I've been working on creating a new website for thinkmac.net since mid January. I have so many ideas, but was never sure what I wanted the site to become. I investigated several CMS (content management systems), and whittled it down to Drupal or Joomla!. I made my choice. Joomla!. It had a nice interface on the back end for posting and administering, and looked easier than Drupal 4.7. I could find several theme packages for Joomla!, which especially sparked my interest. The plug-ins looked pretty cool too.
I joined the Rocket Themes template club. For $50, you get 3 months access to their templates made specifically for Joomla!. Then, I simply needed to customize them however I wanted. I played around with it and had to learn some new skills. Fireworks 8, CSS, and how to install a CMS.
It didn't take me long to figure out this was going to take awhile. I am not a 'read the manual first' type of guy. I prefer to get in and play around, and look for every way possible to implement what I want done, without doing it myself. I know it doesn't make sense.. but that's how I tend to operate.
Then I enlisted some help from some outsourcing clubs. I paid a bit over $100 to have someone customize a couple things. It was at a point where it was cheaper for me to pay someone, instead of killing any more time doing it. Well, that didn't work out so well..... not that he didn't do a good job, but I just didn't like the final results. So, I had to go back to the drawing board and start playing around with it myself, to tweak it just so..
Well... it was coming to the point where I had the site looking pretty good... but I noticed one thing. It took for freaking ever to load. I didn't know Joomla! was such a server hog...... and Dreamhost.com servers weren't helping it much either. There were other problems with Joomla! that I didn't care for... to make it SEO you had to do all kinds of hacks and such, etc. I checked out the beta version about to be released, and it didn't impress me. I'd had it with Joomla!, so off to Drupal.org I went. Compare performance here at this very cool comparison.
I was pleased to see that Drupal 5 was released, with a much easier to understand interface. So, here I am working with Drupal, and I love it. It's so robust & configurable, the biggest challenge is adding and configuring all of the features I want thinkmac.net to have.
It will feature the latest technologies (including the much requested Tag Clouds). One thing that I am having some trouble with is working on one feature. I need to be more task oriented, instead of working on 10 things at a time.. I need to focus on one.
I also left dreamhost, and went to a Virtual Private Server, and that has added a whole additional level of complexity. Now I have to know how to manage a server and administer domains, linux, etc. In over my head... yea a bit. But man, this is an incredible learning opportunity.
If you have features you would like to see.. be sure to let me know. I am hoping to launch the new site in about a week. I am also looking for a few people to help review software, products, do tutorials, etc. If you are SERIOUSLY interested, please drop me an email: tips@thinkmac.net
Here is a quick peek at the new site...
