Finally after two years of contemplating the updates to Apache 2.x, MySQL 5.x, and PHP 5.x, I finally updated my server to the latest version os Apache, MySQL, and PHP. I was not too concerned about custom work or any of my WordPress sites, but I was concerned XOOPS and/or XOOPS modules would have some problems, but it is now a week later and everything is running smoothly. Why finally? Well, as of the end of this month, support for PHP 4 will be discontinued. Better late than never. Time to update your servers too?

I get a number of inquiries from people who want to know what content management system (CMS) or blog software I would recommend. After working with XOOPS, Plone, and of course

After a few days of not posting here, I am back. Every time the new year approaches, I begin to re-assess what I want to do for the year like most people. Last year I wanted to establish myself and my consulting business, get involved in some big projects, and learn more about WordPress. Looking back now, I ended up working on a few big projects, the most visible (as soon as it launches) is Ookles. I had the opportunity to work with some outstanding talent and I learned quite a bit about CSS, Google Maps, project management, contracts, and the art of communication. I also had a great year with my consulting company. I have helped a number of people build their personal and company web sites, and I learned quite a bit by working behind graphic designers for the first time. Thanks to Alex King, I also built quite a few custom WordPress CMS web sites, blogs, and etc which pushed me to learn more about WordPress, AJAX, and PHP. In the next coming year, I hope to improve my time management (so I can spend … [more]

I was recently asked how to clone the SmartSection module for XOOPS, so I thought I would document the process here on my blog. (XOOPS is another favorite CMS I use for my clients when they want a CMS)

Download SmartSection (http://smartfactory.ca/
Duplicate the smartsection module folder (this is the folder with all the module files in it - the folder you will put into the “modules” directory within your XOOPS install)
Now it is time to do a few “find and replaces” with your favorite text editor. (I prefer TextWrangler) For the sake of an example, I am going to name my cloned version of the SmartSection module SmartJappler. Within the entire duplicated folder, find and replace every instance of the following with the name of your newly cloned module. **Make sure you are replacing every instance in all the files**

Find: smartsection and replace it with smartjappler (your module name here)
Find: SMARTSECTION and replace it with SMARTJAPPLER (your module name here)
Find: SmartSection and replace it with SmartJappler (your module name here)
Find: Smart Section and replace it with Smart Jappler (your module name here)
Find: SSECTION and replace it with SJAPPLER (your module name here)
Find: Smartsection and replace … [more]

Some random things to point out…

Amanda Congdon is no longer the RocketBoom anchor…and just when I finally got Amy slightly hooked to this awesome vblog. Wherever she goes, I will be sure to follow. She is very talented!
Diet/lifestyle update…I weighed in yesterday and actually lost a few pounds last week! That is from all the moving (I moved my home office to a different part of my home to further separate home stuff and work stuff) and IKEA assembly coupled with yardwork over the weekend. Now I just need to keep that up!
I am putting the finishing touches on a re-write of my company web site that I have been working on for the last several weeks now. I still need to do some final QA as well as to validate everything…and fill the sitemap, but it is pretty complete so I thought I would put it. There will always be something to do. I have a few HOWTO blog postings coming up on how I did some of the things I did.
What is the deal with gas prices?? The low-grade by me is now at $3.24 and climbing. … [more]

I have been completely swamped with work for the last week, but I wanted to share some random points of interest that I have stumbled upon over the last few days.

I sat down to relax after a long day of coding to watch a great show on the History Channel called: Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way Opium, Morphine, and Heroin. This was filled with awesome tidbits of information like:

The Chinese first got hooked on smoking tobacco, then they added some opium to the tobacco…then they got hooked on smoking opium. Before this, eating little bits of opium was the most popular way to feel the effects of opium
Morphine was used to treat alcoholism, and even though alcoholics then became morphine addicts, it was more socially acceptable at this time (around prohibition) than to be an alcoholic because morphine addicts were less likely to start fights or beat their spouses
The hypodermic needle was invented to get morphine to into people’s systems faster

Grant Lee Phillips, one of my favorite singers, released a new album this week and it is amazing. Anyone who is looking for a great summer album, be sure and … [more]

While upgrading a client's web site to XOOPS 2.0.14 I ran into some issues with the XOOPS 2.0.14 package file (a tar.gz file). Stuffit Expander would only extract a few folders, then report an error and quit. After a few attempts, and all failures, I had to chose to turn to the command line and bingo, no problems! So, if you ever have any issues with Stuffit Expander and need to uncompress a .tar.gz file, the following commands will come in handy:

To uncompress a gz file: gunzip file.gz
To uncompress a tar file:
tar [tar options (usually xvf)] file.tar
To uncompress a .tar.gz file: tar xzvf file.tar.gz

Questions? Check out the man pages for tar and gunzip.
[tags]XOOPS, gunzip, tar[/tags]