4 ms·

Startup idea, free for the taking: create a service that "ossifies" dynamic websites into static HTML. (By ossify, I mean to take something dynamic and make it

by qeorge 12y ago

Startup idea, free for the taking: create a service that "ossifies" dynamic websites into static HTML. (By ossify, I mean to take something dynamic and make it static). For example, that WordPress site you commissioned for a movie 3 years ago? Its a huge liability, but you don't have to take it offline - just ossify it. No one is updating that blog anymore! Under the hood, it would basically be a crawler, and the deliverable would be a zip file containing a 1-to-1, static copy of their website with all URLs still working. I suspect most folks here could whip up a shitty proof of concept in 48 hours. If someone does this, email me! I have a couple of potential clients for you (I'm a former consultant, with lots of WordPress sites in my history).

j_baker 12y ago
That's basically what the wayback machine does: https://archive.org/web/ https://archive.org/web/
- qeorge 12y ago
  Yes! It would be like the Wayback machine as a service, but with some key differences: 1) The intention is that you replace your dynamic site with the static copy, but your visitors are none the wiser. All URLs are the same, as well as the content returned. Might require some .htaccess trickery. 2) It would have to preserve all the images, css, and other assets, some possibly hotlinked. (The Wayback Machine is not awesome at this, understandably)
voyou 12y ago
You can get pretty close to this, I think with: wget --mirror --convert-links http://site.example.com/ From the wget manual: --convert-links After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content, such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-HTML content, etc. The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to refer to the file they point to as a relative link. Example: if the downloaded file /foo/doc.html links to /bar/img.gif, also downloaded, then the link in doc.html will be modified to point to ../bar/img.gif. This kind of transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
juliangregorian 12y ago
This is already a product that exists many times over. Besides the aforementioned wget, I've recommended less technical users to SiteSucker, a Mac/iOS app. I'd be happy to bill your clients to do it for them though!
- qeorge 12y ago
  Here's the thing: they don't want to run SiteSucker. That's only slightly more helpful than telling them to just run wget! They want to write a check and get back to business, not become a web developer! (I think that tool is awesome though, and I appreciate the tip!)

by qeorge 12y ago

j_baker 12y ago

That's basically what the wayback machine does: https://archive.org/web/ https://archive.org/web/

qeorge 12y ago
Yes! It would be like the Wayback machine as a service, but with some key differences: 1) The intention is that you replace your dynamic site with the static copy, but your visitors are none the wiser. All URLs are the same, as well as the content returned. Might require some .htaccess trickery. 2) It would have to preserve all the images, css, and other assets, some possibly hotlinked. (The Wayback Machine is not awesome at this, understandably)

voyou 12y ago

You can get pretty close to this, I think with: wget --mirror --convert-links http://site.example.com/ From the wget manual: --convert-links After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to make them suitable for local viewing. This affects not only the visible hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content, such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-HTML content, etc. The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to refer to the file they point to as a relative link. Example: if the downloaded file /foo/doc.html links to /bar/img.gif, also downloaded, then the link in doc.html will be modified to point to ../bar/img.gif. This kind of transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.

juliangregorian 12y ago

This is already a product that exists many times over. Besides the aforementioned wget, I've recommended less technical users to SiteSucker, a Mac/iOS app. I'd be happy to bill your clients to do it for them though!

qeorge 12y ago
Here's the thing: they don't want to run SiteSucker. That's only slightly more helpful than telling them to just run wget! They want to write a check and get back to business, not become a web developer! (I think that tool is awesome though, and I appreciate the tip!)