Video Podcast : Winter driving : Drupal and Wordpress : Burton’s ministry focus
And, as promised, here’s the wintery video podcast where I discuss:
- How to drive in the snow (the fast lane is still to be the faster lane even when it’s snowing)
- Drupal and Wordpress- how can my fears be relieved? Check out my Drupal and Wordpress sites at www.20elements.com and www.revolutionexperience.com.
- The Burton’s ministry focus over the next 6 months or so (look out Detroit!)
Also, I’m booking ministry events for 2009. If you’d like training for your church or conference crowd in revival, fulfilled destiny, the house of prayer movement and other topics, contact me at john@praytherevolution.com today! I’d love to serve your ministry. Amy is also available to minister on financial freedom.
Here’s the video. If you are viewing this in your email, jump over to www.revolutionexperience.com.
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8 Responses to “Video Podcast : Winter driving : Drupal and Wordpress : Burton’s ministry focus”
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“intercessory missionarie”s children like christmas too” …that's right! Gettin' ready in Detroit…Luann
“intercessory missionarie”s children like christmas too” …that's right! Gettin' ready in Detroit…Luann
First off, both drupal and wordpress are excellent. I've used Drupal for years and wordpress for a little while. Drupal's code, from a programmer's point of view, is a little better while Wordpress' ease of use tends to be a little better. That being said, I'm now taking the approach of doing everything in Wordpress unless I need Drupal functionality. Why? Simply because Wordpress is simpler to maintain. The one click updates and plugin installs that came with 2.7 are incredible and theming tends to be a little simpler in my opinion. Either one is great, but if you can do it in Wordpress I tend to think it's a touch easier to maintain if you don't need the incredibly functionality that comes with Drupal. Drupal's more for when you need major functionality or a pretty deep social networking site. (Drupal fanatics will argue otherwise)
Honestly, I don't think the backup thing is as scary as you do. I've never had a problem restoring a site at all. Here's what I do via daily automated backups:
1. Backup all the files on the website once a week. This ensures I have an updated copy of all the files.
2. Backup the database once a day. This always gives me a recent enough copy of the database.
3. Before any upgrade, major change, etc, always take a backup of the database and the files on the webserver. That way, if something goes wrong you can just trash the updated site and immediately put the old one back by deleting and restoring the files on the server and by deleting the database and recreating it from the backup.
For one, you should probably install phpMyAdmin so you can easily work with the database. You can use this to easily create dumps of the database and then upload those dumps if you want to restore a database as of.
The file you hacked for clean urls was .htaccess. Since this is a hidden file by UNIX definitions it may be hard to find, but it's always in your root directory. It sounds like you're using an older version of drupal because I don't remember having to modify .htaccess manually in Drupal 6 and you don't have to in Wordpress 2.7 either.
Honestly the one click installation stuff that hosts sell is way over rated. Both Drupal and Wordpress come with their own installers that make it incredibly simple to install. Just create your database (you can use phpMyAdmin if your host doesn't just give you one), upload the files, and then run the site. Both will install for you.
As far as hosts, I'm not sure what to tell you. I use my own VPS through Slicehost which gives me total control. They use very good hardware and are excellent. I don't mind maintaining a Linux box, so it's not big deal to me. If you're looking for shared hosting, I've heard Media Temple's approach is good, but since I like my own server I haven't tried it.
If you're interesting in running off your own VPS (where you can install whatever you want however you want) with automated backups (like I run) drop me a line and we could talk.
First off, both drupal and wordpress are excellent. I've used Drupal for years and wordpress for a little while. Drupal's code, from a programmer's point of view, is a little better while Wordpress' ease of use tends to be a little better. That being said, I'm now taking the approach of doing everything in Wordpress unless I need Drupal functionality. Why? Simply because Wordpress is simpler to maintain. The one click updates and plugin installs that came with 2.7 are incredible and theming tends to be a little simpler in my opinion. Either one is great, but if you can do it in Wordpress I tend to think it's a touch easier to maintain if you don't need the incredibly functionality that comes with Drupal. Drupal's more for when you need major functionality or a pretty deep social networking site. (Drupal fanatics will argue otherwise)
Honestly, I don't think the backup thing is as scary as you do. I've never had a problem restoring a site at all. Here's what I do via daily automated backups:
1. Backup all the files on the website once a week. This ensures I have an updated copy of all the files.
2. Backup the database once a day. This always gives me a recent enough copy of the database.
3. Before any upgrade, major change, etc, always take a backup of the database and the files on the webserver. That way, if something goes wrong you can just trash the updated site and immediately put the old one back by deleting and restoring the files on the server and by deleting the database and recreating it from the backup.
For one, you should probably install phpMyAdmin so you can easily work with the database. You can use this to easily create dumps of the database and then upload those dumps if you want to restore a database as of.
The file you hacked for clean urls was .htaccess. Since this is a hidden file by UNIX definitions it may be hard to find, but it's always in your root directory. It sounds like you're using an older version of drupal because I don't remember having to modify .htaccess manually in Drupal 6 and you don't have to in Wordpress 2.7 either.
Honestly the one click installation stuff that hosts sell is way over rated. Both Drupal and Wordpress come with their own installers that make it incredibly simple to install. Just create your database (you can use phpMyAdmin if your host doesn't just give you one), upload the files, and then run the site. Both will install for you.
As far as hosts, I'm not sure what to tell you. I use my own VPS through Slicehost which gives me total control. They use very good hardware and are excellent. I don't mind maintaining a Linux box, so it's not big deal to me. If you're looking for shared hosting, I've heard Media Temple's approach is good, but since I like my own server I haven't tried it.
If you're interesting in running off your own VPS (where you can install whatever you want however you want) with automated backups (like I run) drop me a line and we could talk.
That was the best response yet! I guess I just have questions wondering if a single glitch can take a whole site down. In either the database or the files. When my WPMU database corrupted, it took some serious jumping through hoops to get the database restored. Had to get some new software (Putty?), learn some stuff and hope for the best. Plus, the database size was nearly 100mb. How do you back up your database? How do you back up your files? I use a plugin for the database, but if my server ever went down I'd not have a local backup of the files.
The reason I want to try Drupal is for clients who want to grant permissions to their employees… to login, check private blogs, gain access to files, etc. Is that the best way to go? Any other options? Can I do this with Wordpress?
Regarding a VPS, how does this work? Cost?
That was the best response yet! I guess I just have questions wondering if a single glitch can take a whole site down. In either the database or the files. When my WPMU database corrupted, it took some serious jumping through hoops to get the database restored. Had to get some new software (Putty?), learn some stuff and hope for the best. Plus, the database size was nearly 100mb. How do you back up your database? How do you back up your files? I use a plugin for the database, but if my server ever went down I'd not have a local backup of the files.
The reason I want to try Drupal is for clients who want to grant permissions to their employees… to login, check private blogs, gain access to files, etc. Is that the best way to go? Any other options? Can I do this with Wordpress?
Regarding a VPS, how does this work? Cost?
Well, sure you can mess up a site if something critical is messed up. That's one reason why you always take backups before upgrading a site and only use plugings/modules that are not test and that look to be stable. I personally haven't had any problems in years, and if I did have one it's typically pretty easy to restore a site quickly. FYI, Putty is software used to connect to a Linux or UNIX server over ssh from a Windows machine.
Hmm. 100mb is pretty big for a database unless you have a lot (and I mean a lot) of posts and users. I wonder if that was just the database or your other files as well. Honestly, if I needed the capabilities of WPMU, I would probably be more tempted to use Drupal.
I have some scripts I've written to do my backups. I'd be happy to share them with no, there's no big secret to them. The backup scripts automatically send everything to Amazon's s3 storage so they're safely stored offsite and Amazon's price is really cheap. I mean really cheap.
You can create user accounts in Wordpress and give them roles. I'll bet with a plugin or two you could do what you're wanting to do.
VPS is basically like having your own server. The cost depends on how much horsepower you need. It can go from around $20 a month to hundreds. If you want to chat, offline, send me an email as I'm not tracking comments on this post (you should have my address from the post). Also, I'll be at one thing and at Luke18, so I wouldn't mind chatting with you when I'm there.
Well, sure you can mess up a site if something critical is messed up. That's one reason why you always take backups before upgrading a site and only use plugings/modules that are not test and that look to be stable. I personally haven't had any problems in years, and if I did have one it's typically pretty easy to restore a site quickly. FYI, Putty is software used to connect to a Linux or UNIX server over ssh from a Windows machine.
Hmm. 100mb is pretty big for a database unless you have a lot (and I mean a lot) of posts and users. I wonder if that was just the database or your other files as well. Honestly, if I needed the capabilities of WPMU, I would probably be more tempted to use Drupal.
I have some scripts I've written to do my backups. I'd be happy to share them with no, there's no big secret to them. The backup scripts automatically send everything to Amazon's s3 storage so they're safely stored offsite and Amazon's price is really cheap. I mean really cheap.
You can create user accounts in Wordpress and give them roles. I'll bet with a plugin or two you could do what you're wanting to do.
VPS is basically like having your own server. The cost depends on how much horsepower you need. It can go from around $20 a month to hundreds. If you want to chat, offline, send me an email as I'm not tracking comments on this post (you should have my address from the post). Also, I'll be at one thing and at Luke18, so I wouldn't mind chatting with you when I'm there.