For the past couple months I’ve been shopping around for a CMS (Content Management System) to use for the next version of my website. When I first started using Joomla, it had some real promise. Adapting my designs to its PHP framework was relatively straightforward, their IRC channel was helpful and they had a new release on its way.
More than a year later their next version still hadn’t reached stability and the previous version was showing dust and security vulnerabilities. Considering how security conscious I am, the idea of getting owned by a trivial XSS exploit was unacceptable.
I tried Drupal (again) and while the installation process has improved, the documentation is still more obtuse than Farnsworth on Contracts. Drupal developers are in high demand right now and as much as I would love to join their ranks, the amount of time and effort that would be involved just isn’t acceptable considering I’m a busy guy.
It was about this time that I came across ModX, another open source CMS. Let me say that it is by far the best option for a designer/developer with a similar background as myself. Quite simply I want to be able to take a mockup, adapt it to HTML/CSS and drop in some simple calls for content areas.
Working with ModX was such a nice experience that I was actually looking forward to the usual day of pain that is the final adaptation of my markup to the content management system.
This was about the time when I asked myself, “How do I promote this article to the front page and create the RSS feed?” This is where ModX seems to wander into the land of Drupal with what appears to me to be a fork into a “snippet” called Ditto.
So there I sat on Sunday morning…already in somewhat of a foul mood knowing that the Chiefs were destined to be embarrassed by the Donkeys (which of course happened) realizing that even though all my markup was done I was in for a long few nights of reading documentation and using trial and error to put the final product together.
It was at this point that I had a moment of clarity. One of the reasons that I don’t produce enough content is because the CMS doesn’t play along and it can be a real pain in the ass to write more. Knowing that producing quality writing was a higher priority than placing another design in my portfolio I downloaded Wordpress again.
The install on my local network was so smooth that I didn’t even drop all my content in locally before exporting and uploading.
My content was migrated to Wordpress by the early evening and I was finished with plenty of time to relax before finally having a full week in the office.
So what is my outlook for a full redesign? I’ll work through one of the many Wordpress design tutorials to adapt my design to Wordpress and use ModX for other content areas such as my design portfolio. This way I’ll be able to pump out as much direly needed e-discovery analysis and opinion as I can without spending costly hours trying to learn how someone else thinks.
The other day I received an email out of the blue from an outfit called Schmap who produces interactive travel guides for cities around the world informing me that my photo (see above) had been short listed to be a part of their guide to Tampa. Considering how easy it would be to just gank the image without my permission, I thought that it was pretty nice that they let me know.They’ve obviously been doing some digging considering that the image only has seven total views since being posted last spring but it is a heck of a shot and makes for some cool wallpaper despite being taken on a point and shoot camera.