The following screencast by Michael McGarry Chris Mattia provides an introduction to CI Keys platform, illustrating how to get up and running with your web hosting account in seconds. It’s pretty awesome, watch the first minute or two, your mind may very well be blown.
As I mentioned in my post yesterday about the various developments on the Reclaim Hosting front, CSU Channel Islands is providing their community with a subdomain of their own, something like jimgroom.cikeys.com, that gives them a fullblown cPanel-equipped web hosting environment. Not unlike the next generation of tilde spaces (/~jimgroom) I spent much of last year presenting about.
Now I understand this is not necessarily a Domain of One’s Own as UMW imagined it (where’s the domain?), but it does represent a very interesting hybrid of possbilities. The Channel Islands community has access to all the same open sources applications provides through cPanel. What’s more, at signup students and faculty alike have the option to purchase or simply point their own domain to their web hosting account if they want. I like the fact it recognizes that institutions may not be able to purchase domains for their community for whatever reason, but doesn’t preclude it as an option either. In fact, the purchasing of the domains is a significant cost when setting up a domains pilot, and may be a conversation killer for some who are interested in doing this. So an option like this might enable even more folks to experiment with such an environment for their campus. Access rules.
Finally, the way Tim Owens set this bad boy up for Channel Islands is so slick. It’s integrated with their authentication system, and it really does challenge the assumption that managing your own LAMP environment is too confusing or complicated. Damn that Timmmyboy is good. We’ve come a long way, baby! So what’s your excuse not to get with the future now, hippies?
Jim, thanks to you & Tim for all the help and support – and btw that’s not Chris on the video, it’s the amazing and talented Michael McGarry, who I now dub Keeper of the (CI)Keys.
Michael,
Ahh, my bad, I will make the edit now. And fine work with cikeys, looking good.
Hey where’s the love? I’m leading these guys to the light over here. — Srsly, there’s real palatable excitement about this at CI and I’m psyched it’s taking off. Really honored to be involved with CI Keys and to help and learn however I can. And we get to work with you and Timmmyboy. I’m sure glad we got the band back together.
I’m gonna make you work for bavalove, hippe!