Strolen's World · Legacy archive
Checklist Todo list
-
Checklist Todo list
#1Since we have agreed to host on hosting matters to start with, then we need to become very familiar with hostmatters policies and what they offer.
Two pages of interest are the reseller page with the prices that WE pay per account:
http://resellers.hostmatters.com/rcompare.html
The page that has the same packages with the prices that they currently charge:
http://www.hostmatters.com/comparison.html
Their acceptable use policy:
http://www.hostmatters.com/aup.html
That is two pages that we must have right there. So, to start a list.
1. Packages offered:
--Can either have one main page like they have (which I like and it is easy)
or
--We can have an intro to each package with just the highlights shown, then they click to see the entire offer. Which takes a little more clicking but I have had no bad feelings on looking at webhosts with this format.
2. Acceptable Use Policy Page
3. Page with the offer for the free hosting showing all the requirements and another page with the application and probably a seperate terms of service for that one. (for rpgcitadel.com only though obvioulsy)
4. Don't think we need a terms of service for the pay accounts. That should be covered in the acceptable use policy. For the free accounts there would have to be a seperate terms of service that reinterate the ad display requirements or something.
5. For the rpgcitadel.com site, sort of a mission statement page. I always want to know what the company is about when I visit a site. A sort of glorified "What about me" type thing to describe our love for the game and our want to give back to the roleplaying community. Something to make people like us.
6. Definately for the rpgcitadel.com site, but maybe for the other one. I think we should set up some forums for those as well with some generaly catagories like prepurchase questions and a few other topics. Might even turn into something like at hostmatters.com where there is a thriving community that draws people in and users answer a lot of questions...wouldn't that be nice? Not holding my breath, but a thought.
7. Contact page. Emails and form based. Support, Sales, etc. Looks more professional and we can also maybe split up who gets what kind of questions...probably have to figure out a way to do this if we have all the emails forwarded to all of us.
8. Help desk type page for all sites. There are some premade scripts or we can build our own with priority levels and such and a way to track and save them etc.
9. FAQ (probably start a new thread for this. Can copy a lot of questions from different sites)
10. Privacy Policy. I think it is required on most pages by some kind of law or agreement or something.
11. Once we get going and get permission show a list of sites we host.
Generic Needs
1. Need a theme for each site and I would guess some kind of catch phrase to go with it.
2. Need to purchase some nameservers as well so we can use our own and totally dissaciate ourselves from hostmatters. They will host them for free, just have to ask. I would expect that our nameservers would be the name of our company probably. so ns.xbox.com or whatever. That would reveal the associationg
3. Need to come up with a business name as well that we can agree on. I am pretty much open, but I would imagine we have to be careful, it costs some bucks to do a copyright search and not sure if that is required. Maybe Dan's parents would know something about naming our business as well. I don't think that is something to take lightly either.
4. Need to find out if we can sell domain names with the hosting package as well.
-
In agreement
#2All,
I have decided to set at least two hours a day to work on this and strolen.com. I am not going to let strolen.com go the wayside. I think it is a great resource I am going to do what I can to make it better.
As for me and schooling, I am done for at least two years. There are several things I am going to pursue and this site is number one on the list.
Therefore, over the next week I am going to do alot of catch up reading on hostingmatters and some other legal items. Then I will take this stuff to the legal team at my work and ask one of them to look it over and give me some advise. There are several people at my work who play D&D, they have looked at the site and they have told me what needs to be done before they would use it. Soem of them would even being willing to pay for memberships to strolen.com to keep it completely banner free.
I am getting off track. Mike do not worry about this I am back for good and I WANT TO SEE THIS WORK. Well, I am off to do some reading. -
Chiming in
#3I agree with everything all at once. BTW I am essentially done with school. Well sort of, I am going to start working on my masters and/or my MCSE, but I should still have time. I do not have any more time now then when I was taking four or five classes at a time, so obviously time is where you find/take it. I will make the time.
I will even go so far as to start learning php again and studying the legal stuff for small businesses. I am going to compile a list of questions to hit up my parents with, I hope to get answers to those questions and maybe some things I forgot to ask. So feel free to send any and all questions to me to ask them. They may not be right or even the best answers but it will be a different set of eyes and I hope that alone will help. That is not to say that Bob’s legal eagles won’t be a tremendous help. It is good to have a lot of resources.
What are we going to offer to our clients?
My thoughts:
Hosting
Token number of e-mail addresses
Forwarders
Etc, essentially all the things that Strolen has now and that come with the package deal that we buy (obviously)
Maybe website production (we make a custom web page for them)
- My fathers company has a web page (albeit a plain one http://www.kestrelcorp.com/index.html) that they paid someone else to make and host. We could possibly/probably get Kestrel for a customer.
- My aunt is a web master, she has built a few web pages that I know of, we may be able to convince her to use our services for her clients that do not already have a host??? This I do not know, as I do not really talk to her a lot, nor do I know much about what she does. I have seen one of her web pages and it was fairly rudimentary (not dynamic like asp or php). Anyway she also built a site for my cousin, and maybe I can talk her into moving it there.
- My mother has talked (Only talked so it may be nothing more) about starting a web page for her antique business. But we would need to do all the maintenance she would not know (or ever learn) how to maintain a site with inventory that changes all the time. IF she does this she won’t mind paying us a competitive rate for our efforts, but it obviously depends on whether of not we would offer a service like that. I doubt that she will go for it so the point is probably moot. But establishing our services is important.
- I would buy a site, for a good rate.
So that is one and maybe four customers right off the bat. I suspect my father would host with us, so that is a probable two customers. He would probably host with us if we are stable and expect to be around for a while, that is to say making an honest go of this company. Plus he would need more e-mail addresses than usual. I say this again even thought mike has already agreed, but I see Strolen as a separate entity, possible a customer. Now if you guy do not want to ask my family member to host with us I am fine with that, they would just be doing me a favor anyway so I would not have any heart break about not asking them. I may not ask them until after we have been up and running for a while anyway (a few months with my own website to see how reliable it is) -
Checklist Todo list
#4I am not ready to make any commitment to being a web designer. I will be happy to answer questins and give opinions but I don't want to take on any 'clients' to build a webpage for.
On hosting family, that is all you. If you feel comfortable doing it then that is fine with me. When it comes to them, you are the one that will have to deal with them so it doesn't matter to me. Obviously we will all help if necessary, but the actual interaction will be you I would imagine.
The beauty of it all is we can host whomever we want. I am sure that each of us will have access to the reseller control panel to add customers and such, and since we are not limited on the amount or types of accounts we sell so even if you charge the cost, we don't lose anything, and the more the merrier. Every extra dollar a month helps pay our bills regardless of where it comes from.