Faqs

If your current center URL is centernameshambhala. org and notcentername.shambhala.org, then the webmaster or individual who registered the URL, must simply point that URL to your new URL, which will becentername.shambhala.org

We will email you a link to your old site, which will look something likethis:  old-centername.shambhala.org

Yes, there will be a detailed and up-to-date version on the 2.0 site.

Yes

Yes, but we are really hoping you to do this in 3weeks. Its important  as there are other centers who won’t be able to start their process, as they will be waiting for you to complete your process. Its like being in a restaurant where you can see a couple who has finished their meal, sat for a long while, and has settled the bill, but is not getting up to leave… 

We are not providing email addresses. You will use the email addresses that you have been using. We will only provide you with the new URL for your website.

No. Unfortunately we won’t be able to provide you with the FTP due to security reasons. Reason being that we have over 60 FTP connections to the shambhala.org server and there are lots of code on shambhala.org that isn’ t secure. We also have a tunnel running from that server to the SDB where all our precious data is held. The Shambhala server team has been suggesting quite heavily to improve server security as we have been hacked a few times the last few years. We have been lucky so far ,but there is a huge hole to patch. The main patch is to revoke FTP access for all centres. Of course we can’t do that now as then none of them would be able to access their sites. So the switch to the 2.0 WordPress sites is where we are making that transition happen.

The final plan is that the new 2.0 sites will all be in a multi site install (on the shambhala network) and that no centre will be able to install any plugs-ins as they wish. There are many shady plugins out there that seriously compromise security for the entire system, not only other centres websites but also the SDB participant data. So there is a plan in place that if a centre would like to install a plug in,they could apply to the IT team to have it reviewed and installed. Perhaps then that might benefit other centres in the mandala.

With the new 2.0 template, you can (from any computer) add pages, delete pages, add blog entries, customize text and photo’s, add new photos to the home page, edit all programs in Shambhala Database, edit features on homepage, customize features on the sidebar. You can do this from any computer, just log into the site with your shambhala account and if you are an editor of the site, you will be able to make changes.  There is no need to know any code/s and that is the beauty of WordPress. For the advance user, you can customize your design in CSS. Also, there are lots of background options and fully customizable style sheets to choose from. You will there for be able to make changes to your existing design and build a new design if this is required.

No. We have build a window into the back-end where you can edit our CSS, add CSS and javascripts that you need. This functions like a child theme in terms of design, would let you overwrite certain pages and won’t let you break the site. We did this to make it very convenient for centers who doesn’t understand child theme logic.