Website Ideas

clueless!

Ok so I just finished a 2 year Diploma in Computing. I did Programming, Web Development, Networks & Databases in it.
Now as I will be free for sometime I thought why not put to use what I have learnt and creat a website!?
The Idea I have is to create a Website for me where I can store my Videos, files etc.
It's something like I can log in with my user name and password and from there on I can upload, download my files whatever. I want this all to be in a certain order. Like I save my files as albums where a picture is displayed identifying the folder etc
Also maybe allow my friends who I will provide a username and password to comment on it.

So basically I want to know what technology do you think you will use for all this!? For the website, database, file storage and comments!?

This sounds a bit complicated but I am hoping for some ideas, I don't have to follow what I explained above! All I want to do is save and retrieve files, comment on them and provide security, log in etc.

I'm sure someone will have done something like this, So looking forward for some ideas!

Cheerz

louie

what did you learn? ASP, PHP,.net, JS

It's easier to start with what you know.
If you didn't learn any of them, what did they teach you in 2 years?
For any of them you could use MySql as database.

clueless!

learnt quite alot actually! But ASP, JSP, JS is more or less what I'd like to do. As I studied quite a bit incase I didn't do something even that will be fine as if its something related to what I have studied that I can learn something new as well!
More or less I have an idea what I want but I dont know how to save files thats the thing! I mean how to I put the videos on the server? I don't think you can use SQL for that! or else I must not have studied this part of it!

louie

to put a file on the server using web pages you will use file upload function and form:

<form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input name="upload" type="file" />
</form>

and server side code (php, asp, ...) to write it to the server and add a link to it into the database (if you are using one).

Another way is the ftp the files on the server manually (faster) and create links to them.

Adam

Not to jump on your back here but you said you did programming and databases... and you don't know how uploading a file can be done or how it would work?? I'm baffled... can I ask where you studied?

clueless!

Yea never learnt to upload a file! We didn't give too much time to study web development thou, maybe thats why! By programming i mean we did C, Java.
Web development work was the easy rubbish type, HTML, Javascript and basic of ASP, JSP etc.
Thats exactly why I want to do this website so that I can learn more!


Programme Structure
Modules for Year 1

Introduction to Programming and Data Structures
Networks and Administration
Information and Office Technology
Mathematics 1
Business Communications
Systems Analysis

Modules for Year 2

Computer Systems
Database Design & Programming & Human Computer Interaction Concepts
Mathematics 2
e-Business Strategy
Programming for the Internet >>>>>>>>>> As you see its only this much for web development!

comer_97

Don't worry about Mirror's comments.

There is a lot of IT and programming out there other than web programming. And you are just asking some questions. Good luck with the site.

NiallKelly

Hi,

Since you've learnt some Java, I'd recomend using that rather than php/asp. What you should think about is what type of framework you'd like to learn. i.e. you could just use standard jsp & servlets, but this generally leads to a bad design.

I'd have a read about basic servlets & jsp, and look up some material on MVC design patterns, and then Struts. There's loads of examples around. JSF is the next big one which is getting popular - but I think struts is a good one to start with. There's a lot to take in at first, but there's no point in using plain old jsp and mixing it with java code - you might aswell be using php in that case!

Niall

warrenaldo

id definetly go for the JSP, Servlets way - Java is very handy for web development. I am using a Tomcat Application Server with a SQL Server DB.

I am storing images on the DB in BLOB format but i dont think this is the way to go.

If you are going to do this with ASP, Java or something similar then i would recommend not storing the actual image/video on the DB but instead store a varchar which will be the filename(+ location) on the Server. And then work from there.

Tons of info on the net about this kind of stuff.

Other alternative is to use something like plone - content managment sytems.
They are specifically designed for static pages where you can upload download files - and have security.

best of luck.

Adam

comer_97 wrote:

Don't worry about Mirror's comments.

There is a lot of IT and programming out there other than web programming. And you are just asking some questions. Good luck with the site.

I think I'd rather you didn't worry about my comments either. My assumption was based on the OP in which he stated what he had studied in laymans terms. Now excuse me for taking it that he did quite a bit on web development when he put it second on his list and didn't mention anything about it being a minimal part of his course.

democrates

Before you design anything check out hosting costs for the space you'll need particularly for the video files.

The cheap solution might be to use flickr to store images and you tube for your videos, then your site has the fancy media organisation facilities - sort it any way you want but the media are sourced from the other sites.

smcelhinney

www.javazoom.net has a good file upload facility based on the commons-fileupload implementation from jakarta.apache.org.

This should do what you require. Alternatively, mess around with commons-fileupload and come up with your own implementation. Always more fun, more headache too, but more fun..

clueless!

I was going down the JSP way, that makes it easier for logins and stuff but as mentioned the design is really bad! Plain text etc... I have managed to get an HTML file into a jsp file so the header and footer is an html file with better designs. Is there any other way to do this to make it look better!?

And what about for comments and stuff, do I save it to the database as plain text!? I wanted to use some software instead.
Does anyone know how the Bebo site is made!? I think i'll do it something like that, Saves Pictures, Comments and can even play a video file.