Exciting and ambitious project – best way to proced advice?
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- CoryK
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 20
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!! WARNING and Apologies !!
As I finished writing this posting I realized it ended up much much longer than I had anticipated, sorry !!
Intro and background
Names Cory Klinkenberg and I’m a Graphic Technician by trade a (think less art more tech) and a professional photographer on the side. Many of my jobs have been in the pre-press, advertising and printing fields and most recently on a 5 year development project to create a highly automated XML based scientific journal publishing system for the National Research Council of Canada.
I used Mambo way back when and later played with CPG Dragonfly ( www.cpgnuke.com/ ) as I was looking for tighter Coppermine integration with my content site and then I had two kids (while my wife did) within 16 month of each other and needless to say I’ve been playing a lot less with PHP and websites for the last few years. I’m now back and was amazed to find Joomla and how far the OS CMS comminute has come. Here’s the last site I created a few years ago with CPG ( www.303imaging.com/ )
I have a passion for all things technological, love motorsports and have always been into photography (long before it was just 1s and 0s) and a few years ago an opportunity presented itself for me to combine all of these into a exciting business and I am now the official track photographer and videographer to Canada’s newest and largest road course. ( www.calabogiemotorsports.com/ )
Enough yammering about me and onto the ambitious and I think very exciting Joomal project.
"The" Project
As the track’s only computer savvy guy I’m the go to guy as well as my partner for all things none car related and I’m happy to oblige. So after spending the last 3 weeks playing and looking into available components and CMS systems I think a lot of what I and the track owners have envisioned for a website can be achieved with Joomla and add-ons. A high-level list of some of the first goals we have for the site are listed below.
(Note: Expected registered users 6000-8000 a year)
- Community based – Joomla + CB
- Dynamic easily edited and modified content (from any web browser, anywhere) - Joomla
- Event registration (accessible to individual event organizers to use for there event) - Joomla + Attend Events + ?
- Event Calendar - Joomla + JEvents or JCalPro
- Event data reporting inside Joomla, with export to CVS, XML - ?
- Points based Lapping Club administration including purchasing credits, booking etc. - ?
- Online Merchandise Store - Joomla + VirtuMart
- Tightly integrated with track photographer’s website (sharing same install /backend maybe) - Joomla + some form of MultiSite
- User based sites (customized content pulling information from photographer’s site etc.)
Let me elaborate on this one; when a visitor logs in it will pull information from photographers site as well as there own info and create a site that feels like there own with their photos there lap times etc. - Moderated User Forums / Tips Etc. – Joomla + Joomlaboard?[/ [/*]
- Personal Lap time database - ?
- Lap records - ?
- Newsletter function
A PDF attached to the built in mass mailer is likely the easiest but something more dynamic might be very cool pulling pictures and info from each user. - Banner ad manager – Joomla
- Mini WeSite hosting for local business with basic content edited by client - ?
- Detailed web statistics - Joomla
- Lap Video upload and sharing (YouTube backend?) - ?
So I have decided on and been playing with the Vortex template and have being testing with the event parts and they will work pretty well out of the box but it’s the integrating of it all and making sure its stable is the key. I even have the new MonoSlideShow running in the insert so I could mimic the track’s current site. Note: Joomla and this site rock by the way.
As were just finalizing and getting ready to dive right into this I quickly realized I need expert help (if you’re a physiologist ot Joomla veteran you’ll likely agree) for much of the backend database bits and making all the add-ons play nice together. I know a bit of PHP and lots about XML but that won’t get me to where the site needs to be. I have used Elance before and have had very bad experiences (Are any of the portfolios and comments real? :-\) on more than one occasion so when I saw www.joomlancers.com/ I’m more than a bit leery to just jump on that bus.
Now while looking for a template to base the site on I ended up here and in my humble opinion these templates are the most polished and professional ones for any CMS out there, period. To add to that many of the user here seem to be very professional as well so I wanted to hear from this group early on in the project. Having established that most, if not all of what we want to achieve is possible with largely open source pieces and customized off-the-shelf add-ons we are now trying to establish a budget and time line for the project.
Quick note on budget, due to large an very costly amounts of red tape the track opening was delayed over 3 years and finally opened late last year but as such the current budget is tighter than I’d like so that may necessitate a staged approach to the site but the framework would have to be built with the bigger picture always in mind. I think as a project and portfolio piece this will be big and we are open to some form of formal acknowledgement on the site.
So my questions to this experienced group are;
- Are we crazy?
- Thoughts and / or experiences with JoomLancer
- Recommendations for someone to work with on this
- Budget and timeline thoughts
- Thoughts on the project overall and any tips from the trenches to make for a smother project
Wow that was long. :-[
Thank for your all very much for your time and thoughts.
Sorry for the rambling, if it isn’t obvious I’m very excited about the possibilities for this site and the more I test the more ideas I get.
Cory
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- Dan L
- Elite Rocketeer
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All sounds very ambitious
My first thought though was if Joomla could handle a site that is so registration-heavy...6000-8000 a year sounds like a hell of a lot!
I also wanted to comment regarding Joomlancers - I've not heard great things, and have had a couple of clients come to me after being messed about by some of the people on Joomlancers. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure there are good guys on there but it to me it seems very heavily populated by student-types and other "non-professionals" - so proceed with much caution if you go down this route, and don't go for the cheap options as they may do more harm than good in the long run.
Sounds like a cool project though ;D - Toolbox Digital | Dribbble | Forrst
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- CoryK
- Jr. Rocketeer
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Databases are certainly not an area that I’m strong in and the amount of registrants has also struck me a potential issue.
Now a large percentage of the registrant will be for single events only and can likely be pruned off ever couple months or so of in activity to keep things from getting too bogged down.
Thanks for the comments on Joomlancers. My experiences on Elance have left me with a very bad taste in my month and I’m very apprehensive of having to go that type of route again.
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- John Sanchez
- Hero Rocketeer
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Doesn't MySQL have a cap on the number of queries/hr? I though it was something like 5000 queries/hr. That could a limiting factor (but I'm pretty sure you can increase that).
Software is usually only as good as the hardware you run it on. ;D
it is a good question though... How many users CAN Joomla support?
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- urj2ic8
- Hero Rocketeer
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John Sanchez wrote:
Doesn't MySQL have a cap on the number of queries/hr? I though it was something like 5000 queries/hr. That could a limiting factor (but I'm pretty sure you can increase that).
Software is usually only as good as the hardware you run it on. ;D
it is a good question though... How many users CAN Joomla support?
well this site is at 15,000 lol - Billy Zoellers
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