Thursday, July 17th, 2008
For some time, I have been looking for a versatile CMS (content management system) that would allow my mind to wander. So far, I have set up some pretty nice systems. They are meeting my goals, but I wanted to see how things would be outside the realm of business. I mean, a new website would certainly be set up under the business name, but it would be sort of a hobby site in the beginning and we would see what it looks like after a year or two.
There is a blurry line between CMS applications and blog applications now. I understand blogs are becoming actual CMS applications, so who knows what will happen with that. I can see WordPress staying my favorite for a while, but I feel like learning something new.
Here are some of the top open source CMS applications I looked at:
- Joomla
- e107
- Drupal
- Plone
- Mambo
- PHP-Fusion
- PHP-Nuke
- XOOPS
After going over a bunch of these, I decided upon Joomla (along with about a million other people). Just to let you know, there is a really great website that lists many top content management systems, along with blogs, wikis, etc… All listed systems are open source and the website has a link to their homepage as well as a demo of the front page and the admin. This helped tremendously during my research.
I really don’t know what I am going to do with this website yet, but I am sure that once I go through all the plug-ins, I will start forming a plan. For now, I am just going to do the install and document the process here. After that, I will document all the exciting things I come across.
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Posted in Websites | No Comments »
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
This one is for those people out there who know about computers. When people are searching for a new computer, they usually ask me what to get. I say something like, “I design websites, what the heck do I know about computers?” That usually gets some mean look and the person walks away. I haven’t been known for my bright attitude at times.
Well, I usually do ok, but I am getting a little tired of buying computers. I want my next one to last. I bought the one I am working on about 6 months ago. I am going to keep this one for something, but I need a monster. Here is the issue…I work with tons of files. One of my sites has 59,000 image files that I need to copy/paste, delete, move, whatever. That’s just one example. I also have very large files that I need to open/close, etc… My problem isn’t the need for processor power to run huge applications or for gaming, I just need something for big, and lots of files. Uploads and downloads are my middle names. I have been working on getting the fastest servers available and now my bottleneck has become my PC.
Here is what I am thinking:
- Dell Precision T7400 Workstation
- Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) (Do I need a 2nd processor?)
- Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media (I’m willing to move on from XP. Plus, Vista actually puts the computer in sleep mode, like I never got XP to do. Big power savings.)
- 3 Year ProSupport for End Users and 3 Year NBD On-site Service (This is important because I want someone in this house if the computer breaks.)
- 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable ( I know absolutely nothing about video cards.)
- 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) (I want more.)
- C23 All SAS drives, RAID 5, 3 drive total configuration ( I also know nothing about RAID. I basically want the speed of SAS drives, the speed of two drives working together and the redundancy of a third drive. I don’t know the difference between RAID 0 and RAID 5.)
- Three 146GB SAS Hard Drives, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) (How much faster are SAS drives than SATA drives?)
- PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card - For Connecting Internal Hard Drives
- Dell 1505 Wireless-N PCIe Card
So there you have it. I already have a monitor, so that’s cool. I think I can save a few bucks by switching out the SAS drives for SATA drives. It depends on what I find out about them. I want more RAM, but didn’t see the option for more. I am wondering about another processor and the video card.
Well, any advice? Am I missing anything?
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Posted in Business, Computers | 4 Comments »
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
I have a domain name and hosting account sitting there just burning to be used. I purchased a script a few days ago that looked like it had lots of promise. After installing it, I learned that it was nothing but full of bugs. Since I didn’t have the time or patience to fix someone else’s mess, I asked for a refund, which I got. Really, if a script gives me issues again and again, I can just imagine the emails I will receive when real people start using it. Sometimes these computer dudes really don’t have a clue.
Anyway, I have been looking into Drupal lately. I have heard so many good things about it. Obviously, I use WordPress already (for this blog). As I research Drupal, I am noticing many similarities between the two applications. I am reading that WordPress is great, but Drupal can do what WordPress does and a whole lot more. I have even heard that you can use Drupal for a social networking script (by the way, I did find THE social networking script, but it costs $20,000 per year for licensing).
So my question is, what exactly are the differences between WordPress and Drupal? Which one is older? I know they both have very dedicated and large communities of developers and followers. Will they both end up being the same thing as they grow through the years? Can I set up Drupal to be automated…like a link directory or an article submission website?
So many questions…
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Posted in Blogs, Internet, Websites | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
I have been through it before…when Adobe discontinues a certain piece of software. The first one I lost was Adobe ImageStyler. That was back in 1999, when I was in college. The second one was Adobe LiveMotion. By this time, I can pretty much read the writing on the wall.
Recently, Adobe purchased Macromedia. I have been wondering what is going to happen to my favorite website editing piece of software…Adobe GoLive. I am not really sure if GoLive was ever my favorite editor, because it is quite bulky and has always been full of bugs. I remember back a few versions ago, the program would just disappear from my screen, right in the middle of my work. Where did it go? Oh, who knows. Then, the site file would get corrupted and I would have to figure out a workaround. Now, with my latest version (Adobe CS), the program is just really big and takes a long time to load, especially when the site is large. I dread opening it.
I took a look on the Adobe site and read that they are pushing the new Adobe Dreamweaver. They still offer GoLive, but aren’t talking it up like they used to. In my opinion, it’s history. Dreamweaver is the industry standard website editing program. I agree. I have seen it in action and like it. A few years ago, we purchased Macromedia Studio MX 2004, which included Dreamweaver MX 2004. Knowing where this whole thing is headed, I decided to purchase “Dreamweaver MX 2004 - The Missing Manual” from Amazon. I got the book for about $3.50 ($7 total). I started reading it and using the program (2004 MX, that is). I really like it. It is more intuitive than GoLive and has a few more things that I really like. Coming from GoLive, I know how to do most things, they are just in different places.
I figure that I will learn the program with this version and if need be, I will move up to the latest version. Sound good?
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Posted in Business, Computers, Internet, Technology, Websites | 2 Comments »
