The allenhuntshow.com is an amazing, technologically advanced website that allows for a 1,900-page and growing site to be managed by one person (among other duties), with an annual budget of $300. The site can be managed using web forms through our custom designed backstage access...if you can fill out a web form you can manage the allenhuntshow.com. Now that sounds like bragging doesn't it? No, well maybe, but the real reason for this page is to show other ministries out there that they too can have a dynamically updated website, using state of the art technology, at very little cost. The following information below is purely for the endorsement of these products with no other motive than to spread the relevant information to those who might be interested (we receive no kickbacks of any kind).

• Audio Stream Shows & Sermons
• Podcast Syndicated Through iTunes & Direct-XML
• Photo Gallery
• Commentable Blog
• Forum
• Video-Stream Sermons
• Online Store
• Event Registration
• Online Giving / Non-Profit Donations
• Online Polls
• Mailing List
• Form Submission

PHP :: The heart and soul of allenhuntshow.com is the scripting language PHP. What is amazing about PHP is that it is fully functional within HTML. This means that it is easy to integrate within existing sites (whereas ASP and Coldfusion are not) and it is easy to learn step by step. If you already know HTML, you just pick up PHP steps here and there and you are good to go. The other great thing about PHP is that it is free and most web hosts out there provide it free of charge. Unlike ASP (which is owned by Microsoft), PHP is open source and considered free software by the Free Software Foundation. Which brings me to lesson number #1 about website production: free does not mean "cheap" or "bad." As you will see below, everything we use besides our web host, security certificates, and domain registration is free!
Wikipedia: PHP
PHP.net

MySQL :: Your dynamic website is only dynamic if it is pulling information from a database. Enter: MySQL. In most cases, MySQL is a free, open-source database program that allows for multiple users to work with multiple database that contain multiple tables (confused, yet?). It is actually more simple than it sounds and there are many web interfaces out there that make utilizing MySQL pretty easy (i.e. phpmyadmin). If you ask a web nerd out there that knows their stuff, they will probably get into a huge debate over which SQL database program is better (MySQL, PostgreSQL MsSQL). They all have their strengths and weakness, but we go with MySQL because it is free, fast, and generally stable and secure.
Wikipedia: MySQL
MySQL.com

Site5 :: Web hosting is a tricky thing sometimes. Most ministries out there are getting suckered by their web host for various different reasons. If you are paying anymore than about $10 a month for web hosting, you are paying way too much. The only exception would be if a web hosting company is providing website design or if your needs require a dedicated server, and then the prices would obviously be a higher. But you need to assess for yourself if the high price is worth it. Site5 is great. There are a lot of other companies out there as well that are good (Dreamhost.com would be another one), and there are a lot of other companies out there that are bad (i.e. GoDaddy.com and others). The reason why I go with Site5 is because I have yet to find as good of a value for what they offer. We pay around $8 bucks a month for a 11 GB of space, unlimited domains hosted (including domain pointers, parked domains, and subdomains), unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited FTP accounts, and over 1 TB of Bandwidth. PHP is installed and ready to go. MySQL is installed and ready to go. And they have an easy, Backstage Admin area that makes managing the site for a beginner or expert a great experience. For the really advance, they allow SSH Shell access as well. Now you can even get this cheaper as I think prices have come down since we signed up and the current price is around $5 bucks a month! Amazing! Customer service is great (all done through e-mail and they usually respond within 24 hours). I have yet to have a request (and sometimes my requests are quite "special") that they have turned down.

Joker.com :: Domain registration can also be a tricky thing if you aren't paying attention to what you are doing. We go with Joker.com because it is relatively cheap ($12 a domain). But even though you can find registration cheaper out there (i.e. GoDaddy.com), Joker.com wins us over in the fine print (or Terms of Service). With Joker.com, for all intensive purposes you actually "own" your domain during the term of your domain registration period. What this means is that Joker.com, even if offered money for the domain, has to renew your domain with you, assuming you renew before your domain expires. I am sure there are other great registrars out there, we choose to go with Joker.com



Thawte :: It was an intimidating thing when we decided we needed an online store and a method to accept credit cards. However, it ended up being a whole lot of worry for nothing. We use Thawte security certificates for our SSL needs. For those of you new to the whole process, if you ever notice a little "lock" in the corner of your browser, or if you are pointed to an https address, that requires a security certificate. I went with Thawte because they were cheaper than Verisign, and from what my research tells me, they are all the same. Verisign has more "name" recognition, but as far as security goes, it is all the same. I will give one warning though that I just found out when trying to build a mobile web payment gateway used on cell phones (tithe.mobi). For some reason, the cell phone companies don't recognize Thawte as a entrusted SSL certificate. Even though the Defense Department thinks Thawte is good enough for their needs, Verizon and others seem to disagree. So, if you are planning on needing secure mobile web interface, then go with Verisign, if not, go with Thawte.

Authorize.net :: Payment gateways for credit card processing can seem like a tricky thing. There are many options out there and they all have their different pros and cons. Some cost less up-front (or are free) but they take a higher percentage of your overall intake. Others have a monthly cost and setup cost, but take less intake. One way or another, when dealing with credit cards, a certain percentage of the intake will always be removed. We go with Authorize.net because they have a great interface, they are only about $20 bucks a month, and their percentage per transaction is about 1.8%. Depending on how many transactions you think you are going to have (we're planning on having a lot) will also determine what route you go with. If you have relatively low amount of transactions, going with something like PayPal's options can be a good, easy alternative.

Gallery :: One of the best, free internet products I have found out there is Gallery. This PHP-based photo gallery is amazing. Once installed, you have a fully functioning, Photo gallery interface that keeps the photos on your web server (which I think is a must). There are plenty or resources out there if you get stumped on anything from install to advance setup.

b2evolution :: Every good website needs a blog right? Well maybe not, but if you do want to start blogging, and I really do suggest it (if nothing else it boosts your Google Rating), then b2evolution is your program. This is a free, PHP-based web application that takes less than 10 minutes to setup and you are good to start blogging! The only thing I wish it did a better job of was handling spam comments, but there are ways around that.

phpBB :: Forums are great places for you to have online interaction with people in a manner that is convenient for everyone. phpBB is a great way to get that achieved on your own site. Many sites out there use phpBB, and it is fully customizable to your site. It might be a little tricky to setup for the beginner, but once you get rolling it is a cinch to manage. phpBB, as it names implies, is a PHP-based online forum and it too is free.

Zen-Cart :: Online shopping carts can seem like a daunting task when first considered, but Zen-Cart takes a very hard process and simplifies it. The process can be a little tricky for a beginner, but for the novice, this can be a great, free way to have an online shopping cart with out having a huge IT department dedicated to managing it.

Google Video :: I LOVE GOOGLE! All around I think they are the best company on the web. While I am not going to go in to the thousands of reasons I feel this way, I will cover two of them. First up, Google Video. Google has basically given everyone the ability to have free video streaming. Why? Because they let you upload as much video content as you can possibly imagine, in as high a web quality as you can get, and then they actually give you the embed code so you can place it on your site. Google video, mixed with a simple MySQL database means free video streaming for everyone! And if free weren't good enough for you, one more advantage Google Video provides over other video streaming companies out there like Akamai.com is that Google Videos are automatically searchable on Google. This means that you can embed video on your site and you will also have people hitting up your content when type in search words related to your content on Google. All of this is FREE!!! Amazing!

Google Hosted: Email :: We all need an e-mail solution right? Right. But what do we hate about our current e-mail providers? Well lets see...there are small e-mail bins, expensive interfaces (*cough* Microsoft Exchange), and SPAM! Google Hosted is your answer to all of that (assuming you have a small business, as currently they will only give you a max of 25 accounts, but I think that will change soon). They give you large e-mail bins (2.6 GB to be precise), with the best SPAM control I have seen out there (lets just say out of the 300 emails I received yesterday, 250 of them were spam and all of them were classified correctly). It has both a web interface to get your e-mail, or you can download it to Microsoft Outlook/Entourage using the POP3 protocol. It gives you full SMTP support, so you can send e-mail anywhere in the world! Plus, here's the best part, you get to use your own domain name. So you can have things like andy@allenhuntshow.com hosted using Google Mail. It's GREAT!

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