CMSMS = CMS Made Simple

This past week I've been on a search for a CMS that I could get my hands wet with, I looked at Drupal and CMSMS and ended up trying out CMSMS (CMS made Simple) - it was pretty easy to install and offers installation checks and tips along the way to make sure you get it installed right and points out pitfalls to you so you don't have to deal with them later. After downloading it I got it installed on my test Fedora box under Apache in less than 20 minutes. I had a nice test page looking at me that I could customize and am now left with the task of finding a good template for the client I'm setting up this CMS site for (as an Intranet) - so I looked around and while the template sites that exist for this software have some neat stuff, a Google search found even more interesting ways folks have setup templates and done their pages. Here are the top six I could find looking around. Each has common CMSMS signatures, but some have gone quite far with customizations and neat features. Check these screenshots and links to the actual sites:


http://www.fairgroundsessions.nl/ http://www.nectre.com/ http://feigin.us/

http://www.mchsband.com/ http://www.cnwcentral.com/neopets/ http://www.springfield-nj.us/

eZwysiwyg = true - yes it is.

It's not often that you find a piece of software that works really good, right out of the box. A few days ago I needed a wysiwyg HTML editor for one of my clients. they want to edit their own web pages and tweak them here and there. They had shown me a tool that permitted them to do this, but it was embedded on a custom website that they did not control. They wanted to be able to edit their own HTML the same way. I Googled up "wysiwyg html editor" and found a bunch; even a site that listed dozens of them. After trying several out I settled down on one called eZwysiwyg from http://www.ezwysiwyg.com/ - you can test out the editor right on their home page, there are an amazing row of tools on the toolbar that is placed on the web page you are editing, its all done on the fly and you can edit the page as it stands. Marking up your own HTML pages to be editable is as simple as adding a few tags, their CGI linked in with javascript includes does the rest. Once you are done with the page and like the way it looks, you can save a backup of the current page just incase you change your mind, publish the page and its instantly live on your website, no screwing around, no ftp, no nothing, it just works. Further, I am blown away at the reasonable price $25.00 for an initial software license and one-domain license thrown in for that price. Additional domains are $15.00. Check it out if you are looking for a WYSIWYG HTML editor, this one is simple, has loads of features, works very reliably, and is backed by excellent support. Once you are happy with the downloadable demo, log back into their website and instantly purchase a license, day or night. If you need a hand in installing on a pesky web server as I did, their tech support staff is top notch, and made the install almost turnkey. Can't say enough about this package, check it out, you will enjoy.

Eureka - its the Altima a bagless vac that sucks

It sucks (no pun intended) to be cleaning the house on a Saturday night, but when else are we gonna do it before the holiday right? We have this vacuum, and every time I use it, I cuss at it and it's bad design. This vacuum is definitely not for anybody that has pets, and pet hair. In this bagless vac, while cleaning our house the very small dust cyclone chamber quickly fills with dog-hair and must be emptied constantly, else you risk gumming up the whole damn thing and having to clean the "filters" inside. It would be great for anybody else I suspect, but if you are in the market for a bagless vac, don't get one of these if you have pets. I think I'm gonna go and get one of those old school Hoover vacs that are the standby; when the bag fills, you chuck it and pop another one in, no farting around with the dust chamber and dumping it in the trash 20 times when you are cleaning the house.

Justice - Cross

Last night I was browsing around on iTunes and found a link of the Best of 2007 editors choice list http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewCustomPage?name=pageEditorsChoice2007 and was checking out the Dance & Electronic category - when I found Justice - Cross - an electro-house treat of an album that is really fresh - check it out, its very dynamic and doesn't bore - try it cranked on headphones for a transportation into a heavenly electro space of tuneage.. definitely worth the $9.99. According to wikipedia "Justice is a French electro house[1] duo consisting of Gaspard Augé (b. 21 May 1979) and Xavier de Rosnay (b. 2 July 1982).[2] They are the most successful group on Ed Banger Records,[3] and are managed by the label's head, Pedro Winter. Their main trademark is a large light-up cross that shines throughout their shows"

Upgrading really old Bugzilla

This past week I was faced with upgrading a really old installation of Bugzilla, version 2.18rc3 and move it forward to the current stable, 3.0.2 - what was of course critical, that the existing database of bugs be moved to the new version, so that bug numbers wouldn't change etc. I first tried to upgrade in-place the existing installation via CVS; this didn't work so happy as apparently moving from 2.18 to 3.0.2 isn't very easy due to numerous changes. So I decided to setup a new installation (even on a new server, so I could have my way with the environment and not worry about affecting the old one) - after getting all the pre-requisites of 3.0.2 taken care of and checksetup.pl finally ran and didn't complain about anything I was faced with moving the existing bugs from the old installation (and server) to the new one. In the documentation I had read about move.pl and importxml.pl and possibly something in contrib that would help in moving the bugs from one installation to another. I tried getting the move button working in the old version so I could some how do a search, tag everything and then have it send all the bugs via xml stuffed emails over to the new installation - this was simply not required. I decided to dump the old mysql database using mysqldump - then copy this file over to the new server, I scratched the database so it was fresh and simply read in the backup sql file I had made on the old server - when I properly set the dbpass in localconfig on the new version, and ran checksetup.pl - I was surprisingly given options to upgrade and convert the database to a new format (with a scary warning about UTF-8) - I forged ahead and said sure, go ahead, convert - it sat for a few minutes and cranked modifying all sorts of stuff in the tables and then it was done. -- I started up the web server on the new server and bang -- I have bugzilla 3.0.2 working with my old bugs, sweet - so far. Seems this method of moving forward is not mentioned or documented except in a few random posts on newsgroups as last ditch things to try - maybe I totally missed something, but it worked for me and this particular installation. We will see how it plays out once the users are directed to the new release URL.

Wegmans - the great grocery store

So I made the normal Sunday pilgrimage to Wegmans to get food for the coming week; I love this store, they have such a selection and you never have to wait to check-out. While I was looking for a picture for this post I noticed quite a controversy http://www.wegmanscruelty.com/on the subject of egg-laying hens and the conditions in which they live in, and that Wegmans is somehow on the "bad" list - for either stocking eggs from these farms, or possibly owning the facilities, not sure - guess it will make me think twice about purchasing the cage-free eggs next time. Wonder if the facility they talk about in NY is the source of eggs sold in Dulles?

Think you know what Trance and House is?

I'm into Trance, Techno and many other variations of electronic music, you think you know what these sound like and all the subtle differences? Check out this beyond-cool application that allows you to free-form explore the different types of music, and listen to some classic songs that embody each. -- http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/