Held a meeting to review the prototype and compare it to the existing website
Discussed templates
Viewed both websites from a laptop
Also demonstrated how the Squarespace site reformats automatically for better display on a smartphone
Discussed other template alternatives
Searched for templates that support Index pages and Gallery pages
Then viewed the demo content for each of the following:
- Avenue - the existing prototype
- Bedford
- Flatiron
- Forte
- Marquee
- Momentum
Agreed that Avenue seemed like the best choice for this purpose
Discussion about the domain - original questions
- Does your website hosting company also manage your email?
- Yes, they were doing email hosting before the website was added
- Do you want / will they - continue to manage your email if you move your website?
- Who manages your domain registration?
- It is probably managed by the company that hosts the email and existing website
- Can the current hosting company: Continue to host the email service and change DNS to point www to the new Squarespace site
Questions for the current hosting company
Who manages the tomkowoll.com domain?
Alternative 1: Is it possible to leave the current website under the tomkowoll.com domain; and move the email service to a different domain?
Alternative 2: Can they:
- Set up a new email domain - name to be provided later
- Set forwarding on the old accounts so the email automatically forwards to the new email service
- Migrate all the existing email accounts, contacts, email, etc over to the new domain
- Replace the landing page on the existing website with text and a link that will take users to a new website that will be hosted by Squarespace?
- Note that the old domain will probably be dropped after one year
Alternative 3: If tomkowoll choses to use Squarespace for web and Google Applications for email, can they:
- Set forwarding on the old accounts so the email automatically forwards to the new email service
- Migrate all the existing email accounts, contacts, email, etc over to the new Google mail service
- Replace the landing page on the existing website with text and a link that will take users to a new website that will be hosted by Squarespace?
- Note that the old domain will probably be dropped after one year
The new domain can be registered and managed through Squarespace or through the current hosting company
If the domain is registered through Squarespace - can they update the DNS record to route email to the new email domain that they will set up and host?
If the domain is registered through the current hosting company - can they add DNS entries to set www to the new Squarespace domain and add the required validation strings into the DNS?
Demonstrated the ability for user administration of the new site.
Ed gave Robert a copy of all of the photos and text from the current website via a USB stick.
Discussion about next steps:
Must pay to register the new site by Friday 27 May
Can continue to use a test domain name
But must pay about $288 to upgrade to a professional website (per year)
Note - registering a new domain through Squarespace costs an additional $20 per year
Robert will visit again on Friday 27 May
Set up a Contributor account for one employee
Grant that employee rights to manage the billing
Allow that employee to login on their own computer
Ask that employee to then use their credit card to pay for the upgrade and optional domain registratio