Any one tried Phpcow?

I looked at Vivvo, and think it looks very promising.....alas, it doesn't offer multi page article capabilities. right now I have the switch down to either Article Manager 2.1 or Article Live NX, with us probably switching to Article Manager

 

This is not a reply to Capper.
I'm NOT from PHPCow but I help them with marketing. This is my business and I charge my customers for that.

If someone is really looking for reliable CMS Solution, I'd recommend to start by checking from google vulnerabilities, where you can find lots of interesting things about vivvo and article manager:

http://securitydot.net/search.php?sch=sch&metaname=all&query=vivvo
http://securitydot.net/vuln/exploits/vulnerabilities/articles/19769/vuln.html
http://secunia.com/advisories/21855/
http://secunia.com/advisories/15971/
http://secunia.com/product/6140/?task=statistics
http://secunia.com/advisories/17585/

also:
http://www.google.com/search?q=vivvo+vulnerabilities
http://www.google.com/search?q=Interspire+vulnerabilities
http://www.google.com/search?q=Joomla+vulnerabilities

For each case, there are tons of results, security bugs of various types, some critically dangerous.

Have you heared a popular websites went down because of security holes in CMS Systems? I think yes.

PHPCow has 0 (zero) vulerabilities. That's fact and it is not negotiable. Anyone can simply validate that on google or other sites.

===============================

Bugs of PHPCow reported on other sites - mostly posted by the same persons, just because they could not understand the script functionality but never got a refund. PHPCow has 7 day free trial to test everything before ordering. Why just not try it?

================================

I know quite a lot of giant sites that use phpcow succesfully during years. Just PM me to get some other hints on CMS Script comparison. I'd be happy provide the information.
bye
tomtom.

 

How will they find many insecurities in phpcow when it is zend encoded cmstom? Out of all the many cms'es around the one that I actually liked was WScraft from WSCraft.com and ExpressionEngine by EllisLabs.

 

zend encoded for sure as it's great for:
- optimizing source and performance
- securing source from being rebrended

check more at: http://www.zend.com/products/zend_guard
protecting of source is an adventage in fact.

WSCraft is great and there are no known vulnerabilities.
It's CMS though not news publishing system.

i remember days when Nephp from nelogic and article manager by interactivetools and many others were promoting all over the net. I can hadly find some sites using them anymore. Are you interested why is that?

Again - reliability, performance, quality that makes sence:
http://www.google.com/search?q=nelogic+vulnerabilities
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/15584
few others i've grabbed:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/447190
http://secunia.com/product/10121/
http://www.securitynewsportal.com/s...d_Cross-Site_Scripting_Security_Vulnerability
http://www.google.com/search?q=AlstraSoft+Article+Manager+vulnerabilities

We all know even microsoft cms is buggy and insecure:
http://secunia.com/search/?search=microsoft+cms
http://secunia.com/advisories/7927/
Paying thousand but still getting insecure system? but that's not fair!

Zend is one of the adventage for sure to protect the source but at lest half of those systems I mentioned above are source protected by zend, ioncube etc... But they were reported on secunia portals anyway. I don't promote the PHPCow this way but just providing facts. Noone could hack the PHPCow, there are daily attacks on PHPCow servers though as I know. That's cyber war. The following thread is a great demonstration of that as well. You all have to calm down guys and check facts.

So what can you do guys to get the right system?
Answer is simple: analyze each CMS carefully. Check the adventages and disadvantages. Sort them by priority iike: compare features, working examples, flexibility, security reports, usability and finally at least test trial it before ordering!

I can provide free consultation service in PM or by email cmstom at gmail.
cheerz
tomtom

 

Few May not believe that we are not from PHPCow. We are an independent organization on a different continent from PHPCow and we are very much into building sites based on PHPCow (amongst other things) and we have done sites in the range of 2100-8000$. We had offered help to one disgruntled poster here but got loads of "ABUSE" on email. So he shut his own channel by doing that.

Yes managing servers we as a company are security Paranoid Admins also. We are not willing to compromise on security we are always willing to talk over on few features which our clients feel should be there but is not there. We spent three months researching and talking to staff on chat before buying the first copy at 850$ (Branded license was that much that time). To us their attitude, their competence in English (or for that matter any service provider) never mattered. We needed something which is flexible enough in controlling layout (and not just another Joomla/Xoops/Runcms/ clone).

We always offer help to clients who are told by their host that server loads are kicking up because the PHPCow script is horrible. It's because of this that one dedicated client from aplus shifted. We are not here promoting or marketing ourself we are just stating facts which are entirely based on 10 clients that we have built sites for.

There are independent security vulnerability sites and use your judgment and not go by hearsay. It's good someone posted those links. We didn't as we were always presumed to be PHPCow unfortunately.

Believe me we had a long list of 12 CMS's under review (free and commercial) before we settled for 850$. For us price never mattered. We needed support which we always got and today we have 8 branded licenses under our account alone and four more to go.

Good Luck to all looking for alternatives to PHPCow. There are companies which are doing google adwords with keywords as "PHPCOW Alternative..." which i had personally seen few months back. It's a PITY that so called CMS's have to Promote themselves by taking name of other products. Pathetic. We are not naming that company here though they were also under scrutiniy when we were evaluating CMS's befor buying. Good to see professionals coming in and posting.

AND BTW, to us ENGLISH perfection (or imperfection) never mattered as we are clients to many companies who have outsourced their support to UKRAINE, INDONESIA etc. We deal with them as patiently as we deal with any other service providers. To quote we have Italian / Spanish/ French clients. We know no French/Spanish/Italian but still they are happy. Sensible people know internet world runs from different continents so they don't bother about perfection in languages.

Cheers
HyTC

 

The silliness continues. I'll give you credit for admitting affiliation with PHPCow, but even for a marketing guru, claiming any software package to be completely free from security vulnerabilities is a stretch of the imagination, and very much misleading. The Linux community doesn't even make such claims.

But for argument's sake, let's say the impossible were true, and PHPCow found the magical programming combination to create a software package free of any security threats (make sure your programmers submit their resumes to Microsoft, no sense in hoarding this unique ability for just a CMS program). The fact remains that, in our case, PHPCow threatened to nuke our site. That's an unacceptable threat for any reason (let alone for posting a negative testimonial), and from a paid lifetime customer's perspective, that's a pretty big vulnerability...

EDIT: Also keep in mind that ALL complaints about PHPCow in this thread have pertained to non-security issues. In essence, the quoted post is the equivalent of someone complaining that a certain make/model of car gets poor gas mileage and that the air conditioning doesn't work, and then having a marketing guru respond that the car's power locks work really well.

 

I'll add a bit about the "Abuse " email.....I figure when I ask you FOUR times to stop emailing me with stuff like

Seriously.....who's abusing who.....how many times have I asked you to stop emailing me? I'm not here asking for help, I've given up, and when people look at my experience, plus those around the web, they should have a pretty good idea of how PHPCOW treats people.

As far as support, on more than one occasion, I've had issues with PHPCOW....and its NEVER their fault, then they end up banning my email account from submitting support tickets, and just close email submissions.

We're done with the issue, we're in the process of moving to another CMS, and I'll say we'll never recommend this crap program to anyone. It might well be the most secure program ever designed, but when you look at all the other issues combined, why would you use it?

 

It would have been lot better if you would also have pasted the mail where you abused (and post verbatim) and then ask who is abusing who. BTW we consider email communications as private and never ever would post mail contents on public forum. For us it's impossible to wake a person up who is pretending to be sleeping.

You have given up and the Powered by PHPCow is gone from your site. Yet site runs on PHPCow. Contradictions galore.

Try documentum.com cms and see what they do upon your first communication post purchase with same attitude.

Try phpcow.com (100+ hosted phpcow clients on same server) and hardwarelogic.com (apparently just that site on a 279$/Mo dedicated server) and see:

host-tracker.com/check_res_ajx/485206-0/ phpcow dedicated server with 100+ hosted phpcow clients
host-tracker.com/check_res_ajx/485213-0/ hardwarelogic on INMOTIONHOSTING

One can run these tests again and again realtime. 30+ random location test results are going to be repesentative enough for any technical person in sound state of mind to draw conclusions about HOST. If we label any host as CRAP we mean it we just don't say for sake of saying it.

Good Luck
HyTC

 

yes security is N1 and my posts clearly explain and demonstrate examples. PHPCow is secured enough and yes, that's an adventage. Noone wants to run the website, add content, wake up one day and realize that his website was hacked, all articles, database or files on FTP were deleted. PHPCow does not require any single file or folder with 666 or 777 chmod permission but all files 644 and folders 755 as server default. There is NO example on the NET that PHPCow driven site was hacked!

Flexibility? Sure PHPCow is a leader there as well. See http://www.phpcow.com/?c=146 templates. Those skins were made with no coding experience, no php or html is needed to create a cnn, bbc, mtv, espn like skins and run the news site. There are other news publishing systems e.g. by Interspire, Alstrasoft, Interactivetools... but all of them require you to be an expert of HTML, PHP, JS etc...
Professional programmer and php master would never purchase CMS system but write his own.

Reliability and speed: security with performance and html markup optimization. Check any website driven by PHPCow, they load extremly fast. Even on shared hostings with ten thousands of visits daily. OK Even for Mr. Capper site hardwarelogic. see:
1. http://www.vertain.com/m.q?req=cstr&reqid=d9zBEmq7
(result 2.78 sec using 10 mbps T3 connection, faster then cnn, weather.com) - tooo nice!
Same average results can be achieved by checking:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
http://www.bloggingmix.com/2007/07/website-speed-test.html
http://www.eonenet.com/tool/speed_test.htm
or any other...

Features: Ok, we can split that by 2 parts: must to have and accessories like. Nukes, Postnukes has all together but noone build sites with nukes anymore. It become tooo fat and lost the usability.
PHPCow has almost all features that industry standard require: WYSIWYG Editor, RSS/XML, Flash/Audio/Video support, gallery for article photos, blocks for content retrieval and easy customization, user/group management with advanced permission level, unlimited category depth, dynamic menu creating on thefly, template export/importing tool, template backup/restore, automatic archiving, voting, searching, navigation breadcramb, comments, multi-pages, authors, patches updated automatically in control panel and many more coming in new version this year.

Pricing started from $845 2 year ago, it's $445 now for branded license. basic package with the same features starting from $100, Hosted from $19/mo. Price includes 1 year access to member area to download templates and support by tickets/livechat. 1 template at templatemonster starting from apptox. $50 and CMS Systems price range $100-$10 000. PHPCow pricing is quite fair I think with 18 professional template.

Support
what is support:
1. software functionality assistance (PHPCow provides that in livesupport directly on your control panel to demonstrate all)

2. timely response on tickets (PHPCow guarantees to reply within 24 hour)

3. script mistake fixes (All errors and bug reports are anaylized and fixed within 1-2 day, patch is published then which is automatically delivered to all customers. There has been no site from http://www.google.com/search?q=powered+by:phpcow that was temporarely closed because of delay with fixes. That can be verified as well by emailing/calling to site owners.

and last comment - I never say to trust my post but to check and verify with few clicks in google.
thanks
tomtom

 

for cmstom:

What we love most as security paranoid admins is the absence of nobobody.nobody (or whatever the webserver runs as) file ownerships. This was one of the most HEAVY WEIGHT Factors which had PHPCow in our severely narrowed down pre purchase analysis list where we simply started eliminating all requiring those sort of user.group ownerships.

vivvo forum is littered with instances of ..... "Oh I am hacked...... I personally know a client who shifted from vivvo who lost everybit on being hacked and shifted to phpcow. as for interspire articlelive, My Pre Sales Ticket went unanswered for six months. Nothing can be worse than a pre sales ticket unanswered for 6 months and when i contacted them again letting them know what a horrible pre-sales incidence it was they said "Oh not sure how your ticket was marked as Closed without replying" So interspire is ruled out permanently from any of our future shopping spree. As for interativetools i can't say much when they disowned HTMLArea completely few years back.

 

you're exactly right.....I did call you a f()cking idiot.....after I asked you three times to stop emailing me, and after you had yourself made some rude comments.

As to still using PHPCOW, I'm currently hand transferring 170+ articles, and cleaning up the awful coding that even PHPCOW has acknowledged several times as problematic.......so much so that they have tried to use another editor. We'll be done with you and your program as soon as i can finish transferring the content. You have no problem pointing that out, but not the fact that I'm out $445 from this experience.

You also selectively address issues, and like the rest of PHPCOW, are quick to point the finger at everyone else, but never accept responsibility for your actions.

I've pointed out your dishonesty.....the fact that you never posted here until I complained to PHPCOW, then suddenly you spend a lot of time defending them. I think you'd have a little more credibility if I were the only one complaining.

Also, if the rest of your staff (PHPCOW) weren't such ******, we probably wouldn't have left....you're either bi-polar, or habitual drug users......and I'm far from the only one to point this out.....I'm also still waiting for someone on staff at digital point to get back to me on the IP used with my account here to edit a post.......which was clearly edited by someone with a poor graps of grammar.

From the beginning, this issue has been 90% customer service problems, and 10% software problems.......and you know as well as I do that we worked very hard with PHPCOW. I still have emails from them thanking me for my help pointing out issues and suggesting customizations to make the program better.

I'll also say, that this issue would have been dropped long ago had you not kept posting insulting and accusiatory posts. I don't like being confrontational, or fighting......but I will definitely stand up for what I feel is right. I'm not the one who pushed this to this point, you, and PHPCOW did that.

Lastly, I'd like for you to point out where exactly I'm posting about PHPCOW, aside from here....again in response to someone editing my post (Strangely, my username and password here are the same as they are for PHPCOW).

I've moved on, maybe you should do the same.

 

Capper:

Whichever country or culture you hail from, at least here those **** or it's variants aren't taken in right spirit. It may be a symbol of "Friendly" greeting in your area but it's definitely not taken to be so. There's no place for dictatorship in democratic world order for sure. Have breakfast before you post the next one.

As i said it's impossible to wake up a person pretending to be sleeping.
With CMS change your host also. They have horrible stats to prove on hos-tracker analysis.

Good Luck in your abusive campaigns. Thankfully you were honest this time at least for a change.

EDIT: Since you are switching CMS and your major complain (apparently) has been editor, never go interspire way. You will find no difference there. So if editor is area of concern, ignore interspire entirely from your PHPCow Alternatives options list. In fact most WYSIWYG editors will behave this way.

Cheers
HyTC

 

I'd recommend not to abuse each other. This is for any member posting, copying or writing with such manner. Original post is related to PHPCow software and support and not chit-chat. Rather read my posts to do comparison.

 

I'm always honest....for you to imply otherwise is pretty slanderous.

As to being abusive, we've covered that, and I posted your email to prove a point....I asked you repeatedly to STOP emailing me, and you kept on, making rude comments. etc.

As I said, I don't like fighting with people, but i will stand up for what I think is right......We'll see, hopefully Digital Point will come forward with the IP of who edited my post to say i was happy with PHPCOW(Whoever did did a poor job, as they left the "Are you serious comment" before posting how happy we are in abd English).

Also, if you want to bring up honesty and integrity, lets bring up your ties to PHPCOW, and your financial dependence on them, and them on you, then lets ask why you are defending them so strongly.

Google HardwareLogic (Another example of your dishonesty, nowhere anywhere here did i post my site name or link), I guarantee you'll find nothing negative about me, my site, or staff........and if you Google PHPCOW, you won't see such a rosey picture

 

exactly, but this person doesn't seem to understand what "Stop emailing me" means, and also doesn't seem to understand i was sharing my experience with PHPCOW....or the fact I have a problem with someone editing my post. Like i've pointed out many times, Google PHPCOW, and you'll see I'm far from the only one with problems with these people.

 

I do understand if requested.
I do not understand if ordered.
There's a way of doing it.

As for financial dependence of our company on PHPCow, well phpcow clients with us hardly for 7% of total client base of hosting with us. Rest we do projects on Oracle RDBMS, Custom RoR projects and the likes which are 10 times more huge in terms of financial implications, own and operate country's one of the oldest and largest legal portal (a 40,000 judgements site -- PAID Access), SEO consultation ... list is huge. Just to let you know we are in 8th year of operations so that should be an indicator whether we depend on external sources for survival. I am not in the habit of posting links on forum as i do not need links backs for PR. We are a pretty high PR site ourself.

Good luck.
HyTC

 

Please guys calm down. We're not fighting here. This is not the right place.

Capper: Great that you found the right alternative system. As a neutral observer, i would always try to help confused buyers with more qualitative details rather than subjective long story writings which have no value. No Software is perfect. It's just that people who adapt to software quickly are happy and those who want software to adopt their likes and dislikes are more often than not disgruntled. I always suggest to my clients --- Adapt to software:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=4324619&postcount=62
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=4325274&postcount=64
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=4332132&postcount=69
Capper, you may have problem with PHPPCow support or some person there but this is not my business. My job is to promote the features of PHPCow and do comparison with other CMS SYstems that PHPCow is really a great choice. I have more facts to show just contact me guys.

HyTC: I would suggest that since almost all that you could do is done for bringing the thread to close (which is not happening) it would be nice that you service new clients for people who are willing to go for custom sites based on PHPCow

btw got 15 mail by thread readers already willing to suggest them the right CMS so i as a consultant getting more potential customers
thanks
tomtom

 

What kind of discussion is it? all the posters seems to be having lots of spare time writing long posts. i don't have enough time to read all these long posts.

few lines from my experience with phpcow

i had to work on phpcow for a client (i spent days understanding how things work and teach the client how to work in that complex backend). if you are satisfied with what you see in their demo and if you think you can live with it ever-after, go for it.

you can not modify/change things in it, even if you want the dropdown menu to work a little different way you can not change it(everything encode, you will never know if an expert doing some greate script or a novice experimenting with php). the version i worked on does not go well with firefox specially the admin panel.

my advice - ask for a full featured demo, spend some time, see if you can do what you want and go for it or leave it.

 

Exactly. No company with bad script would ever offer free trial (a free ride of their tail). We rarely use the built in menu system .... we prefer css menus more so we do it and just put the css and html in template. As for Blocks we use only CUSTOM Blocks.

Thanks
HyTC

 

OK I am off. I never wanted to come back but since abuses we take personally so showed up. Right we have 2 clients for custom templating in queue so signing off.

However if a Abuse is hurled again i'll show up again.

Cheers
HyTC