Lions and Tigers and WAMP! OH MY! Step right up to the Geeks and God Circus...a place where geeks rule the land! Today we wrap up our series on CMS and we talk about a whole boatload of other stuff.Before we chat about CMS, we dive into the loads of listener feedback we got this week. We chat about the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 (see Rob's blog entry on this here), we blab about our appearance on Church Tech Talk this past week (we'll be on their next two episodes that will release the next two mondays), and we propose a Christian/Tech Podcasters Conference (e-mail us here if you're interested in this idea). Then, MF dives into a cool new website for managing your homepage and chats a bit more about web security issues.
In "This Week In Geek" we chat about #2 in the MP3 player market (sandisk) and their new MP3 player. We also talk about Big Blue and their relationship to open source and beg for your audio reviews of the new IE 7 (send em here.) After all this, the circus finally moves onto CMS town.
This week, we re-define CMS in simpler terms, talk about WAMP, LAMP, and MAMP, and lay out your system requirements. MF lays out some CMS security ideas and we talk about our workflow to setting up a CMS site. Finally, we talk about layout and structure for your CMS and talk about throwing in your content.
We'd like to do one more episode on CMS, but we're only going to do it if you send in enough questions and comments for us. So, hit us up TODAY and give us the ammo for a bonus CMS episode next week....
Show Links:
LAMP
WAMP
MAMP
Netvibes
Web 2.0
Easy LAMP Setup
There are a number of pre-configured *AMP installers out there. They set you up with an Apache server, MySQL database, and PHP processor. Most are Linux based - hence the LAMP acronym - but there are other options.
One of my favorites is XAMPP. It includes Apache, MySQL, and PHP, as well as phpMyAdmin, Perl, and a number of other helpful products. My favorite feature of XAMPP is that it's portable. By that, I mean that you can download, unzip, and run; no installer. I copied it to my USB flash drive and take it with me. Since it is self-contained, I can run it at work, at home, or at Mom & Dad's without having to install anything.
CMS
I have to disagree with you guys a little bit on the sub folder thing.
If that's the only thing that is going to be on the server then yeah put it in root. But if you want to have more then one domain on the same server. Puting all in one folder it's a bad idea. I do and just mask the domain. Stops people from stealing pics and bandwidth too. (Had it happen).
Also when upgrading site be sure to BACKUP, BACKUP BACKUP. Both the files and the sql database. A lot of times stuff gets broke. I just upgraded, went to change a theme and bam my site was down and I could not go back to change it. Just like that. Had to reupload the theme to get it to work again.
Keep up the good work.
Jason
Subfolders...
Hey Jason...
Great stuff here. Just wanted to clarify what I intended when I recommended against building your CMS in a subfolder:
I build all my sites on my own server, then, when finished, transfer them to the clients server. Therefore, I have the awkward situation where the final product will be in a root domain, but I can't build it in my own root domain. Therefore, I have two options: Subfolders or Subdomains.
I originally started in subfolders, however I ran into major issues when doing more advanced functionality, because sometimes your paths are root-related (that make sense?). So, if you build in a subfolder, your site is built one level above root, which totally screws up all your links or paths in your code.
Hence my suggestion to build your site in a subdomain. Your links will then be correctly associated with the site root when you move them to the final server.
Make sense?
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.bobchristenson.com
Root Vs. Sub
Yeah, I can see if you had to hardcode links you could run into a problem. Most of the stuff I messed with has relative links and not absolute. So it thinks the sub folder is root.
Our main site for our church is root so I never had the option. I always had to use a subfolder. I didn't mind because it keeps everything separate.
Is there a reason you just don't start with the clients sever? Unless it's a live site I see no benefit of starting local.
Wow, we really geeking out here. I wonder if other no what we are talking about. Hahah
Is there a way we could get a real forum system on here. This one is more like a comment system. Something like phpbb . I hate login in every time. Plus Drupel needs the http:// in from of the website or it gives you an error.
Good Stuff Guys,
God Bless
Jason
Starting on my server...
Hey Jason...
As far as starting on "my server", it's actually not a local server...it's my business webserver. So, it's actually live for my clients to preview the site as it comes along. Why do I do this? A few reasons:
Most often, the site I'm designing is a re-design, therefore I can't build it on the client's root file. Could I do a subdomain on their server? I sure could, but designing on my own is much quicker for me. This is because all hosts have different control panels, ways of accessing the database (or phpmyadmin), etc, so I prefer to develop on a webhost I know backwards and forward. It just speeds things up. Then, when I'm done, I do a simple database export and pop it onto the new server.
As far as a bulletin board, you're right, this one totally sucks. Basically because we haven't taken the time to lay it out properly...I'll encourage MF to look into another solution.
-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.bobchristenson.com
Never thought of that
That's a good idea. If the site is already live I think I would do it that way too. I know what you mean about your own server. Speed is good in webdesign.
What about makeing money on webhosting? Churchs HAVE to pay for this and if you can get your clients on something you know it makes for easy upgrade. I have always recommend sites to clients but never made money off that part.
Jason
CMS deployment
Actually, I've found that I use about four app deployments when starting a new site (just my second church site, to be exact), using Joomla.
I develop locally on XAMPP, and then publish the prototype to the church web host while my users collaborate defining taxonomy and doing initial layout, under the subfolder /new. I concurrently put another app under /training, and refresh content as needed, so that users can practice with that.
When I go live, I will just do a redirect from root to /new, which gives me the option of reverting to the old site if something goes horribly wrong (it always happens, might as well prepare for it). After a comfortable timespan, say three weeks, I will migrate everything to root, and edit my config file so the global parameters have updated appropriately, and do a search and replace through the mysql backup so that all links like "www.domain.com/new" then point to "www.domain.com", and later drop the /new subdirectory.
Post-launch, I use the /dev app to test new features, and /design to develop new templates.
Cheers, Terry.
Good Idea
I might have to do that soon. I have a client I need to update. I'm hoping to go from an HTML site to a CMS site. But she wants FLASH I'll have to start learning that too. Good idea on the Test folder. Again backup, backup, backup before trying any of this people.
Jason
RSS Feeds
Your example with sub directories is a good one. Yet, I do pretty much the same thing with sub domains. Often sites are re-designs for existing sights. This allows one to build a complete live site at something like beta.somedomain.com.
Hard links are something I am a fan of for some things. Like, RSS feeds. I want all of the images there to end up as hard coded in the feed items. So they display in the readers.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mattfarina.com
subdomains^^
Hi Matt. Great podcast btw, and I look forward to hearing what guys have to say.
I see a subdomain as just a redirect to a subfolder, ie mmm.domain.com instead of www.domain.cmo/mmm.
I will setup subdomains on request, but for some users they seem to be confusing, whereas they are accustomed to seeing a subdirectory yada yada.
Minor point really, two thumbs up on the podcast. I was scanning through iTunes a while back, picked up on the name, and didn't let the funky intro turn me off. One of the podcasts I listen to first when I get a new batch of incoming feeds.
Cheers, Terry.
thanks
Terry,
Thanks for listening and the feedback. Subdomains will be an interesting thing as the future of the internet moves forward. For many in younger generations they are something they natively get. They grew up with the internet.
I expect to see them appear more and more. Site like answers.yahoo.com are helping them just natively accept sub domains.
This, also, brings up the idea of what people expect. Often times with ministry we try to work with the easiest common denominator. This can leave out teaching them where things are at so they can reach people in those places. Anyone using the internet in ministry should understand and be comfortable with subdomains. If not then we need to teach and help them.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mattfarina.com
local development
I like to develop on my laptop XAMPP installation as well. That way I can get some work done on it anywhere - and if I crash something, there's no way it affects the real site.
real forum
real forum look and feel in the works.... (thanks for handing that task to me bob ;-)). It will be a week or so to get it done with everything else and the holiday coming up here.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mattfarina.com
Subfolders
Great podcast and discussion!
I've run into another reason to do a subfolder (or subdomain - it would work just as well) for your CMS.
My church has a pastor who is very good at design - and is VERY particular about how he wants each page to look - on the more static "brochure-ware" parts of the site.
But he's not as picky about the dynamic (as in CMS) parts.
So I have a set of static pages for the brochure-ware part, and the CMS is sitting in its own subfolder - with an identical theme - so it is pretty seamless.
www.gracecommunity.ws - the Extras link sends you to the Drupal site.
Any other thoughts on how better to manage the "multiple-personalities" of a website.
good stuff
Jason,
Good stuff. To add, there are people who will have their live site at somesite.com/drupal (or something like that). This is not a good way to go.
If you are using more than one domain on a server this shouldn't make a difference. We are talking from the standpoint of a website and not file structure on a server.
Also, as a plus drupal can handle multiple domains from one code base. It's a great perk.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mattfarina.com
CMS Install
Hey guys I think you should spend a little more time on how to install. I think that’s going to be the biggest road block for people. They are going to need a good FTP program. I use Filezilla on the PC. Windows Explore works pretty well too. People need to know what chmod is. I was confused the first time I seen that.
As for drupal, it’s not the easiest to install by far. If it was not for there install video I would not have gotten it to work. It’s a little more hard core then most CMS software. Doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s just not one I would recommend for beginners.
God Bless
Jason
IE7 Flash Activation Clarification
FYI: The reason you have to click twice on the Flash ActiveX control to activate it is because of a patent dispute. This change will be permanent for all ActiveX controls, not just Flash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...