mary – Page 25 – The Coding Pad

Moving on to Drupal 6… then 7

In our series of tutorials on how to build a website with Drupal for newbies, we created a simple website from start to finish using Drupal 5. Now it’s time to move on. Drupal 6 has been around and stable for a while now, and the Drupal.org website was recently upgraded to Drupal 6. The current version out is Drupal 6.10.

The developers at Drupal are now working on Drupal 7, and yesterday at DrupalCon, Dries Buytaert announced the Code Freeze date for Drupal 7 as September 1. What this means is that after September 1 of this year, no more new features will be accepted for addition into the Drupal Core for version 7. Instead, the developers and contributors will now start working on patches and fixes, on usability and all that other good stuff. Which means, before we know it, Drupal 7 will be here!

What does this mean for us?

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Installing Fedora 10 to Dual Boot with Windows XP

fedora-boot In this post I am going to walk you, briefly, through the steps I followed to install Fedora 10 on my Thinkpad T43 which already has Windows XP professional running. I have installed Linux before for someone else, but never on a computer that had another OS on it, so I was quite nervous because this is my primary laptop on which I do most of my school and work stuff.

The goal of installing Fedora is to start myself towards incorporating open source and free tools in my everyday work and life, and supporting the open source movement.

I don’t have screenshots of my install process to share but you can find some excellent screenshots on the links at the bottom of this post.

Pre Install Information

I will start by sharing my basic Laptop info: It’s a Thinkpad T43P

Intel(R) Pentium(R) M
Processor: 2.00GHz
1.00GB of RAM
80GB hard drive
Currently running Windows XP Pro, SP2

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Most Useful Drupal Resources on the Web

So as you all know I’ve been getting deep into Drupal in the last few months. I have a lot of things going on right now around Drupal and other projects and I can’t wait to blog about them. For starters though I want to share with all of you my personal list of the most useful drupal resources on the web.

Drupal Tutorials and Resources

Obviously, Drupal.org leads the way as the number one most useful Drupal resource on the web. With a prodigious amount of online documentation in the handbooks and forums, you will find almost everything you need there. The Documentation section is divided into sections – Getting Started, Beyond the Basics, and so on. The forums are also divided into sections to allow you to find answers and ask questions.

Lullabot follows as my number 2 most useful Drupal resource on the web. With numerous tutorials in screencast form and podcasts, Lullabot offers a tremendous amount of useful training and information on using and developing for Drupal. Lullabots describe themselves as Drupal experts. They write books and articles, publish videos, and roll out weekly podcasts about Drupal and building web sites. They also offer public and private training, as well as ongoing consulting relationships. I am currently working through a Lullabot book “Using Drupal” which I will be reviewing here soon. Lullabot is easily my favorite Drupal resource.

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Drupal 6 Site Builder Solutions – A Review

I want to preface this review by saying that this is the very first Drupal book I have ever owned, and I’m very excited about it.

I started working with Drupal last year and quickly fell in love with it. I begun building websites and learning as I went from the numerous Drupal tutorials online and the Drupal website documentation, and by experimenting by myself. Because I learn best by seeing things done and doing them myself, I am constantly in search of resources that teach me how to build something, not just theoretical descriptions. Theoretical descriptions are good and have their place, but the best way to learn how to do something is to DO it. I have created a series of tutorials on building a website with drupal from scratch, that are based on Drupal 5. But it’s time to move on to Drupal 6, and as before, the best way to learn is to do.

That is why I am so excited about the book Drupal 6 Site Builder Solutions by Mark Noble. The book tackles learning Drupal by walking you through the process of building a fully functional small business website from start to end. There is no fluff in this book. It starts you from the beginning and goes step by step, explaining the theoretical aspects and the whys along with the hows, which I think is the most appealing thing about it. There are no abstract explanations just for the sake of it, everything fits into the scheme of building the website.

The author starts out by laying out the needs of the new websites, outlining the differences between a traditional static HTML website and a dynamic CMS based website, and then pointing out the advantages AND disadvantages of using Drupal. He then jumps right into the creation of the Good Eatin’ Bistro website. Like I said, no fluff, you start getting your hands dirty and seeing Drupal at work right from the beginning of the book.

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My WordPress Upgrade Nightmare

I finally went ahead and upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.7. But then I made a mistake. I accidentally deleted the wp-config.php file…

Initially I had debated migrating the Coding Pad to Drupal, which is quickly becoming my favorite CMS, but I decided to stay in WordPress since I do love some features of WP, and the Coding Pad is likely going to remain a blog, so I don’t need all the other features, for the moment. It would be like using a rifle to kill a mosquite.

Nonetheless, I followed the upgrading instructions from http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended as I’ve done successfully before, but as I mentioned above, I made the unforgiveable error of deleting the wp-config.php file… oh my! Moreover, I was using fireftp to do my deleting instead of cpanel, so I had no way to recover the file. Even attempting to restore it from my backup didn’t work for some reason , I was still getting a database connect error.

By this time I was plenty irritated, so I decided to scratch the whole upgrading thing and start from scratch.

I looked into my wp-content folder/plugin and /theme folder and listed the plugins and themes I’m using. I then went looking for new versions of these and downloaded them to my desktop. I downloaded the latest version of wordpress, unzipped it on my desktop, plugged the plugins and theme into the relevant folders, and uploaded the whole thing to my webserver.

Before I make any changes in my blog I always export an XML file of my content, just in case I goof, which as you can tell, I am more than capable of doing. Fortunately for me this was the first thing I did before even attempting the upgrade.

I deleted the current codingpad database and user, and then deleted all the files in the codingpad folder. I then went ahead and installed a mint fresh copy of WordPress 2.7 and configured it with the new database information, and then activated all my plugins and new theme.

Once everything looked good, I then imported my XML file with all my posts, and voila, the Coding Pad is back in business!!

If you want more details on how to use the XML file, read my post on how to painlessly migrate a wordpress blog.

I am currently using a new version of the same theme I was using before. It’s the NobusX2 theme by Dezzain Studio. I’m using some of the same plugins as before: Akismet for spam protection, Google XML Sitemaps to generate and submit the sitemap. I replaced the Related Posts plugin which is no longer supported with the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. And finally, I still have the DoFollow plugin, so that all my commenters get some link love.

New plugins include the Contact Form 7 for my new Contact Me page. I also added TwitMe which should automatically update my twitter page when I make a new post. So feel free to find and follow me on Twitter. I also added the All-in-one-SEO-Pack plugin, I’ve heard a lot about it and I’m curious to see if it improves my SEO rankings.

It was a bit of a nightmare, but thankfully I was able to get it all working as I wanted it to.

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