To kick off with, we migrated Sustaining Dunbar onto the platform and created a number of project sites, such as BeGreen Dunbar & District.  The old site in a matter of months had become decidedly cramped and it was difficult to reconcile sometimes competing demands.  Only a week has passed, but everything seems to be working surprisingly well and all excited by the new possibilities.

A clutch of new sites have also been created, but we’ve yet to open up access to the masses.  We’re happy to set anyone up who asks, nicely of course.

Next up are thematic and geographic networks.

If you are going to use svn make sure you have it.  On Debian,

# apt-get update
# apt-get install subversion
# apt-get install libapache2-svn

(http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_subversion_websvn for more svn info.)

Then get yourself the latest WP

(http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing/Updating_WordPress_with_Subversion)

Navigate to your working directory (root)

# svn co http://core.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/ .

Then create your database and user.

Navigate to your installation and supply the database info.

You’ll probably be asked to create wp-config.php manually.

Login to see it is working as expected.

Create and chmod the uploads directory to 777

You may need to chown -R ftp-name * to use ftp.

Now add to wp-config.php

/** The Go Multi Site. */
define (‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true  ) ;

And under tools, a new option appears: Network.

Follow the instructions to set up with subdomains or folders (mapping domains to blogs apparently unconstrained by which option now).

Update your .htaccess and wp-config.php files.

You are done.

Each migration presented new problems and issues, uncovering some of the idiosyncrasies of Google Apps.

The Jekyll and Hyde problem occurs when existing users are already using their new Google Apps email address to access consumer Google services like Gmail.  On setting up the new Google Apps accounts, we learnt quickly that it was best to first decouple such user’s current email address from the old Google account.

Then their was the problem of migrating web only email users to their Google Apps.  We used the handy IMAP gmail-backup tool for this, as this is supported by consumer Gmail.  Thousands of emails and complex labels were transferred with minimum errors and fuss.

Then there were Windows Mail users, which we transferred by first exporting the emls and underlying folder structure to Thunderbird.  Then we flattened the hierarchy and reduced the number of items in each folder – some had several thousands of emails.  We then created an IMAP connection with Google Apps and then simply copied the folders over (remembering to be online or the copy won’t do anything at all!).  This is slow, so it might be easier to swap the settings in prefs.js to make a POP account IMAP, though synchronisation speed is unlikely to be improved.

For migrating Google Docs, we used Gladinet’s handy tool to link up to Gmail and Google Apps and simply dragged and dropped, not the fastest transfer – but it worked without error.

For small uncomplicated (few folders, few emails) email accounts based on Outlook or Thunderbird, the the Google Email Uploader is quite handy.  In the past this has worked well on larger accounts, but it doesn’t match the IMAP job which clusters conversations well and creates labels to boot, without errors.

Ourlocality.org

Direct Joinery Services

Migrating to Google Apps @ Sustaining Dunbar

Edinburgh Sash & Case Windows

Dickson & Co Accountants

Linda Fleming

Map facilities at Sustaining Dunbar

Sustaining Dunbar

Paul Musgrove Prints

Graham Muir Glass Artist

Ann Rocks

Templelands Self Catering Holiday Flat

Whether you are looking at being be more productive or collaborate more effectively or simply want to create a conversation with your customers/audience.  Or perhaps you are looking to better integrate your systems.
What we won’t do

We won’t waste money on things that you don’t think will help your business.

We won’t shackle you with dated technology that only experts can drive.

We won’t even punish if you then decide to work with others, in fact we’ll make the migration as smooth as possible.

Baffle you with jargon. (Interrupt us the moment we do!)

Tell you that we know when we don’t or pretend something is easy when it isn’t, or the other way around for that matter. (Though not everything is what it seems, so we reserve the right to change our mind!)

Tell you you need some newfangled function, if you don’t.

Tell you you need X or Y, if you don’t.

What we will do

We will explore your requirements and translate these into a manageable solution. This involves quite a lot of toing and froing initially. When this doesn’t happen we often get the fatal “expectations gap”.

We will ensure customers and suppliers can find you and your products / services really easily.

We will strive to give you the best of what is available today and will upgrade so that it will also work tomorrow.

We will leverage your budget (ok we promised no jargon – get more for less!).

We will give you access to a bag full of tools that will help you tailor further investments in the site.

We will provide you with the hands-on training, mentoring & support to get you going.

If you have rather more complex requirements or are really pernickety about design we’ll marshall those skills too, but make sure your budget covers this!

Some projects go off course:

• poor specification (e.g. it is not always easy to articulate your requirements clearly)
• insufficient time to devote to it (e.g. without some understanding of your new system you may not get the most out of it)
• what’s  important changes (e.g. you wanted to get started quickly and cheaply, but on reflection …)
• erratic communications (e.g. we get feedback only weeks or months after we complete a task or piece of work)

We will try to avoid all these common problems and tell what can and cannot be done within your budget.

We will try and respond to all your questions or instructions promptly, which often means within hours but not days or weeks.  If you ever have concerns we are just a phone call away and are always happy to meet with you on your own premises.

Deceptively simple on the surface, it’s nevertheless unique and really very clever under the bonnet.

The underlying database development was led by Lightenna, who built it on a solid open source CMS framework (employed inter alia by MTV-UK, Greenpeace and The Onion) and extending it with a string of custom built modules.

Get in touch via the contact form to discuss.