Hey everyone,
Little do you all know, I actually run two small websites. Neither of them is 3D or computer related, which is why I never mentioned them here. However, a recent catastrophe has caused me to consider doing major site redesigns on both, so I was wondering if you'd be able to give me some pointers on good tools to help me with the redesign.
The site I'm most concerned about is one called China School Review. It was a site I put up for ESL teachers in China. Teaching English here can be a pretty hair-raising experience, as there are more than enough scam schools, corrupt officials, and incompetent headmasters to go around. So I created my site for teachers to review their schools and give people an idea of what to look out for.
It was a pretty bare-bones operation, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I don't really have any money. I just basically used free webspace my university gave me, bought a domain, and used ezboards to categorize and order the reviews. It worked pretty well, although it wasn't as well put together as I would have liked. Still, it got a decent following over the past year, and worked fairly well as a resource for teachers. Recently, however, ezboards got hacked and basically all of my data got erased, pretty much destroying my site. Thus, I'm in a bit of a rebuilding mode, and want to create something that will be a lot more versatile and last longer than my first site. However, my web designing knowledge is pretty basic, and so I need some help from some of the seasoned pros that I know visit and/or run this place. Basically, I would like to have a site that has the possibility to:
1. Have web users enter in their own reviews of schools, (after they register, of course).
2. Have the ability for people to go back and edit their reviews, and for people to leave comments after them.
3. Have a system to organize them, by chronology/alphabet/province/city/rating, etc, and also have a search system in place.
4. In the reviews, I would like to require them to rate their school based on a certain set of criteria, so that when they enter their review in, they would have to acknowledge certain aspects.
5. I would also like for people to be able to rate the review, so that when some pissed off idiot writes a stupid review, or a school comes in trying to impersonate a teacher, people can call them on it and that can be reflected when people are searching for reviews.
Basically, I would like to create something like the Internet Movie Database, only for schools in China instead of films.
My other site is www.TianjinExpats.com, created basically the same way as china school review, but using proboards instead, so my data didn't get wiped. There are two main features I would like to see for this are:
A calendar where people can enter in events happening in and around the city, and which would include information like cost, location, general info, etc. I would like it to look more like a listing of events, and not like a calendar itself.
Maybe a photo-gallery or something, where people could upload photos from events and put them on the website. If I had that, I would also like to be able to limit the size of the photos uploaded.
If anyone has any suggestions for scripts, software, or hosting solutions, I'd really like to hear your advice. Right now, I'm looking at maybe going through http://www.nathosting.com/, but I'm open to other suggestions if you have them, or if you think they won't be able to do everything I want to do for this.
I realize I'm making a pretty huge leap in terms of complexity from my earlier site to this, but I think it's something I'd like to try. Any help people here could throw my way would be greatly appreciated.
Little do you all know, I actually run two small websites. Neither of them is 3D or computer related, which is why I never mentioned them here. However, a recent catastrophe has caused me to consider doing major site redesigns on both, so I was wondering if you'd be able to give me some pointers on good tools to help me with the redesign.
The site I'm most concerned about is one called China School Review. It was a site I put up for ESL teachers in China. Teaching English here can be a pretty hair-raising experience, as there are more than enough scam schools, corrupt officials, and incompetent headmasters to go around. So I created my site for teachers to review their schools and give people an idea of what to look out for.
It was a pretty bare-bones operation, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I don't really have any money. I just basically used free webspace my university gave me, bought a domain, and used ezboards to categorize and order the reviews. It worked pretty well, although it wasn't as well put together as I would have liked. Still, it got a decent following over the past year, and worked fairly well as a resource for teachers. Recently, however, ezboards got hacked and basically all of my data got erased, pretty much destroying my site. Thus, I'm in a bit of a rebuilding mode, and want to create something that will be a lot more versatile and last longer than my first site. However, my web designing knowledge is pretty basic, and so I need some help from some of the seasoned pros that I know visit and/or run this place. Basically, I would like to have a site that has the possibility to:
1. Have web users enter in their own reviews of schools, (after they register, of course).
2. Have the ability for people to go back and edit their reviews, and for people to leave comments after them.
3. Have a system to organize them, by chronology/alphabet/province/city/rating, etc, and also have a search system in place.
4. In the reviews, I would like to require them to rate their school based on a certain set of criteria, so that when they enter their review in, they would have to acknowledge certain aspects.
5. I would also like for people to be able to rate the review, so that when some pissed off idiot writes a stupid review, or a school comes in trying to impersonate a teacher, people can call them on it and that can be reflected when people are searching for reviews.
Basically, I would like to create something like the Internet Movie Database, only for schools in China instead of films.
My other site is www.TianjinExpats.com, created basically the same way as china school review, but using proboards instead, so my data didn't get wiped. There are two main features I would like to see for this are:
A calendar where people can enter in events happening in and around the city, and which would include information like cost, location, general info, etc. I would like it to look more like a listing of events, and not like a calendar itself.
Maybe a photo-gallery or something, where people could upload photos from events and put them on the website. If I had that, I would also like to be able to limit the size of the photos uploaded.
If anyone has any suggestions for scripts, software, or hosting solutions, I'd really like to hear your advice. Right now, I'm looking at maybe going through http://www.nathosting.com/, but I'm open to other suggestions if you have them, or if you think they won't be able to do everything I want to do for this.
I realize I'm making a pretty huge leap in terms of complexity from my earlier site to this, but I think it's something I'd like to try. Any help people here could throw my way would be greatly appreciated.
