Creating an Intranet 1

[nelson97]

Hi, I'm looking into creating an intranet. I am not savy in any web programming language. I did find that MS FrontPage has ability to create intranet pages in their 60 min intranet kit. I'm looking for any other suggestions I can explore including info on basics of intranet building.

Thanks a lot.

 

[vacunita]

An Intranet is nothing more than a Website that is only available to computers within the same LAN. There's no real science involved.

It's going to be kind of hard to create an intranet without a basic knowledge of server-side languages.

What kind of features do you want in it?
What kind of security scheme are you looking for?

Is the Intranet going to be served by a dedicated server? Or is it going to be a Machine that does other things?








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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[nelson97]

I'd like to be able to post up documents currently stored on servers. I'm thinking of a Table of Index type format where users can click on links and view the documents. I plan on also posting up monthly company newsletters. As far as server, I was thinking of setting up on a existing file server. But not sure yet, depending on performance impact and storage capacity and other factors to consider. I'd like users to log into the intranet.

 

[vacunita]

Your requirements are quite simple to implement, with any server-side language.

It wouldn't even require that much code.

AFAIK there aren't any packages that will build an intranet for you with very simple inputs.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with whichever server-side language suits your fancy, and try to tackle it. or find someone that can develop it for you.









----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Xaqte]

I would suggest the open source alternative.

I'd like to be able to post up documents currently stored on servers.

Sounds like you need a file manager with a web interface.
Tons of these have been made.

In order to go this route, I would suggest you base your choice on the following:

1. Recent project activity
2. Widely used
3. Stable development status
4. Community support (but you got that here )
5. Free

Two reliable sources I would recommend searching is:

* Sourceforge
* Freshmeat

Suggested search terms:

* file manager

Here is one I was thinking of using myself:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/owl/

Once you get this completed, go the same route for your newsletter project. It will be easier after the file manager project.

Let us know your results!

X

 

[ShackDaddy]

If you are already running on a Windows 2003 server, you already have free access to use/install SharePoint 3.0, which, among other things, is a essentially a prefab internet with a document library that users can store documents in and track revisions to.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/download.mspx

If you are running Windows 2000 Server, you can run SharePoint 2.0 that has the same features.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/v2/default.mspx

On the matter of FrontPage, depending on the version you use, you could easily build an intranet with that, but it may be difficult to bring the document library aspect of it online, since that gets complicated and moves into having to code up database tie-ins.

As far as performance, I wouldn't worry about hosting on your fileserver. The only concern I'd have is with storage, depending on the quantity/size of the documents you are storing there.

ShackDaddy

http://www.shackelfordconsulting.com

 

[wellmoon]

For what it's worth, Lotus Domino and the client Lotus Notes can be used to create a robust intranet. If you are using these in your organisation for email it could save you getting in more software

 

[nelson97]

Thanks all for the posts...

ShackDaddy, thanks for the suggestions. I'll explore Sharepoint and see if it's something we can take advantage of.