I was just checking the analytics for this blog and there were some surprising results. Firefox is the most popular browser for visitors of this site. Keep it up!
Most visitors come from the UK, so thanks Gary!
And I would like to thank whoever you are in Mexico, and India and most surprisingly Georgia (hope there is some peace for you soon).
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Joomla
Yesterday it was Drupal, today it is Joomla.
Firstly I will say that I gave Joomla more time than I did Drupal but I think that was down to the interface and the fact I made some progress relatively quickly.
What I attempted to do was put a site up using a site I had designed and developed in XHTML and CSS. It took 4 or 5 hours to get the homepage up and running and I had to edit a random article that just kept appearing. It looks well but it is not ideal. Creating a template was not too difficult once I found a decent tutorial, but it all felt a little too complicated.
Let's compare results:
CMSMadeSimple: Setup took about an hour because I had to download, upload and install. Creating the site, template and css and all the pages took 30 minutes. It is simple. The downside is the interface isn't very jazzy, but it is easy to use.
Drupal: Setup was quick and easy because it is a built in application on my new blacknight hosting account. That's where the progress ended. Templates or themes are incomprehensible and just downright bizarre. I couldn't get a page up and running let alone the site.
Joomla: Set up was quick again because it is a built in application on my blacknight hosting. Creating a template was not straight forward but there was a decent tutorial. Shame I can't find a good list of the PHP functions associated with Joomla. I had the problem of a random article appearing and i couldn't figure out why. In the end I just edited it to be the content I wanted. It has a nice interface except that the menus are disabled once you are in any of the options so you spend a lot of time clicking close or cancel to get the menu back. I want to like it but it is just not user friendly enough and as with most open source software, there is a lot of documentation but not a lot of useful documentation.
I think I'm going to go with CMSMadeSimple for now and maybe personalise it a bit to suit my needs a bit better. If you have any other suggestions I would be glad to investigate further.
Firstly I will say that I gave Joomla more time than I did Drupal but I think that was down to the interface and the fact I made some progress relatively quickly.
What I attempted to do was put a site up using a site I had designed and developed in XHTML and CSS. It took 4 or 5 hours to get the homepage up and running and I had to edit a random article that just kept appearing. It looks well but it is not ideal. Creating a template was not too difficult once I found a decent tutorial, but it all felt a little too complicated.
Let's compare results:
CMSMadeSimple: Setup took about an hour because I had to download, upload and install. Creating the site, template and css and all the pages took 30 minutes. It is simple. The downside is the interface isn't very jazzy, but it is easy to use.
Drupal: Setup was quick and easy because it is a built in application on my new blacknight hosting account. That's where the progress ended. Templates or themes are incomprehensible and just downright bizarre. I couldn't get a page up and running let alone the site.
Joomla: Set up was quick again because it is a built in application on my blacknight hosting. Creating a template was not straight forward but there was a decent tutorial. Shame I can't find a good list of the PHP functions associated with Joomla. I had the problem of a random article appearing and i couldn't figure out why. In the end I just edited it to be the content I wanted. It has a nice interface except that the menus are disabled once you are in any of the options so you spend a lot of time clicking close or cancel to get the menu back. I want to like it but it is just not user friendly enough and as with most open source software, there is a lot of documentation but not a lot of useful documentation.
I think I'm going to go with CMSMadeSimple for now and maybe personalise it a bit to suit my needs a bit better. If you have any other suggestions I would be glad to investigate further.
Olympics
There has been a lot of coverage of the Olympics, even with the strange time difference. The Great Britain Team have been doing great, well done to one and all, but today real magic happened! Ireland guaranteed themselves some medals!!!
Well done to Kenny Egan and Paddy Barnes! Hopefully they can win their next fights and get a silver or a gold!
And congratulations to Paul Hession who came really close to reaching the 200 metre final. It was a great effort!
Well done to Kenny Egan and Paddy Barnes! Hopefully they can win their next fights and get a silver or a gold!
And congratulations to Paul Hession who came really close to reaching the 200 metre final. It was a great effort!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Drupal... WTF?
I've been playing around with Drupal tonight and so far I could not recommend it to anyone. It is almost incomprehensible.
I am trying to add a new theme. So I copied one of the themes into a new folder and uploaded that. The "help" said it would be auto-detected. But oh no...
So I tried to edit a theme that was already there. Fine, the first edit made a difference to the site, but then all subsequent edits just didn't work. I'm giving up for tonight.
I think CMSMadeSimple stays ahead!
I am trying to add a new theme. So I copied one of the themes into a new folder and uploaded that. The "help" said it would be auto-detected. But oh no...
So I tried to edit a theme that was already there. Fine, the first edit made a difference to the site, but then all subsequent edits just didn't work. I'm giving up for tonight.
I think CMSMadeSimple stays ahead!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Ryanair Vs. The screen scrapers
Ryanair are cancelling flights booked through aggregator websites. These sites basically use the information made public on Ryanair's website and sell on the flights to their customers and i think they take a commission.
I'd love to know the reason why Ryanair object to this? Is it because they are protective of their customers? Hmmm, maybe not. Is it because they don't won't someone else squeezing more money out of the customers, money they could have squeezed out of them? Or is there something more to it?
I'd say the visitor stats on Ryanair's site would be enormous and this would presumably equate to lots of cross sales, hotel rooms, car hire, credit card products. By lots, I mean enough to cancel all the flights that have been booked through other sites.
I'm not sure which side of the fence I'd go for but I'm veering towards Ryanair and that is saying something. They are protecting their product and brand and their brand is so much more than just flights.
I'm agreeing with Ryanair, oh the shame!!!
I'd love to know the reason why Ryanair object to this? Is it because they are protective of their customers? Hmmm, maybe not. Is it because they don't won't someone else squeezing more money out of the customers, money they could have squeezed out of them? Or is there something more to it?
I'd say the visitor stats on Ryanair's site would be enormous and this would presumably equate to lots of cross sales, hotel rooms, car hire, credit card products. By lots, I mean enough to cancel all the flights that have been booked through other sites.
I'm not sure which side of the fence I'd go for but I'm veering towards Ryanair and that is saying something. They are protecting their product and brand and their brand is so much more than just flights.
I'm agreeing with Ryanair, oh the shame!!!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Rainy Dublin
We are having a shocking summer here in Dublin. It just keeps raining. Check out my first upload to Youtube. Sad or what?
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