I actually wanted to use Amazon Web Services to host my site, but I cannot figure out the interface.
So i’m looking for a host where I can only pay for the bandwidth I use. Also I need way more storage space than A2 offers (max 4gb) I need probably about 100GB - will be hosting my own videos.
If anyone knows about how to setup on amazon that’d be great!!! I created a topic about that before … zero replies.
Amazon uses apache or ngnix or something like that. I dunno anything about those. It also does wordpress and drupal and joomla… and I dunno how those translate to the rapidweaver world.
The 100gb storage is another matter. To be honest you would be better off hosting the video on Vimeo and linking to them from your website. It will cost you much less than self hosting which is going to put you in the region of several $100 per month.
Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla are just popular CMS (Content Managed Systems). You could use them with Rapidweaver or use Total CMS or Alloy which are designed to work with Rapidweaver.
(and about the storage no thanks. i’m gonna host them myself)
anyway,
Is that part of how rapidweaver can then work with Amazon web services?
Do I need to know all these acronyms on this page? Seems very technical. If so do you have a link that covers all that too? Does rapidweaver work with Apache web servers etc?
OK good to know rapidweaver can use these CMS things… I recall CMS is something to do with… the fonts and stuff… lol
Sorry for noob questions!
I feel like I need a “web development for dummies” book hah
Rapidweaver generates web page files that need to be hosted on a server acting as a web server.
Most servers on the internet are operating Unix Operating system or a Microsoft Windows Server Operating system. On Unix the web service tends to be Apache and on Windows it tends to be IIS (Internet Information Services)
However, you can install Apache on Windows so don’t take the above as gospel. There are also other web server software but the above two tend to be the most popular.
So yes, Rapdiweaver will work on any platform that is a web server, with PHP as a minimum.
A CMS is great for people in your company to publish content who are not the web developer. Normally the web site is already designed and you use the CMS to add content to pages in the website. All the content writer needs to know is how to operate the CMS.
As the web developer you have to build the website and then build the CMS into it so quite a lot of work to start, but after you finished the website will grow as your people add information using the CMS system.
I’m interested to know where/how you are hosting your video files.
I think Nicks(@Pyrobrit) tip “being better off hosting the video on Vimeo and linking to them from your website” is one you shouldn’t discard so quickly. Videos are large and bandwidth hogs. Without proper preparation, they can slow down the site and produce a poor user experience.
AWS can be an excellent choice if you are a technically savvy person. As you have found out it’s not for everyone. You need to take the time and figure out all the jargon and determine what you need. There are other platforms similar to this like Digital Ocean.
With this kind of host, you will need to become your own system administrator. Most RapidWeaver users don’t have the time or don’t want to put in the effort to take on doing all that.
Apache and Nginx are the two most popular web servers. Apache is the most common and used a lot on shared hosting platforms. Nginx is gaining in popularity on larger sites and often used as a load balancer for very large comical sites. It uses fewer resources(like memory) for static content than Apache, but doesn’t support Local directives files (htaccess) so everything needs configuring in the server.
I got a response from a tech support at AWS and he suggested after I make the website I convert it into Wordpress or Joomla…
Is that what people are doing? After they do all that work on rapidweaver they then Convert it to Wordpress? That doens’t make sense…
Amazon has Wordpress and Joomla… it doesn’t have rapidweaver… but thats not a CMS… I don’t really need a CMS right now… if what a CMS does is let me edit the site from my web-browser… I just want to edit it from rapidweaver.
I just can’t believe you HAVE to use wordpress or whatever to host a website… thats just not happening.
I mean what would be the point of using Rapidweaver if I have to put it back into wordpress in the end anyway…
As I said earlier. Rapidweaver builds websites and create the html/php code that is uploaded to a web server using the built in publish tool.
Joomla and Wordpress are self contained CMS systems that you install to a web server. You then use their built in editors and design tools to choose the themes and layouts to create the look and feel of your website. Then using the editor tool that’s part of the Wordpress admin side of your website, you type in your content, add pictures and publish your pages.
So in conclusion:
Rapidweaver is editing your website on your computer then you upload to the web server.
Joomla and Wordpress is editing online on your web server and clicking the post button.
There are positives and negatives to both methods.
WebM format will not play on Apple iPhone or iPad devices without having to load a specialist video player from the App Store or making sure your website comes with a built in video player in the page.
That’s quite a chunk of internet users to alienate.
Stick to a format which is html5 compliant to make life easier for yourself. Making your website easy to use is one step towards keeping it popular to encourage repeat visits.
No, it doesn’t matter as when you build your server, you will leave these boxes unticked and not install them until you are ready in a few months time.
How are you getting on with Rapidweaver? Have you started to practise building layouts and see what works for you?
The learning curve is steep to start but test, test and test again will help.
I’m still in the planning phase… not put anything together yet on Rapid. I had my site designed on EverWeb… good app, but … I decided since I the site as fixed-width… need to use responsive so I thought I might also try rapid, and rapid lets you actually get into the code… which apparently u need to do if u use Amazon.
I found this in another thread:
Although it’s not clear whether or not SSL will be on by going this route… i’d bet it would but… not sure.
That static site link is no good for you as the server it builds does not come with PHP and quite a few Rapidweaver stacks use that.
So having read up what you need, yes, lightsail is the way to go and setup is very simple.
Sign up for lightsail, it’s free to create an account.
After signup, AWS will walk you through creating your first instance (server).
Just select the Linux platform, the OS+App and the “LAMP” blueprint.
This will create a server with all the necessary services to host your rapidweaver website.
However, now you must decide on how much disk space you require for your instance. 20gb is the smallest for $3.50 per month and that will be plenty to host some pretty big sites.
Then add your login details to rapidweaver and publish. SSL comes as standard.
If you want to host all your video on the same server then the cost becomes $80 per month. However there are bandwidth limitations if your videos are played a lot. More than 7tb a month.
If you want to use your server to stream video then be prepared to pay for the CPU and bandwidth.
Dead simple, I had a lightsail server up and running in less than 10 minutes.
First you need to get the details of your instance so in AWS click into your instance (click the 3 vertical dots (elipses) and select manage) and you will see this page so make a note of your ip address, your username and also click on the account page and download your public key.
In RW, create a new project and new website. Click on General and fill in the web address as https://“your IP address”. You need to use the IP address from stage 1 as at the moment you have no domain name associated with this server.
Click on publishing and you want publishing setup.
Select SFTP
The server is your IP address from stage 1
The username is what you wrote down in stage 1.
The password must be blank.
Change the path to exactly as you see it in my screenshot
The website address should be your IP address which is taken from the General settings. It should match the server address above.
Tick “Use Public Key Authentication” and click on choose private key. This will be the ssh key file you downloaded earlier from your account page.
That’s it. Publish your site then browse to it. Warning you will get a certificate error but this can be ignored and sorted once you get the domain name sorted and a certificate created for the domain.
At the moment, go and build some pages and upload them. Have a play and learn.
When you finish for the day, turn off your instance. You get 750 hours free but only while it’s turned on I think. Needs clarification.
