[Edit: Done!]
I have a website, and it sucks.
My hosting contract is about to expire, and though DreamHost has been a wonderful webhost, maintaining a website really isn’t my thing. I have minimal desire to refresh my contract.
I’ve got problems and needs.
My need is a place where I can host files and text. I want to share apps, writing, pictures, etc.
A hosting contract is not my need, it’s just a very large mallet that happens to slam down on the one little thumbtack I care about.
My problems all stem from one thing: I am not artistic. I am not a graphic designer, I do not create pretty things unless they are in some sense algorithmic. I do not like writing and maintaining HTML. I do not like writing and maintaining CSS. I would not could not create a beautiful website. I just want a place to put my things.
I like Wikis. A free wiki which I could use to host my things… nifty.
I like FogBugz. I use it for all manner of things. I’m also a FogBugz developer, so I have a bit of a deeper view on the subject than I suspect many people do, and I’m biased.
In the past, I’ve opted away from using FogBugz wikis as my method of content hosting for, really, one reason:
My wiki might live here, https://jude.fogbugz.com/?W4,
but https://jude.fogbugz.com/ isn’t personal. Sure, you can access the wiki, but this really isn’t an acceptable landing page for anyone except for people expecting to interact with FogBugz, and it’s not really ok to use an ugly url (…?W4) as my landing page.
But this has changed! As of Now, FogBugz supports Custom Landing Pages! See it in play at Developers.FogBugz.com! As of FogBugz 7.1.12 (which is awaiting deployment), FogBugz will support custom landing pages! The full functionality is still being pondered, and may be expanded, but it’s already the case that you can select a wiki to act as the landing page. Once this gets out, I’ll abandon blinkymach12.com and use jude.fogbugz.com as my primary web page. This gets me:
1. The ability to use a WYSIWYG wiki to manage all of my website content. This makes me very, very happy.
2. Wiki templates. Though I don’t enjoy managing html, css, javascript, etc., it is needed. Templates give me that control. This means that I can grab a style from CSS Zen Garden, apply that to the template, and then eat popcorn.
3. Tighter integration with FogBugz. This is a bigger deal for management than for the visitors – I can just edit the wiki whenever I need to make changes, I don’t need to fire up my SSH client and move html files back and forth. Lowering the barriers for me to update my website means more website updates. Plus, I’ll probably follow Dan’s advice and incorporate some custom case-submission forms.
4. Freeness, rather than paying DreamHost for my hosting, I just use my existing FogBugz account (which itself is free, given the ‘student and startup edition’)
I’m happy as a clam.
The only other thing that I could wish for would be the ability to alias an arbitrary url with my jude.fogbugz.com site. I’m told that this is shockingly easy, and already possible via some hackage, so perhaps it’ll be easy to automate.
If that happens, FogBugz will be able to function as a one-stop-shop for small companies- webhosting, issue tracking, project management, documents, customer relations, email, source control… really, everything except for monetization. I don’t say this as a shameless plug for FogBugz, even though it may sound that way, I say this because I’m a programmer who once tried to start a small company. The programming is the easy part- all the other stuff just… sucks. I think that FogBugz is becoming a better and better solution for these startups, and I think that it’s pretty close to being complete.
By the way, this article reflects no opinions but my own. Anything I’ve lead you to believe about the direction that FogBugz may or may not be going is wrong, so neener neener. I’m just excited that some of the aspirations I have for FogBugz are coming to pass.
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