As so many of you have been patiently waiting for the new portal to open, I felt it was only right for me to ask for your help. The problem that I’ve encountered is the actual coding involved with getting the portal to operate correctly from the outset. I’m fairly conversant in PHP, but my current problem is beyond my ability to handle. So if anyone has PHP coding experience, and would be willing to help, please leave a comment below. Thank you very much in advance =-)
Quiet Music 
I wish I could help but unfortunately that’s way way beyond what I am able to do. Good old fashioned Assembly, yes but PHP, unfortunately no. Sorry. :|
@John
Thank you very much for responding. It’s really rather interesting, because as prevalent as PHP is, I’m having an incredibly difficult time finding a good coder.
Sorry mate :( there must be a helpful forum somewhere?
Wish I could help you out and certainly don’t feel rushed – It’s just great to hear you’re making progress!
I am pretty confident it would be easier for you to get a response to your request if you specified exactly what you are looking for.
If you for instance are basing the portal on one of the numerous portal-solutions that are out there, then you might perhaps really just be asking about people to tweak templates and handle plugins.
If you are working on a tailormade solution, then you might be interested in getting in touch with people who are more knowlegdable with database modelling, xml files and secure communications.
On the other hand, if what you are looking for is simply just code snippets, then I guess visiting sites like for instance hotscripts.com.
But from your initial question – is it possible that you are using some kind of portal-software, but receives an error message when you are trying to set it up?
Try use Joomla
You’d probably be better than me at PHP, but anyway, why can’t you just host wordpress or something with a similar simple setup, like you have now?
patiently waiting. =P
@Dio
Thank you very much for your continued support =-). I’ve posted or sent PM’s on all the forums that I’m aware of that deal with Datalife Engine. The biggest hurdle I’ve encountered so far is that most of the people who are active there do not speak much English. On the bright side of things, I have managed to bungle my way to getting closer, but still not where I need it to be. The impatience on my part comes from the fact that I miss talking to the people who used to visit here on a regular basis because of the uploads. So it’s something of a goading stick for me, lol. =-)
@Flimmeren
Thank you very much for the suggestions. In terms of what scripting I’m using, it’s Datalife Engine. The mod itself is one that forces the script to store images on the host server so the speed and loading of the images will never be compromised by another server. The script is written in pure PHP and so it really shouldn’t be that difficult to find someone that can make the modifications. The main issue is that there is already a mod that does the majority of what I’m looking for, but not everything. And unfortunately, because I’m not fluent in PHP, I’m not able to modify it correctly, lol. I’ll be modifying the origional post to include some details, as you are entirely correct about the more specifics, the better. =_). Thanks once again.
@Eddie
Thank you very much for the suggestion, but the main concern I have about Joomla is how easy it is to hack. Datalife Engine is much more secure, and for that matter, faster too. Just struggling to make it work the way that I want =-).
@Chid
Thank you very much bud, the main reason why I don’t implement WordPress stem directly from the origional reasonings behind moving over to the portal. It’s simply too limited. I desperately want to offer the members the ability to post music that they have found and enjoy. To truly turn this little blog into an actual community.
Okay – thank you for the answer, QuietMusic – I think I am starting to grasp what you are really looking for.
First of all – is there any particular reason for your interest in Datalife Engine, or are you just looking for any CMS solution that address your needs? In your case I suspect I would have tested a few of the other solutions that are opensource and free on http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/show.php?catid=1&cat=CMS%20/%20Portals
I have worked with a number of solutions over the years, but have never really found any favourite myself – but EZ publish usually ranks pretty high when it comes to support for customization and available mods. Joomla is of course also used a lot – it is definitively more well-known – and I do not really agree with you that it is more insecure. It all boils down to how everything is configured on the server.
Anyway – I am trying to summarize what you are trying to accomplish here.
Am I on the right track when I write that you need:
– a simple publishing system
– one of the categories is for your own blogs exclusively
– one of the other categories is for the albums you post
– a third category is for community uploaded
– a few templates;
– a template on the mainpage with support for
– the last 5 main blogs
– a menu on the right side listing the 10 last albums/artists uploaded
– a second menu listing the last public posts
– an album template with support for:
– defining tags for the album
– artistname
– description etc.
– mediarich content (read: files)
– a public template
– a portal page
– userlogin
– userregistration
– forgot password
– private messages
– personal preferences
– … etc.
– a simple forum (not phpBB3) – but something that is tied in directly with the publishing tool of your choice.
– perhaps even a gallery of some kind
– it will probably also need to have support for IM-plugins
– it has to support secured areas
You would need some kind of moderator functionality on this thing to ensure that people doesn’t upload files that do not belong to a site like this. You would most likely also have to tailor a segment of the front page that clearly states the purpose of this site and perhaps even invites people to actively participate in getting to know the artists, the music and the community – something like that.
Oh well – no need to go into the content part. The reason I started out typing these points was to get an idea of what you were looking for in a CMS. Nothing of what you are trying to accomplish here is anything unique – at least from a technical perspective. I would assume that a lot of this can be considered a straight-out-of-the-box solution. I mean – just look at the ning-network. This is how they operate – and even manages to make quite a profit from it.
@Flimmermen
First, let me thank you for putting so much thought and time into your comment. You’re mostly correct in terms of the capabilites that I’m looking for. The most important part is the publishing system itself. What I’m looking for is simple and yet powerful. Much of what I’ve encountered up to this point has been incredibly convoluted. I’ve had to translate the actual scripting code from Russian to English. And now I’m still working through the bugs that the translation caused.
In more specific terms, I don’t really want multiple templates for different areas of the site. In my experience, it sometimes confuses the user into thinking that they are no longer on the same website, and over course that goes directly against the initial principle – ease of use. The actual specifics in terms of what will be in the post can be handled by providing a “template” that the members can follow. This will not only alleviate posts looking awkward, but also make the website that much easier to use. One of the things that I would love to be able to allow would be an internal “blog” for each poster. This would not only give each member the ability to drive users specifically to their blog, but also on the broader scale, to the site itself.
The other point that you brought up are mostly already handled by the script. Datalife Engine is extremely well thought out, and so the functionality is there, the trick is just adding it to the template in use. The biggest hurle I’ve come across so far is the integration of uploading an image and then having it automatically inserted into the body of the post. I’ve contacted multiple coders, and either they think they are too good to do something as simple as that, or they don’t know how. Go figure, lol.
Anyway, I’m working with a coder right now, and he seems to be very capable. Hopefully will have the mod written and somewhat implimented soon. =-)
Sorry I wish I could help, but I am a little behind in terms of IT infrastructure required for websites. :-(
I thought there would have been a out-of-the-box solution for such a thing as this.
Have you decided which hosting you are going to go with? Megaupload is also very good, as they do not impose the absurd only one file for 2 hrs or something like that. Thier speeds are really good as well.
This is gonna be real fun, once its up and running :)
@Kunal
There are quite a few out of the box solutions, but unfortunately, none of them have specifically what is needed. That is one of the reasons why I chose Datalife Engine. It’s fairly easy to modify for someone with php experience. However, in my case, I just simply don’t know enough php to be useful, lol.
In regards to the hosting of the files, I believe I’m going to go with DepositFiles, FileFactory or Megaupload. Each have their own merits, but I’ve not settled on which would be best. The one thing that I do like about Megaupload is that the speeds are very good the world over. I never realized how broad of a following QuietMusic developed until all this started to happen. So the files themselves need to be able to be downloaded from all over the world, and with the other two hosts, I’m not certain that is so.
All in all, this has been not only an incredibly trying period in my life, but also very much a learning experience. Hopefully, what I’ve learned will translate into something even better than it was before =-)
Hello, my dear friend! We have not spoken for a time…unfortunately, I had some problems with my computer. How are you? I hope everything is Ok, my fingers are crossed for you! Talk soon!
Heh – this is almost turning into a tech-site. I hope the development is progressing as planned at your end of the world. Anyway – for what it is worth – I have now included Datalife Engine on the list CMS solutions I need to look into for a very large project that is coming up here.
I am going to keep a close eye on how well and quickly you will manage to get the new portal up and running. It will help me get an idea of potential obstacles and pitfalls to look out for. This is important because I am very uncertain just how scalable Datalife Engine is, how well it handles load balancing, deployment to a number of different servers, security, support etc. compared to some of the other solutions on the market.
To put it this way – I seriously doubt it can be considered a viable alternative to some of the other more well-established solutions that are out on the market, but it is still important to keep track of what is going on and be aware of other solutions that are still maturing.
So thank you for much for giving me some new leads here, Quitmusic. This only goes to show that you may get ideas and find info from the most surprising places. The best of luck of to you!
@Kitty
Thank you very much for all the support you’ve provided! So far doing ok, still working on the portal and everything related. Unfortunately, my progress has not been as expected. Hopefully will be able to get more done with weekend =-).
@Flimmer
Lol, you’re right about this almost turning into a tech-site. I’m not sure just how much you will be able to gauge the development and roll-out time, as working with the portal is secondary at best most of the time. As I mentioned earlier in one of the comments, my workload has been rather heavy lately, and so the amount of time I’ve been able to dedicate to it has been severely limited. However, I hope to be able to dedicate a significant amount of time this weekend. Would love to be able to launch it at some point this weekend =-).
It’s always good to hear about ideas or feelings being enjoyed or found because of what is found here. Kinda funny about the tech side of things, but who knows, maybe your solution will be better for it, and that is really all that matters =-).
Just a comment, I can’t see the relationship between the PHP coding problem and the loosing of the links in Rapidshare.
When I try to acces any of your download link via Rapidshare, I got the message like the link is not existing or available.
I supposed that Rapidshare is an independent storage place that has nothing to do with “QUIETMUSIC”.
It is not my intention to bother you when yo have other mayor problems, but I don’t undestrstand the relatios with your problem and the download.
Thankas for all and regards.
@Leonardo
There is no correlation between the php coding issues and the download links. Rapidshare is a remote file hosting service that allows anyone to upload any file. Unfortunately, what has happened to my files is that my own rapidshare account, that I’ve uploaded the files to has been closed. I have not heard a single word from them in regards to why the account was closed, or who complained. The reason that the links have not been updated is that my main computer, where all my music is stored literally burned. I’ve been dealing with faulty RMA’d parts, and simply waiting on different companies to send me new parts so that I can rebuild the computer. Until I am able to get that computer up and running, the links will not be updated, as I cannot risk harming this system. I work from my computer, and so having a fully functional computer is an absolute must.
In regards to the php coding, I am setting up a new portal that will be remotely hosted in the Netherlands. The reason for the Netherlands is that their laws concerning music and overall file sharing are much more relaxed than anywhere else. The actual coding problems derive from the fact that the script I’ve chosen to power the portal has to be customized. That customization requires someone that can code in php.
Thanks for the explanation. Really I was out for practically one month and when I was back and trying to acces many of the links that I normaly browse, I discovered that they wetre closed or temporarly out of service.
What I can’t understand i that when a person, Lab, Institute or wherever make an invention (in many case with many years of reserche and resourses), they have to pay for a patent every year to keep the exclusive of it but, when a musician write a song, it seems that he can keep the right forever…
Here in Spain now we have to pay a fee, when you buy virgin CD – DVD – White Paper – Penn Drive and any recordin or printing device: “JUST IN CASE”…
Regards
@Leonardo
Thank you so much for all the thought that went into your comment. You are so right when it comes to buying the albums, that kind of thing seems so wrong if they still pursue other courses of action. The new portal is getting very close to launch. I’ll be updating everyone when the time comes, but I’m hopeful that the launch will happen on Wednesday.
Hey man. Was just wondering, is the site coming back?
Leonardo – we used to have the same kind of fees on casette tapes here in Norway back in the days. I believe we also have something similar on CD/DVD mediums. There is also some talk about having a constant price tag on broadband connections to cover for downloading of music and videos.
To be honest, I do not mind these approaches – as long as we know the artists get their fair share. But that is the real issue here; most of us are not confident it is the creative forces that receives the money. Oh well, no need to beat a dead horse here – these are things that have been discussed for as long as there have been ways of copying music.
And QuietMusic – I am looking forward to see what you are going to present us with. Best of luck of with the big launch! And there is no need to feel any pressure – although I am certain there are a lot of people that are going to keep on pressing the refresh button on their webbrowsers this wednesday.
Or the next wednesday – I just realized you made this post last monday.
@Vashiro
Take a look here – http://www.quietmelodies.com =-). That’s the new portal, so hope you will join us all there!
@Flimmer
Thank you very much for all the encouragement! The new portal is up and running. Still a few small bugs to work out, but overall, I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out. Will be adding additional functionality during the following week but overall the site works, and actually works rather well. I’m really looking forward to seeing other people posting. That part really intrigues me for some reason, lol.
I just discovered today the new site http://www.quietmelodies.com
Really is a little poor, I know this is just the beguinning and I will be glad to help you, if you need CD’s – Albums – Artist collections, etc.
Just tell me what you need and how I can make it available to you.
Regards and thanks for all.
@Leonardo
Thank you for the comment Leonardo. I’m sorry that you think the site is a bit poor, but as you can imagine, this blog did not develop to the point it is now overnight. I’ll be added to the new site on at least a daily basis, probably more than that. The beautiful thing about it is that you can help as well! If you join the site, you gain the ability to post your own music. Not only will this be a huge benefit to the site as a whole, but it also means that you will gain the download points and such. If you’re not comfortable with posting it yourself, if you would be willing to upload them to one of the remote file hosting sites, I’ll be more than happy to post it for you and give you all the credit. Just let me know with a PM on the site.
Thank you once more for the offer to help, it’s people like you who will really be driving the new site =-)