Ye Olde Rad Blog II

Last year I moved the site to a new host > Lunarpages. The new Radified server is physically located downtown Los Angeles (where you'll find the nation's most polluted air).

Today, I received a note from the girls at Lunarpages, saying they raised the amount of disk storage for clients enrolled in their Basic hosting plan .. to (an incredible) 350-GB (still $6.95/month).

As you can see, the number 350 remains the same, yet now it's followed by GB, instead of MB (1,000 X more space for ¼ the co$t). The times, they are a-changin'.

Recall a few days ago? When I mentioned the idea of getting another domain name, so I could split-out site content related to my adventures as Rad-Dad?

Actually, that post was sort of hijacked by the subsequent comparison of Drupal vs Joomla (two of the best open source Content Management Systems).

I've since been pondering various domain names, such as rad-dad.com (which is already taken, tho I could buy it for a price) and radfather.com (which is available). But none felt right.

Until today, at Newport Dunes beach park, where I was playing Rad-dad with the bug. (Gorgeous day, btw.)

Found myself visualizing what the new site might look like .. beginning with a simple title & logline, such as > FATHERHOOD: Harder Than it Looks .. or .. FATHERHOOD: It's Hard Enough .. in place of where I currently have RADIFIED: Indulge Your Technolust.

Then I thought, "That's it! > HardNuf." In other words, it's hard enough to raise children, without parents bickering. And it's hard enough for kids to grow up in two different homes, without undue tension between parents.

This entry is continued from Part I > Comparing Joomla vs Drupal Content Management Systems - Part I

You can actually TEST various CMS'es at > OpenSourceCMS, log in (as administrator) and take them for a test drive. Every two hours, the site wipes your changes and starts everything over from scratch. Pretty cool. You can also demo Joomla! here.

Books

Joomla! books here and here. Drupal books here. Most popular (best?) Drupal book is this one, which seems marketed specifically to developers. Not sure how applicable it is for ordinary users (if there is such a thing). Best to buy from here, helps support Drupal.

If you need to get a good-looking site up in a hurry, so you can focus on generating *content*, then it seems Joomla is the best choice. There are more than 100 different CMS programs available, tho not are all open source or free. See CMS Matrix for more.

Style & Marketing

Joomla is the phonetic spelling of the Swahili word jumla, meaning "all together." I must admit, they win in the COOL category, over drab (but powerful, flexible) Drupal. And you know how I dig cool. I know it shouldn't matter, but their colorful black logo is almost enough to win me over.

Simply upload the files to your server, point your browser to the directory where you uploaded Drupal (in this case, to newly created subdomain > http://cms.radified.com), and a screen pops up, asking for 3 bits of information:

1. Name of your MySQL database
2. User name for your MySQL database
3. Password for the MySQL user

Enter the data Drupal wants, click the Install button and Drupal installs itself. Too cool. Downright elegant.

Gives you a screen that says > Drupal installation complete. I'm thinking, "You gotta be kidding. Can't be *that* easy."

Next screen looks like this > Welcome to your new Drupal website!

A big part of Indulging Your Technolust involves learning how to use cool software. Once your hardware is dialed in, and your system backed up (crucial step), it's time to become proficient with your favorite programs.

You've probably discovered (as I have) the coolest programs are often (not always) the most powerful. And the most powerful programs often involve the steepest learning curves.

Take Photoshop for example. Way cool. Way powerful. Lots to learn. Seems like I'm always calling Julie to ask how to do something in Photoshop.

This is cuz more power involves more features. More features come with more options, and more options lead to complexity. (You know the drill.)

Regulars will recall my recent forays into the (very cool) world of Content Management Systems, and how I've been playing with Drupal (one of the coolest). [My installation of Drupal 5.1 is > HERE.]

In fact, I moved the site recently (never much fun) to a new server in order to get MySQL 5.x, which is required for Drupal 6 (still in development). So I'm still on the steeper slopes of the content management curve, but starting to find traction.

Last week, I parked the Rad-mobile (aka Porsche-bago) beneath a tree that's flowering profusely (with blue flowers) & dripping sap.

So I decided to hose it off before the sap dried and flowers left stains.

Unfortunately I sprayed too much water on the engine (which sits in the rear, on a 911, with vents open to the engine compartment for the A/C cooler).

It wouldn't start. This has been a common problem, probably cuz my spark-plug wires need replacing, but I don't want to spend $300 for a new set of plug wires.

I have driven thru big puddles before and had the car die instantly.

Anyway, my usual trick of yanking the distributor cap and wiping the moisture inside didn't work (normally does). I must've soaked more electrical stuff that I'd thought. (Yeah, I was in a hurry, spraying like crazy.)

I could smell gas when I cranked it, meaning the plugs were probably soaked (not gonna fire). Then the battery started dying.

So I slapped on the battery charger, but the car still refused to start. (Major sukage.)

After playing a while, I carried the bug up to the car. There I laid him on a mat (on the grass) so I could change his diaper.

After wiping clean his little butt, I stood to retrieve a tube of butt-cream from the glove compartment and, when I turned...

... saw he'd bolted down the hill, giggling, running butt-naked, fast as his little feet could carry him .. which is pretty fast (downhill), considering he wore no diaper or pants to impede progress.

As you might've noticed, we've been having problems with the new server, or its associated network.

The site was moved to a new server on May 11th. On May 22nd, we started experiencing problems with laggy page-loading times and (more recently) complete site outages, as described in this thread > New server response time pauses.

The problem seems to keep getting worse. At first it was confined only to laggy responses for relatively short periods, of a few minutes, increasing up to an hour at times.

Then complete site outages began, at first for short periods, now (including this morning) they last up to an hour.

I just got off the horn with a supervisor at Lunarpages (my web host), and he suggested I request LP move the site (again) to a new server, saying, "That's what I would do."