blogging technology

upgrade to joomla from mambo

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dot upgrades are simple, but platform upgrades take some time. i was able to switch from mambo server to joomla server without much data loss, but i did loose a day of hits. sure, the default locations of my installations had changed, so the quick upgrade was out of the question. here are my steps going from mambo 4.5.3 to joomla 1.0.3 for those who want to try.

always start with a current backup of the mySQL database exporting all relevant tables and in the structure tab selecting add drop table, add auto_increment value, enclose table and field names with backquotes, complete inserts, use hexadecimal for binary fields, save as file, with no compression. from there you might have to change the default location of the site and run a the installer script on the original mambo SQL called migrate_Mambo4523_to_Joomla_100.sql to make the administrator panel work again. after a few hours of recovery, you’ll have your very own joomla server up and running. goodbye miro and mambo.

using phpmyadmin i also had to cut and paste the text into the script window, since the browse text file failed every time.

long road to upgrade

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so i thought it would be simple upgrading wordpress from version 1.5.1 to 1.5.2, by simply backing up the mySQL database, writing over the old files, and coming back up, maybe 5 or 10 minutes. now 7 hours later, wordpress and my blog are back online. yes, you should always have a production and test environment, but i thought i knew what i was doing.

my mistake was simple, but fatal. all i had to do was use phpmyadmin to drop the new blank data, and restore the old data from my last backup. when i tried if first, i got an error #1064, and something about bad syntax. i did a google search, and found many suggestions as bleak as it’s all over, to try a second time. after around five times, i thought if i reinstall the basic components it would work, so i removed mySQL, PHP, phpmyadmin, joomla, wordpress, and started from scratch.

i’m using a very robust server from westhost, and everything seemed to be working. i even installed perl and python for good measure, but when i got to PHP version 4.x and even PHP version 5.x it was failing to install. this is a remote install using a powerful site control panel. on occasion it would time out, but i would in the past log right back in to try the install. after 45 minutes of install/uninstall frustration, i decided it was not my multiple browsers, but something on my host computer. i wrote around 11 AM to westhost support, and finally around 4 PM got the fix.

so now with a clean install of the underlying architecture, i thought for sure i could get wordpress up again, but i got the same syntax error. using a fine text editor, textwrangler, i tried my last attempt to cut and paste the table definitions into phpmyadmin, and that solved the odd syntax errors. i don’t know if the browser upload function added special characters or removed backquotes, or what, but a simple text paste solved my seven hour site down warning.

i will be more dutiful next time i want to upgrade my site technology. i will not blame PHP or mySQL and concentrate only on the application.

looking for a server

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it’s a shame that i’m running out of time to include thoughts to my blog. it seems i’ve always been ahead of the curve when it come to adoption of technology. i was first out of the box in 1997 to go to handheld computers. if apple.com had not hired steve jobs, i might be using the latest messagepad right now, but instead i’m still lugging around a newton 120 with OS 2.0, until something equivalent comes out.

at comdex, i saw the tablet PC’s and smart displays, which might rival the legendary newton platform. one of my newtons did give up the ghost, not cracked or totally gone, but the handwriting recognition has failed, and you have to use brute force to navigate the interface. i’m the first one out of the box with an online presence with greenconcepts.com and now my blog. i’ll be hosting the blog on my very on webDAV server in the coming weeks. right now i’m looking for a server.

i thought i should use my legacy machine (powermacintosh 7600), but i’ve kind of set it up as ruth’s primary system, i’ll be using a SE/30 with 4 GB SCSI internal drive, but i want not only to server web pages, but e-mail, DNS, quicktime content, and other services that a 13 year old machine with a 25 MHz processor just can’t handle. i think as a DNS or backup unit, the SE/30 is good, but not as a “big iron” server. if you have any suggestions on which server to get (under $3000), drop me a line.

apple financial Q4 2002

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i’m hearing the apple financial report and thinking about what is to come in the technology industry. i’m following the progress of the danger hiptop and expect that apple.com will brand something similar in january 2003. on wednesday i got a hands on tour of OS X server, and gazed at the 17 inch imac along with the dual G4 tower. this month four exciting things happened: sony.com introduced the DVD everything burner, panasonic.com introduced the first progressive imaging DV camcorder, sigma-photo.com introduced the SD9, and DSL is once again returning to NoHo. i should be back online at 256 kbps by 1 december 2002!

PDF is the web

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every page is a web page. wouldn’t it be interesting if anything you created could also serve as a document on the internet. currently we have several technologies to deliver media to the web, the big three are HTML, SWF, and PDF. in mac OS X, we get quartz, the graphics engine that allows spontaneous PDF generation from any screen, quartz, based on the PDF standard, gives any user easy assess without the cumbersome tool of adobe distiller. PDF is totally cross platform for macintosh, windows, and UNIX OS’s. i hope you move to mac OS X soon, because it’s here to stay.