3...2...1... Launching Your Website

by Dan Ficker | at MinneBar 12

Overview

You have created a beautiful, shiny new web site or a stellar partner has created one for you. It is ready to launch and usually someone just hands it over to a server administrator or the DevOps team. Instead, this time you are the launch team. Don’t panic. This session will give you the knowledge to understand what you need to make it a smooth launch.

To launch, you need various pieces of information about domains, DNS, SSL and more. You then have to set these up correctly. If you do so, you should have a smooth launch of your new site.

This session is for any developer or website stakeholder who wants to better understand how the Internet works and how visitors come to and interact with the website. There is not any code, but there will be talk of how the Internet works and resources on how to configure a site to be secure and serve visitors well. To explain domains and DNS, the session will get a bit nerdy about networking, but it should be accessible to folks who do not work in IT.

Topics Covered
  • Gathering domain ownership information.
  • Setting up DNS records or getting DNS changed smoothly.
  • Requirements and recommendations for SSL encryption and implementation.
  • Evaluation of hosting requirements and hosting options.
  • Considerations from moving from an old site to a new site.
My Experience

This session is based on the presenter’s 12+ years of building, launching and maintaining dozens of websites both freelance and at a design/development agency. From launching a brand new site to moving an existing live site from one server to another, I have launched hundreds of sites on various hosting environments.

Beginner

Dan Ficker

Dan Ficker has been building websites since 1997, when he wanted to tell the world which rock bands he was a fan of. Since then, he has helped build hundreds of websites, most of them using the PHP programming language. He went to college, learned more about development in Java and Oracle, but still builds websites, these days most often using the Drupal or WordPress content management systems built on top of PHP. In the past 14+ years of professional development, he has built and worked on the PHP code, MySQL queries, HTML output, and performance of hundreds of websites. Dan still gets excited when a band he's a fan of comes to town and enjoys learning about other areas of technology.