2009, blogging, social networking...and me
Well, it looks as though 2009 will be the year I finally start to do this "social networking" thing for real. I've been running this website for a few years now - originally set up to host my genealogy work for my family, it became something a bit more interesting when I embarked upon the Joomla! journey. My first Joomla! site was the revision of my plain html North Bucks Road Club website using Joomla!1.0. I then reworked this website using a release candidate of Joomla! 1.5.x, and subsequently set up a website for a conference in Oxford that I helped organise (this site has been removed as it's no longer needed).
This site has been upgraded to Joomla! 1.5.9. The initial upgrade from the release candidate to the final release version in summer 2008 was a disaster, and I had to rebuild it from a saved sql file. At that point, I switched to MyBlog to handle the front page. I've also started using an extension that permits finer granularity in user groups, so that selected users can collaborate on documents, such as wikis.
In December, I finally upgraded the North Bucks Road Club website to Joomla! 1.5 - I was rather apprehensive given the problems I'd had with tis website, but all went remarkably smoothly. At that stage, I started using Community Builder to add functions such as personal messaging for the membership.
Also in December, I upgraded the website I'd set up for the now-defunct cycling club Northwood Wheelers to Joomla!1.5. I also became a bit concerned that this blog, which is my main voice on the internet was becoming a bit diffuse in subject matter. With my 2-up timetrialling team mate, I set up a splinter blog, Team Grumpy, hosted by Google's Blogspot, and then a week or so ago another blog, Wonderful Life, which I initially set up at wordpress.com. Feeling a bit limited in configurability there, I installed my own Wordpress software on my main website, and set things up quite nicely, I think. I can now compare three styles of blog site:
Wordpress and Blogger are astonishingly easy to set up - probably less than five minutes, and you're in the blogosphere. They are quite versatile packages (particularly Wordpress).
If you download and install Wordpress on your own server account, it turns out to still be a really simple installation. I did this by adding the Wordpress data tables to my original Joomla! database (this means that backups of my Joomla! site bring the wordpress blog along as well. You can have a free reign on editing the style of the template you're using. There are oodles of Wordpress templates out there.
Joomla! however, remains my favourite CMS - it is hugely adaptable, with over 4000 extensions available. Many templates (both commercial and free) are available. Whatever you want to do, you can do with Joomla!
There is a chance I may get some experience with another CMS, Drupal, which I did play with a little last year, on a local test installation. I've not really got anything to add there, as my experience is so limited.
The social networking side of things have come on my radar somewhat more recently. I have accounts on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, and I have an account at LibraryThing. I started all that principally to get my websites some publicity, and I'm a little worried by the possibility the whole thing will turn out to be an enormous time-waster!
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