PES Web Developer Needed Urgently

Our server for PESN is no longer supporting FrontPage, which I've been using for years to author the non-PESWiki sites. We have only a short time to phase over to something else, and improve our service/capabilities while we're at it.

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News

Last night we hit a crisis in the server end of things. Call it a disaster I knew was coming and didn't prepare for, because I've been so busy, I kept putting it off.

Our PES account domains (not including PESWiki) were moved to another server that doesn't support FrontPage, which is the program I've been using to compose, update and manage the PESN, PureEnergySystems, and FreeEnergyNews domains (among others. I think I've built some 30 websites over the years that are still available on the web, using FrontPage.)

I used to just log in and author directly to the server. But now, as of last night, the only way I can modify things is through FTP, which has a number of problems:

The top, left, right, bottom borders that appear on every page of site are not maintained. See, for example: FP-supported, versus FP Not Supported.
The image mapping is screwed up.

Dec. 19; 4:55 pm GMT-7 Update:
The site has now been restored to its former functionality -- temporarily -- but we have to find a solution rapidly to get away from FrontPage.

For a couple of years now, I've been apprized that my web hosting company, Pair.com, was not going to be able to continue supporting FrontPage, which is the web authoring software I learned on and have been using to build websites since about 1997.

The reason is that Microsoft no longer supports FrontPage, and the new servers run on Microsoft software. Isn't that great! Microsoft has made their own program inoperable.

I was hoping I would be given a heads up before the migration so I could scramble if I hadn't yet taken care of it. All I got was an after-the-fact, "we moved your account to a new server...."

Actually, I did get an intuitive heads up. Yesterday, I had a strong impression along these lines, but didn't interpret it as an immediate call to action. I've been procrastinating this for two years, so why not procrastinate some more, right? And I've been getting the intuitive nudge occasionally before that.

Why I Like FrontPage

The primary reason for my inaction is that I don't know of a good alternative package that will give me the attributes and functionality of FrontPage; and I haven't know how to map the new operating system so that the old content still works on the same domain name. Hopefully that will happen some time today.

Here are some of the reasons I love FrontPage:

Have one border page defined for each of the borders, top, left, right, bottom. Update the page, and that border is updated across the entire site.
Use the "include" function for things like a common index of past articles on a specific subject; update that page, and all of the instances are updated.
Create sub-webs so you can have autonomous functionality in a sub-folder, as if it is a separate website. PESN is actually a sub-web folder at PureEnergySystems.com/news/
Because of this sub-web function, when I update the header at PESN, all I have to do to update the header at PureEnergySystems is copy and paste. FrontPage figures out where to pull the images from.

Now I'm out of time. I've got to make a switch.

Desired Attributes of New Platform

The new venue (I'm thinking primarily of PESN, as FreeEnergyNews has fundamentally been migrated to PESWiki, as well as PureEnergySystems) will need to have the following capabilities:

Top, left, right, bottom borders able to be updated globally from one location
Able to host the archives of previous content created with FrontPage.
Multiple authors posting stories / blogs
Editors correcting
Archive index page for all content, sorted primarily by date.
A home page that has the following attributes:
- Latest stories first, that are of a high caliber
- Link to archives
- Links to key resources
Advertisements strategically placed
A "Related Stories" function (could be tag-driven, or manually populated like FrontPage "include" function) strategically placed
Search, both within site and among several associated sites
Comments capability (could be done through Disqus, which we have been using, and like)
Social media attributes: like, tweet, Facebook, etc.
Mobile device compatible

I might go with WordPress, but I don't know if it will do all of the above. No matter what I use, there will be a new learning curve. Arg.

Short-Term Transition

I talked to the Pair.com tech support guy last night about this, and he said he would escalate this issue and see if they might be able to move my site back to a server that is still operating with FrontPage server extension capability. But this would only be a short-term thing, because they are phasing all of those servers out to run on the new operating system. Today, I was told they can do this.

This would give us time to create a permanent top/right/left/bottom border that is timeless, because once server extensions are gone, all of the pages become static html pages, frozen as they are from that time forward, unless they are individually modified, with new top, right, left, bottom border elements. We have many thousands of pages across our several sites.

I asked the tech support guy if there was anyone at Pair who could give me some tips about what to do. He said that this was a developer issues, not a technical support issue.

So, I've come to a point where I don't know what to do. I don't know of a good package to use instead of FrontPage, and I don't know how to have two packages coexist on the same server: the old FrontPage content and the new package.

We need to find a solution and implement it quickly. I will be doing some Google searching to see what other people have done.

This will also be an opportunity for us to update the look and functionality of the site.

Web Developer Needed

I wish we could offer a paid position for a permanent web developer, as we have a lot of needs in this department on an ongoing basis. But we're not in a position to do that.

What we can offer is that if you help out now, then when we do come into a good revenue stream (many great opportunities presently percolating), we will generously reimburse you for your time.

At a minimum, we need someone who can advise us about what to do in this specific case.

We're talking about three primary PES websites, and about 30 other websites with the same issue (need to find a new infrastructure for them). Most of those other sites are very low priority, informational sites, mostly inactive in terms of new content or activity. To get an idea of the content on these other sites, you can visit my resume page.

From past experience, I know there are a lot of web developers out there in our audience, and some of you will be willing to volunteer your assistance.

When you contact me, please provide the following information:

Name, contact info
Resume/CV or bio link
Your level of understanding/experience in the world of exotic free energy
How long you've been tracking PES stories
References, including people from the Exotic Free Energy sector who can vouch for you as a sincere seeker of a better world.
Your extent of availability in the next month, especially in the next few days.
A brief explanation of your suggestion for our need, and how you would propose to carry it out.
Your abilities with appearance: layout, graphics, design, widgets, etc.
Your terms for payment:
- total volunteer, no return expected
- bay back soon would be appreciated; rate is ___.
- pay back when you can; rate is ___.
- trade, e.g. for advertising space

Let me express ahead of time my gratitude for your willingness, and if you are the one selected, for all the mostly enjoyable work you will be doing.

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Comments

In addition to what is below:

Dec 21st 2012

sterling
Just mailed in envelope [...] US so you ought to get it before New year.

Hum- why, you who are advocating Free energy still are in the clutches of Miscrosoft (evil Bill Gates et all advocating depopulation,etc..) and buggy/expensive Windows

Why not give a try at some open source software running on Linux servers (much more secure than those on Windows)

Many commercial companies do help setting up Linux servers etc..that you can control form your own home..

For more infos go here: http://distrowatch.com; you can always contact them - chap doing the weekly review... Red Hat is a very good commercial company + numerous others as well..

Yours, rey....

Note-My laptop PCs are running under Linux (Ubuntu Studio 12.1)

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PES Web Developer Needed Urgently

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