome to be able to create additional accounts for other staff or cadets to modify or add content rather than all using one login. and then have that linked with being able to see the change history etc.

even better if there was some sort of notification system “Cadet X has made this amendment, approve Y/N” or “staff Y has deleted this page, you sure? Y/N”

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Glad you like it - it’s new to market so the devs are interested in feedback - as am I !!

To make an extra row, just drag a module down until the new (quite thin) row appears and let go, you can add extra modules to it afterwards.

I’m hoping to get some tutorial pages and videos made when I get 5 mins!

I like your ideas though:)

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ahhh ok, got it. thanks.

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