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This is the final article covering the club’s website NCR-PCA.ORG. In the first two articles we reviewed the history of the website and what members can do at the website. In this article we will look under the hood to see what makes it go. The first two articles can be found in the March and April issues of Northlander and at this link.
Same goal - impressive growth!
The goal of website today is the same as it was in 1998 “communicate to club members the club’s activities and information”. Before we look under the hood, let’s set the context for the evolution of the website by comparing several key measurements.
These are all very impressive increases. The most impressive is our photographers, volunteers, and members have managed to store more than a thousand photos per year.
More, faster, and smaller!
Today’s technology doesn’t just keep up, it takes off. The website now delivers more content, at blazing speeds, with hardware that can fit in your pocket.
Back when Bob Tucker first built the website while working at a local technology provider, it ran on a compact, proprietary system. It was impressive for its time but limited by the tools available. Today, the website lives in a modern data center and runs entirely on open‑source software. That shift alone has fueled the explosive growth you see below.
And the hardware story is even more dramatic. The comparison image says it all — a typical smartphone today outmuscles a 1998 personal computer by a factor of a thousand and even leaves a 1998 server in the dust by a factor of a hundred. The leap in capability is nothing short of extraordinary.
It’s the software!
Although the increase in computation, storage and communication capabilities is very impressive, the greatest impact on how we interact with the website is the evolution of software over the last three decades. In 1998, most software was proprietary and there were very few tools for website development. Today, website development is the primary focus of software development.
The downside to these improvements in capability and connectivity is the worldwide exposure of the website intended for North Country Region club members. These guests visit the website to download the photos and articles, SPAM the email addresses and hack the credentials associated with the site. It is no longer possible for an individual to keep a site secure; fortunately, there are services available to mitigate the situation.
The Hosting Service
In 2005 the website was moved to a webhosting service. Now known as HostGo.Com, the service provides the domain name, IP address, file storage, SSL certificate and email server via the cPanel interface. The cPanel browser interface shown below allows the administrator to manage and maintain the email server, file storage, backups, databases, Cron jobs, and security.
In addition to the security provided by HostGo.Com, the site is scanned by a daily website malware scanner from sucuri.net.
The final tool used to monitor the site is Google Analytics. This service allows tracking of the location of active users by country and city to determine what they find interesting area at the website. The graph below shows their country location.
In March of this year, the club’s website was placed in the Cloudflare environment to minimize the site traffic from countries without active members.
Finally, the website!
The content for the site is partitioned into two areas. The first is the Photos Archive managed by the Coppermine Photo Gallery application. This application includes all the photos from 2001 to 2016. The second area is NCR-PCA.ORG and is managed by the Joomla! content management system. Joomla! was selected in 2007 and the initial version installed was 1.0.15. Twenty-seven updates later, the website uses Jooma! 5.4.2 with version 6.1 to be installed in the next few months.
Joomla! provides a browser interface to administer the website’s templates, articles, banners, contacts, menus, modules and users as shown below:
Additionally, core extensions are licensed annually to support the club’s event, photos and Northlander PDF indexing.
The impact of technology on the club’s website over the last three decades has been massive. Both hardware and software improvements have allowed a more robust and comprehensive member website.
There is one final note concerning technology. Microsoft Copilot assisted with research for this article and created the article’s images.
What’s next?
That completes the story of NCR-PCA.ORG with chapters on its history, functionality, and technology. What’s the next chapter for the club’s website? If you are interested in assisting with the next chapter contact the Acting Website Chair.