This is a classic case of constantly learning something new about computers. In fact for those that know more, if you see any mistakes in what I have to say here…feel free to comment and correct me!

A few days ago I mentioned that we optimized the Virtual Private Server that Like that Idea runs on with Zend Optimizer. We didn’t see many improvements, but I think that I made the mistake in assuming what the optimizer did and didn’t do. From my online readings it appears that the Zend Optimizer works best for those applications encoded on a Zend platform (something we do not have). So I went looking elsewhere and found the open source application, eAccelerator.

eAccelerator is a free open-source PHP accelerator, optimizer, encoder and dynamic content cache. It increases the performance of PHP scripts by caching them in their compiled state, so that the overhead of compiling is almost completely eliminated. It also optimizes scripts to speed up their execution. eAccelerator typically reduces server load and increases the speed of your PHP code by 1-10 times.

I installed eAccelerator from the source on the Apache server. Although not as easy as installing the Zend Optimizer, any Web administrator or computer geek worth his or her grain of salt shouldn’t run into any problems installing eAccelerator. Wow, what a difference! Since the install, the server has been running very well and I think everyone should notice the improvements this time around. The VPS contains a variety of Wordpress, Drupal, and SMF sites…and they all are performing well. If I have a need in the future I’ll bring back the Zend Optimizer since eAccelerator is suppose to be compatible with Zend Optimizer.

Why are we seeing eAccelerator perform so much better than the Zend Optimizer? As the product’s name says, Zend Optimizer is an optimizer for your Web Server.? The eAccelerator package on the other hand is not only an optimizer, but also an accelerator, encoder, and caches the dynamic content (like the pages you see here at this site). So we’re not only seeing the CPU work less because of the code being optimized, but we are also seeing less hits to the database on the server because of the caching. In essence, the server is providing pages faster to our readers but having to work less in providing those pages.

Documentation and support for eAccelerator is rather weak, so I can see why those needing more dependable support may want to purchase the Zend products.? However, so far for this little ‘ol VPS from Dakota Hosting is keeping us happy. If we run into problems with eAccelerator or the VPS I’ll let everyone know. Otherwise, this is the last computer geek article for awhile and we return to normal programming. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a book review or product recommendation for the family…one of the original purposes of this site.

We had great intentions to continue to keep everyone up to date on a new site that we’re building using Drupal, a content management system (CMS). The idea was as we were building the site we intended to write down how we did it so others could learn with us. Well if you look at our Drupal blog here at Like that Idea you would see that we have not had too many posts in the blog. Have we given up on the idea? No hardly, we are just so busy with other projects (including the project of raising a family) that we have had to prioritize and put some of our ideas on the back burner.

I have no doubt the new site focusing on content management systems will eventually be up and running, the question is when and not if it will happen. I suspect that once Drupal 4.7 has been released is when we’ll start working on the site.

In the meantime, We would like to recommend a few places that you can go to learn about Drupal and other content management systems. First, if you haven’t visited the handbooks at Drupal.org lately, you should. A lot of changes have been taking place in the user support documentation at Drupal.org and most of it is for the better. If reading isn’t your thing, Drupal users don’t have to wait for the movie to come out since it is now available at Lullabot. Lullabot is providing both audiocasts and videocasts on a number of Drupal topics. The Lullabot video for managing menus and links with Drupal is very well done.

Last but not least, if you have questions about content management systems and how they can help you build a Website; please consider joining in on the discussions at our sister site, the WebCMS Forum. While most people think of a Web content management system as only Web Portals, the forum also considers software that manages blogs, forums, shopping carts, and photo-galleries to also be variations of a CMS. WebCMS Forum is still a new site, but it already has had a promising start with a number of users of different CMS applications coming together to share their ideas and learning from others. I already find myself learning a lot and like to see it when those from Drupal, Mambo, Joomla, e107, SMF, phpBB, Wordpress, osCommerce, and others express their thoughts and ideas on their own favorite CMS. I you don’t mind me saying it, I hope you like that forum!

One month after Version 2.0 was released, the folks at Wordpress have released version 2.0.1. The latest release fixes over 114 bugs that had been reported with 2.0. A summary of the changes which were posted at the Wordpress site include:

• You can now specify an upload directory, and whether to use date-based storage or not.
• Caching has been fixed under certain PHP environments.
• Permalinks have been fixed for weird environments as well.
• XML-RPC uploading works.
• Compatibility with older versions of PHP.
• Several WYSIWYG fixes and cleanups.
• Imports now use much less memory.
• Now works with MySQL 5.0 in strict mode.

Like that Idea readers may remember that we reported a few days ago about the poor performance problems we were seeing after upgrading the site to Wordpress 2.0. Now with 2.0.1, we are already seeing some improvements in the time it takes for pages to load in the browser. Our fingers are crossed. We now return to normal programming…

We just completed the upgrade from Wordpress 1.5 to Wordpress 2.0 . Most of the changes are on the adminiistrative side. However, there have been a number of performance improvements that you should notice the pages loading quicker. Let us know if you see any problems when visiting our site.

Thanks,

Bryan and Karen

Most of you know that I’m an avid Mozilla Thunderbird user. In short, Thunderbird is an alternative e-mail client to Outlook Express. It’s not as good as the full blown version of Outlook that comes with the expensive MS Office Suite…but it sure runs a lot faster and in my opinion is more secure and easier for the whole family to use. Thunderbird 1.5 has now been released and includes some nice features such as better junkmail protection and “inline” spell checking. What are you waiting for? The program is free on Mozilla’s site: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Mozilla, where have you hear that name before? They’re the same people that brought you the free Firefox browser. Firefox is so popular that even Google packages their toolbar with the browser (click Firefox link on the right). Firefox really shows just how outdated the current Internet Explorer has become.

Part Two in a series of articles on Website Building using Drupal

We’ve decided to use Drupal for our content management system (CMS). An important question for newbies remains, how do we get Drupal onto a real Internet Website? You know we need more than the “free server space” the Internet Service Provider is providing, but where do you start? Believe it or not, these basic questions have been asked by even some of the best people I know in information technology (IT). Many IT people may help run or manage the company Website, but someone else in the company left them in the dark to how the company got their Domain Name in the first place. If you’re a small business, you may have computer people but what you don’t have are thousands of dollars to throw at a Web server. How do people get their site on the Internet at a reasonable price, you ask? It’s time to shine some light on these unanswered questions.

The simple answer is you just need to purchase an Internet name (actually called a Domain Name) and “rent” some space on an Internet Server through a shared hosting plan. So are companies providing theses Web services difficult to find? No, not at all and that is the problem. Typing in “domain name” or “web hosting” on your favorite search engine will give you so many companies to choose from that the task can be too overwhelming. Although we’re interested in finding the right hosting company to run our CMS, Drupal, for any Website this is the minimum I would look for when deciding where to host your Internet Site:

• A shared hosting plan that includes PHP at no extra cost. PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for the Web. Some companies will charge you extra for PHP, but by today’s standard this is a basic feature. (Drupal requires PHP 4.3.3 or higher).
• A shared hosting plan that includes MySQL. MySQL is an open source database that is commonly utilized by many PHP applications, including Drupal. Once again, some companies will charge you extra for the database, but in my opinion that’s so 1990’s. Look elsewhere if you can’t get a basic plan with MySQL included. (Drupal requires MySQL v3.23.17 or higher, but I recommend no lower than MySQL 4).
• A shared hosting plan that provides a “control panel” to help manage your site. In the “old days”, everything was done by the command line. But these days, a couple clicks of a button will setup the database you need for Drupal or install extra open source applications that you may want to use along with Drupal. Even a command line junkie like me has found these online control panels to be time savers.

Ok, so you found a place to register your domain and host your site using my advice. You’re all set for Drupal, right? Well, Drupal needs a little bit more tender loving care than most CMS I’ve ran across. Namely, Drupal requires the ability for you to LOCK TABLES and eventually with Drupal 4.7, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES. Neither of the before mentioned MySQL database privileges are available by default. Worse, many shared hosting providers don’t give you the option to turn on the needed database privileges to properly host Drupal. In the past, I’ve expressed disappointment with the developers of Drupal for designing a CMS that requires these features. Whether I was fair or not to the developers, one just has to accept that Drupal has database needs that not every shared hosting plan includes. I’ve spent some time removing the code from Drupal that contained LOCK TABLES, but eventually such actions have led me to a dead end (potential problems with database corruption and Drupal requiring more CPU usage).

So if you want to find Drupal a home, make sure your shared hosting plan gives you the already mentioned database privileges. Since I wanted to stay with my current Web hosting provider, Dakota Hosting, I purchased through them a Virtual Private Server (VPS) which is also called a Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS). The benefit to a VPS/VDS is that you get virtually full administrative rights to the server. You can also host more than one domain name on the server (I can host up to 30 Websites) offsetting the costs you would pay for a simple shared hosting plan. For me, having access to a VPS has been a very satisfying experience.

If the $30 to $50 per month costs of a VPS is too high for you, then your only option is to make sure your shared hosting plan offers the rights to the database features you need for Drupal. Drupal.org has started up a list of hosting providers that are Drupal friendly. I would also check out the Drupal forum or the forums at WebHostingTalk for more information and additional options.

So now we not only know which CMS we’re going to use for our site, Drupal, but we now have knowledge of how to get an Internet site of our own. Hopefully, you too can find a nice home for Drupal. In the next article, we’ll take a look of how to download Drupal, uncompress the files, and install the software onto the Web Server. In later articles, we will also have to consider how best to configure Drupal, install any needed modules, install themes, and eventually customize Drupal to meet our own needs.

For awhile now, I’ve wanted to build a Website focused on reporting today’s news in the world of content management systems (CMS). In simple terms, a CMS is a system used for storing, managing, organizing, and displaying content. There are all kinds of CMS out there, with one that you’re most likely familiar with, the Web CMS (we use one here at Like that Idea). While a CMS is more than just software, among the computer techies it is usually the software that is talked about most.

Building a site for the Internet, whether for business or personal use, can be overwhelming. Where do you start? Well that’s the question I would like to help answer. While the concept for the new site is still being developed, I would like to occasionally post here information regarding the process it takes to build a Website. We currently plan to build the new site, CMS Report, around an open-source application called Drupal. I don’t want to overwhelm our Like that Idea readers with too much computer talk, so as soon as we can, we’ll move this conversation over to the new site. Until we make the move, a hearty welcome to any Drupal users that happen upon this site looking for information about Drupal. You’ll find some information about Drupal, but you will also find that we chat about all good ideas, even those ideas that don’t require a computer.