The Hobby Webmaster Blog

I did some cosmetic change to my site: The Closet Online this evening. I am preparing to dump some banners there and probably a Google search box. This site is undeveloped, but it does get some traffic from old bookmarks. I picked up the name a few months ago. The domain name was too good to pass up. I am collecting some banners for it now and will put up the revised page soon. The new ‘look’ is up on the web now. Check it out and tell me what you think of the design.

Last evening I updated my other blog to WP 2.6.5. I have not done the update to this blog yet. There was not really any problem with the update, but the process changed things a good deal. My mods and tracking were eliminated from the site. I had to reinsert the includes in the header and footer templates and re-upload my modified images. It seems that the automated update process is actually a reinstall connected to the existing database. I will probably do this one this evening. I now know what to expect with the update process.

I stuck my nose into the developer section on the Joomla site. It seems that they primarily speak Greek there. Well, maybe it is just php, but it may as well be Greek, because it is Greek to me. It appears that the learning curve will have a more shallow slope and the peak may be a bit higher than I was hoping. I think that I would like to master this software, or something similar, but my first priority must be to get some of my domain names moving a bit.

I already have most of the tools to do the site that I want to do. I have been using them on other sites without problem. I was just hoping to automate the process a bit and save some time. In the long run a CMS will do that for me, but in the short run I think that my time would be better spent getting on with the development of a few sites.

I dug into the Joomla documentation a bit more last evening. The waters may be clearing some but they are still far too murky to see the bottom. Probably we would have to say that they are downright muddy.

I suspect that I have been in the wrong sections of the documentation to locate the information that I need. I did succeed in building a basic template that mirrors the KompoZer built home page. I think that I have too limited of an understanding of modules in Joomla. I will extend my research to the developer section of Joomla this evening.

Joomla would be very quick and easy to use if I wanted to use an existing template. I did find a third patty template that is set up much the way that I am thinking. It could probably be modified to do what I want to do. The developer is asking $90.00 for the license to use his work, and, from what I have seen so far, that may be a bargain. But, being a hobbyist in web development, that would defeat some of the purpose of this exercise. It would get the site up quickly, but what would I really have learned? At least some of the point of this hobby is to expand my horizons!

I added several suggestions for articles in the wanted pages section of the Live Sound Wiki. Someone found their way there and looked around a bit, unfortunately there is very little real content there at this point. I am hoping that the live sound community will get behind this effort and make this wiki a site worth visiting. I have not yet begun to advertise the site.

I did add a section on the forum for discussion of the wiki and to make suggestions for articles needed there. I have had a visitor or two to the forum, but no registrations yet.

I dug in to Joomla a bit today. This is some very interesting software. I learned that I can duplicate the look of my site built in KompoZer without any problem. To use this software to the fullest extent I will need to develop my php skills as I have needed to learn about html and css with KompoZer. I have just begun to scratch the surface with this program.

I did successfully build a template with the help of a tutorial on the Joomla site. I duplicated the look of the placeholder page that I had put up on the site. I learned a lot today but I can see that I have much more to learn. I did pick up a trick that I could use on some of my other sites, how to build a box with rounded corners (or any special effects) that flows with a fluid site layout.

When I did the installation there was a box asking if I wanted to install the sample content. I said yes when I should have said no, so there are several articles and some other content populating the page. I think that it is easy to delete this, but it should not have been installed in the first place. If you want to follow the progress you can click HERE.

Today I asked Simple Scripts to install the Content Management System Joomla on my new site, The PC App Store. No, you can’t look at it yet because I have not started to work on it. The Joomla site is linked if you wish to visit though. There seem to be great possibilities with this software and when I am familiar with it I may use it on some of the other sites that I am developing. I knew a little bit about it, but I had no idea of the capabilities or the flexibility of the product.

I felt some urgency when I looked at my AdSense statistics page this morning and found that the new site had been visited three times while I slept. This may mean that the site is indexed by a search engine. I didn’t check on the history of the name, and sometimes if you get a name that has been previously used you will get some traffic from old bookmarks. I have a couple of domain names that fall into this catagory.

My plan for the site is to offer a software store. There will be a good deal of work in setting this up. I will have to set up various affiliate programs so that I can make some pennies from any customers that may choose to purchase products listed on the site. Of course, before I begin to populate the pages I want to integrate them with the site.

In other news, I put some finishing touches on the Live Sound Forum. This should be considered a work in progress. I will need to add some posts to some of the forums on the site. I will, however, put up the links from some of my sites to begin to promote the site. I will soon email my contacts list inviting my industry people to participate in the forum.

I have worked a bit on the forum software. I made the initial categories and forums this evening. I should make a ’sticky’ post to most of the forums, but a lot of what I would do in those posts is taken care of in the subtitles.

I do have to write a welcome message and make a post under rules. I should also make a post under ‘Announcements’ requesting help with Mod and Assistant Admin positions. I guess that those things really need to be done before I sprinkle links around my sites. I will then do an email campaign to get the word out to my industry contacts.

The forum address is: http://www.livesoundwiki.com/forum/ if you want to check it out or tell your friends.

I added a concert blog page and post in the new blog on the AudioArt Sound site. We did an Eddie Money show at the Coliseum in Daytona Beach. I wrote up the show and an introduction of the page.

I have installed a forum on the Live Sound Wiki site. It is not yet open to the public, but it will be soon. I used a simple scripts install of phpBB 3.03. The installation was quick and painless. The configuration work that I have done so far was also smooth. The documentation is much better than I found with the wiki software. I haven’t looked much at the WordPress documentation. The site family look, while not totally satisfactory at this time, was easy with the help of the knowledge base. I got separate tracking installed for the forum. I placed one google adsense box on the view post pages.

There is still a bit to do. I need cross links to the wiki and the Mixing Live Sound pages. I also will need external links in to the forum when I go live with it from the Live Sound Wiki home page and from the Mixing Live Sound home page. I will probably also announce it on the AudioArt Sound site. Then there are all of the administrative tasks that must be attended to before I invite visitors into my new house.

I am sure that there are other tasks to accomplish with regard to this project. I will think of them as I go along. Then there is the wiki to populate with articles, and Mixing Live, and. . . . .