Blog Marco - Drupal

Drupal Installation Venting!

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:45:28 -0700

ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! I hate moving to new hosts. Something always goes wrong. Maybe it's me. So here's a venting blog entry about my recent ordeal with a Drupal Installation on HostGator which I just solved a few minutes ago. Call it a debrief on my experience and see what lessons I can learn from my mistakes. There isn't anything wrong with HostGator. I realise now what I was doing wrong.

I always go about Drupal installations systematically. Actually I wasn't leaving my long time hosting service (MediaTemple). I just wanted another host and wanted to try out another service (and also to use them as a backup, in case anything happens).

So I sign up to HostGator (which was painless except for the hip pocket - although their hosting prices are competitive). I bought a new domain name from GoDaddy and another from a company called IntaServe which offer registrations for *.com.au's. I've had experience with GoDaddy before - so that went smoothly - although for the uninitiated - you'll probably get lost in the jungle of promotions that they have. I'm slightly annoyed with Intaserve. I guess that's where my attitude started down a downward spiral. I came into the new project all optimistic and now this Australian registrar is screwing my workflow. Why? Because their business systems are screwed. I think they need to have a look at their registration systems: just a few tweaks with their wording in their emails and automated systems and they would be really good. But no, it took me a while, emails to Intaserve took a while to get answered. I was emailing HostGator at 11pm on a Sunday night in Australia and I was getting a response from them. So I had to give Intaserve a call to fix things. In five minutes the pain was all over. Thank God I don't have to deal with Intaserve again until the next time I need to renew my domain.

MarcoPalmero.com

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:19:17 -0800

I've setup a new website for my photography business which sports my name: MarcoPalmero.com. It took half a day to setup, including setting up the servers, typing up the website html and css using notepad and the graphics. It took an extra hour to copy the existing portfolio from the original Photos2View website and to find a few new photos to add to the page.

I have also setup another blog - aptly named Sydney Photographer Blog - which will only have topics regarding photography (unlike this current blog which tends to be very random about topics). I've posted up photos I took from last Saturday from Eric and Prescilla's Wedding.

Another visit to the Drupal Showcase

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:27:37 -0700

I went along the Drupal showcase for some inspiration. There are so many crappy - un-modified designs out there... But there are a few occasional great websites. I came across two in my visit today. One was exemplary, the other so-so but worth the mention.

Your MTB (MTB is short for Mountain Bike) is a community website for MTB enthusiasts. Its great! Smooth design, great functionality. Definitely a place to be inspired for my next Drupal designed website. There's a discussion thread here all about it.

Ruby Baboon is like digg.com with a twist. Not exactly original, but I like how they used a combination of modules to work together as well as some customisation of the theme.

Tagadelic Drupal

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:24:06 -0700

Thanks to the tagadelic module and this php snippet I can do this:

Interesting Quotations Motivational Quotes Ashley Judd Asia Beijing Business Celebrities China CSS programming CSS programming Drupal Drupal Websites Electrical Engineering Filipino Food Gadgets General Computing Health Interesting Quotations Life. Manila Marco Money Motivational Quotes Music (and other Lyrical Media) People Philippines Photography Photos Programming on the Internet Random Stuff Shanghai Signals and Systems Sydney Sydney Cuisine Sydney Events Technique Technology + Gadgets The Internet Travel Travel tips TV. + Movies. (and any other moving picture media) University. Webmaster information Websites of Interest

Recent Drupal Websites I liked

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:23:43 -0700

I don't particularly like the design of my blog, or any of my websites for that matter. It isn't my specialty. Anyway, Just browsing throught he Drupal showcase and here are three interesting drupal website designs:

Bootstrap: A lot of white space and attactive

Jia Style: Lots of colour but I like the column layout

Altiris Juice: I like the subtle lime colours as well as the well set out page - a lot of white space!

Selling A Website for n00bs: Transfer Domain

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:14:03 -0800

Teaser:
It's the First Time I've Sold a Website Online (and probably not the last) and The First Time I Transferred a Domain Name

Body:

There comes a time in a webmaster's life when they lose the passion they once had in building, designing, promoting and maintaining a website. And that time came for BetterWeddingIdeas.com. One of my first websites other than this blog of mine. That passion was lost, I stopped updating the site and my baby started losing visitors. I didn't want that to happen so I sold it off on a webmasters forum. I set the auction going but it eventually sold just a few hours at BIN (Buy It Now) price. some may say I could have received a higher price for that website but I'm happy because the site is going to a trustworthy person who already owns a wedding website. The true purpose of the sale is to see my baby grow more, and with me it had no potential to do so, and now it has the chance to become a successful website. right now I'm in the process of finalising the transaction and transferring the domain name and the servers.

Now, I've never transferred a website in my life before, but of course I'm always open to new experiences. First you need to transfer the domain name registrar. The process is initiated by the buyer, sending through a request for transfer. I (the seller) get an email. Before I click the approve transfer link (this is where I made a mistake - as the email didnt say anything about unlocking first), you need to unlock the name from your registrar first. then you click the transfer link. After that you should get an email from your registrar asking if you approve or disapprove the transfer. It should take 5 days to clear before the name transfer occurs.

Drupal: Display Related Nodes using the Search Mechanism

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:16:04 -0800

I found an interesting php snippet to use in my website which enables a search function to look for related articles to the current page you are reading and listing them. Thanks to http://www.gerd-riesselmann.net

title); $searchArgs = ""; foreach($words as $word) { if (strlen($word) > variable_get('remove_short', 3)) { $searchArgs .= $word . " "; } } if (count($searchArgs) > 0) { $results = node_search("search", $searchArgs); if (is_array($results) && count($results) > 0) { print ''; print '

';

          print 'The following articles may be of interest to you, too:';

          $list = array();

          $count = 0;

          foreach($results as $item) {

              if ($item['title'] == $node->title) {

                  continue;

              }

              $list[] = l($item['title'], $item['link']) .



Featured Drupal Website : News. Travel. Uni. Life. Photography
Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:17:29 -0800
This blog website is recently featured on two Drupal website showcases:
Drupal Showcase - News. Travel. Uni. Life. Photography

Drupal Sites.net - News. Travel. Uni. Life. Photography
Thanks for putting up those sites guys - Both DrupalShowcase.com and DrupalSites.net are doing a great service to the Drupal community by promoting existing websites and showcasing Drupal websites for other people to experience.


A showcase of Drupal websites
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:51:06 -0800
Here are some Drupal websites that I have found while surfing. These particular Drupal websites caught my attention as each one has some particular unique feature or content about them.
This website is owned and managed by an active Drupal contributor. He was the author for the Adseense module for Drupal. His website contains a lot of information about Drupal and its configuration amongst other things. Adsense placement on the website is typical: The footer the skyscraper columns. In my opinion the ads "fit" the website very well.

 The Baheyeldin Dynasty
This website was a discussion thread from the Drupal Showcase forum. This website demonstrates what could be done with Drupal  when design is kept simple and practical.

Personal solutions  BudgetStorage.co.uk
This website was also from the Drupal Showcase and what caught me was the modification of the ecommerce module to get the results they wanted in this website configuration.

Q Baby - eCommerce store


Hack to prevent display of Title in Block in Drupal
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:45:32 -0800
Hack to prevent display of Title in Block

Selecting a title using CSS

Or by using php:
Similar Method for PHP Template
I am using phptemplate bluemarine and have adjusted my block.tpl.php to read:
module; ?> " id="block- module; ?> - delta; ?> ">
subject;

            $findme = '!!hide!!';

            $pos = strpos($mystring, $findme);

            // Note our use of ===. Simply == would not work as expected

            // because the position of 'a' was the 0th (first) character.

            if ($pos === false)

         print $block->subject; ?>

    
 content; ?> 
 
This will hide any title for blocks that I include the string "!!hide!!". 
***Note: Give the block a description or it won't show up in your blocks list***


Resizing the Comment Box
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:44:22 -0800
Resize the Comment Boxes on Drupal - CSS input boxes: 
Just use percentage values:
.item-list .title {

width: 80%;

}
Resizing the Comment Box
login box looks interesting


WordPress Themes - A possibility of porting over to Drupal
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:43:53 -0800
WordPress Themes - A possibility of porting over to Drupal - WordPress Themes


Pure CSS Themes in Drupal
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:41:46 -0800
Pure CSS Themes in Drupal post
Pure CSS themes in Drupal


Interesting use of the Firefox Button Referral
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:38:02 -0800
An intersting feature on this page is that when you view it in Internet Explorer it pops up with this message:

When viewed in IE:

"We see you're using Internet Explorer.  Try Firefox, you'll like it better. 
      · Firefox blocks pop-up windows.

      · It stops viruses and spyware.

      · It keeps Microsoft from controlling the future of the internet. 
Click the button on the right to download Firefox.  It's free. "


Links to Interesting Drupal website Designs
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:36:04 -0800
Here is a page with interesting drupal website designs - they either have some visual merit or some system that seems interesting. It takes a lot of effort to learn how to put up a website and to program how the system behind it - here is a listing of just a few...
SkiBits.com - drupal site

Everything snow

Includes Ecommerce module

A bit of Adsense

Interesting four column setup

Blogs for users

Also does hosting

And sponsors a skier
Did You Know Blog  Your Daily Dose of Knowledge

Drupal

Two Columns on the right

Blended Adsense - in one column
nextstep Hertfordshire  advice on learning and work

3 columns and a header/footer

Use of frontpage snippets" whats new... etc
Geeks on steroids

Content, SEO and Design

Website Design and SEO Forum Forum Index
All IT Books

Getting heaps of hits - affiliate for Amazon

Drupal Forum Post about All IT Books
Free Articles and Content, Reading.com.au