Ye Olde Rad Blog II

Thinking of splitting-out site content pertaining to my experiences as a dad .. to a NEW site, such as raddad.com (oops, that domain name already taken) .. or rad-dad.com (uh, that one is also taken). One reader suggested dadified.

Anyway, I'll find some new domain that will work. (Costs a measly $10/yr, and I already have tons of content I could transfer.)

What do you think of oneraddad.com? or radfather.com? Those two are still available. Ideas? (Shorter the better.)

Now that I have lastest version of MovableType installed (v3.35), and knowing that Movable Type allows you to publish multiple (unlimited) blogs, including to domains outside the one in which MT resides, I could use MT 3.35 to publish to a new rad-dad site.

In the grand scheme of things, despite how much I love cool technology, there aren't many things more important than being a good dad.

Update 03.May.2007 - I got new domain name today (hardnuf.com) as detailed in this post > New Domain Name: hardnuf.com (Adventures in Fatherhood)

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.

Been learning more about Drupal, Joomla and Content Management Systems in general (CMS).

Also been updating the comparison I documented last week (as I continue to learn more) > Comparing Joomla vs Drupal Content Management Systems (CMS).

In fact, that entry has become big enough (more than 4K words) that I've considered busting it into two sections (e.g. Part I, Part II). Uh, update > done.

I seem to be coming full circle. Began research with notion Drupal represented best option. During initial research, I came to feel Joomla 1.5 would be a better choice (for me).

Now, after considerable research, and feeling comfortable that I understand the relative strengths & weaknesses of each platform, I'm again leaning toward Drupal. (Dizzy yet?)

The main thing that changed my mind was a subtle theme I kept noticing, which goes something like this:

Stayed up late ('til 1AM) and installed Drupal last night. (Eyes are burning.) The word installation is deceptive, cuz Drupal really installs itself.

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!

The site move to a new, updated server (mentioned yesterday) involves a new name server (they say), which means the site might (not sure yet, I asked) be unavailable for a period of time following the move.

Okay, they said the new name server *will* need to propagate, which means the site will be unavailable for 24-72 hours, depending on > this stuff. (The Rad server is physically located downtown Los Angeles.)

I'm making a *second* full-site back-up right now. =) The back-up (compressed *.tar.gz) is exactly 999 MB. (You can see why I'm researching content management systems.) It's downloading at ~300KBps. Takes ~ an hour.

They also said my dedicated IP address will change. Not sure why it can't stay the same (since my hosting provider isn't changing).

Received note from Lunarpages (my host) support, which I'd file under: Example of Good Support. See here>

Test of the new Rad server. If you can read this, you're getting the *new* server. Could be my imagination, but this one feels a little zippier. No?

I made some dumb mistakes, such as misreading the new name server, which is now ns1.lunarservers.com .. as ns1.lunarpages.com.

The old name server was ns6.lunarPAGES.com. I saw the ns1 and (foolishly) ignored the rest (.lunarservers.com), assuming the number 6 merely needed to be changed to a 1.

Didn't figure that out until 8PM last night. The site was moved 24 hours earlier (8PM Friday). There's something to be said for the (foolproof) copy-n-paste method.

Then I couldn't connect to the (new, beautiful, fast, upgraded) server via FTP. I've use a dedicated IP address since I've had the site (last 7 years).

But the new IP addy won't be available for 5 days (they tell me). Until then, I use the domain name to connect (like most people connect to their servers).

I'm embarrassed to say I entered http://radified.com into my FTP client, when only radified.com should've been entered (hangs head in shame).

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.