How to Set Up a Gift Website?

falzbro writes "I'm considering giving my parents their very own website for the holidays. However, it's harder than anticipated to find any type of Content Management System whose intended audience is a computer illiterate family. I personally use Drupal for content and Gallery for photo albums, and frankly can't stand PHPNuke. The only features required would be a blog of sorts and a photo album. I can't be the first one in this predicament, can I?"

Comments

.mac

[larry bagina]

you won't have the vanity of familysmith.com, but if your parents have a macintosh, iPhoto does makes web photo journals nice and easy.

.Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Get them an iMac with a .Mac account. It handles all your needs :)

You gunna pay for it forever?

[Kris_J]

Buying someone a service (or a pet) as a gift is, well, stupid is the most positive thing I can think of. Don't buy people things that need money fed into them forever.

Rethink this

[cybermace5]

If your parents are as computer-unsavvy as you claim, they will not use this. Maybe, with your help, a couple family photos and a minimal blurb of self-awareness "Hey, this is our website and it works!"

After that, it will be as static as if it were etched in a stone tablet. Any updates will be done by you when you're visiting, you'll show them how to update the site, they'll nod and smile, and then it will be etched in stone again until you come back.

Just go ahead and buy them a new clock or a DVD player or a warm blanket. Better than saddling them with something that will be perceived as a responsibility and continual drudgery.

PHPnuke ?

[HansF]

Jeez, what is PHPnuke doing mentioned in this post?
Phpnuke is "a news automated system specially designed to be used in Intranets and Internet. The Administrator has total control of his web site, registered users, and he will have in the hand a powerful assembly of tools to maintain an active and 100% interactive web site using databases."
So it isn't a wiki, it isn't a CMS, and it certainly isn't a blog. It's an open source project loosely based on the /. concept.
Bashing PHPnuke in this post sounds too stupid to be true, it's like bashing MySQL for not being a good word processor.

What about blogger?

[dirk]

I find it interesting that no one has suggested Blogger. While other tools are more powerful, for something simple, Blogger seems like the best idea. It is free, they can host it for you if you want, and it's even integrated into the Google toolbar. Nothing seems easier than just telling them to hit the toolbar and type in the window.