A little over three years ago I made the switch from the Nucleus CMS to the Joomla CMS. At the time my main motivations for making the switch were the slowness of the Nucleus development cycle, and my desire to use a system that was easier to update and to make information easier to find.

For the last few years Joomla! has served me well and I have used the framework as the backend for a number of commercial and private websites. At the end of April I decided to launch a new blog site, www.SloArch.com, and started looking for the easiest way to get a blog up and running. My tech mentor Leo Laporte has been touting SquareSpace.com for a few weeks. I checked out their site, which is amazing, but I didn’t like the idea of paying a monthly fee and I wasn’t planning on giving up my web hosting account with SiteGround, so I looked primarily at solutions that I could host myself.

I had taken a look at WordPress three years ago and I decided to take another look (I also checked out Nucleus, still not impressed).

Wow, Wordpress has grown up in the last three years. Bottom line, I used WordPress on SloArch.com for a month and new I had to port this site over. So, for the last 5 days, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Okay, this is why you are here, you don’t care about all that history.

Joomla vs. WordPress

1. Post Editing:

This was probably my biggest frustration with Joomla is the lack of an integrated tag system and the ability to add posts to multiple categories. Since the purpose of this site is really to be a blog, tagging and multiple categories have been something I’ve wanted to add for some time.

Wordpress also has a great autosave feature as well as keeping a history of past article versions. I havn’t had a need to go back to a previous version, but the autosave feature has saved me a couple times already. With Joomla! I typically edited my text in an external editor because I was afraid of browser crashes, etc. If you don’t edit site content that often or your posts are usually short then this probably isn’t important.

Joomla! and Wordpress both have great WYSIWYG editors and Joomla! has a number of editors that you can use.

Winner: WordPress (more…)

Crystal and I just finished watching the first part of the ABC mini-series, “The Path to 911.” Cinematically it is a very captivating “action thriller” that rivals the most intense and well done action spy, CIA movies that have ever been done. I find the format of the film valuable, because instead of sitting through a dry intellectual documentary you are transported to the time and places of the events, you feel as if you are there as they are unfolding and that makes it more accessible to a larger audience and helps you to understand what happened.

Due to my limited knowledge of the actually conversations of those involved I can not make a judgment on the accuracy of that content, but I think that as a representation of the attitudes and events of the 8 ½ years leading up to 911 and as a film to understand our enemy in the war on terrorism the film is important. To understand the motivations and there capabilities of our enemies makes this film is invaluable and should be watched by every American.

We are NOT dealing with a rag tag group of Gorilla worriers who ride camels and herd sheep. Our enemy is highly educated, imaginative, and ruthless, and bent on the destruction or conversion of America to Islam. Nothing less. I was surprised by their use of technology, including advanced computer encryption techniques, and advanced explosives capabilities. I was also surprised by the internationality of the conflict and the vast efforts of the CIA and FBI.

In the nineties I was oblivious to the terrorism threat as were most Americans. It’s time for us to wake us to this threat. They have been at war with us for over 13 years now, it’s time we became committed to fighting back!

Tonight we start our first installment. We decided to eat somewhere we haven’t eaten before. We ate at Don Pedro’s Authentic Mexican Food at 8550 El Camino Real in Atascadero. We were seated very promptly and quickly given chips and salsa. The chips were warm and the salsa was room temperature, but they were still good and we quickly emptied a couple baskets. The restaurant was very clean and had nice decorations however our seat was located in an area near a ceiling fan which had a recessed light above it. As the fan rotated it caused an almost strobe light effect on our table. It would have been fun if there was some good dance music playing but it wasn’t as great for eating. Our food was delivered quickly and our orders were correct. The beans were delicious as were the tamale’s and enchiladas. Crystal order a chicken taco which wasn’t that great. The chicken was very wet as if it had been sitting in chicken broth or was canned chicken and didn’t have much flavor. The service was really good however our hostess was a bit ditsy and had a very loud voice which carried throughout the restaurant when she was in the kitchen joking with the chef. The price per plate was $10-$12. Overall on a scale of 1 to 10 forks I give it 6 forks and Crystal gives it 5.

Although I’ve lived on the central coast for 4 years now, this year was the first time that I attended both the Paso Robles annual Vine Street Victorian Christmas Showcase and the Atascadero Winter Wonderland. I didn’t even know the latter existed until about fifteen minutes before I went.

The Atascadero Winter wonderland was last Friday evening. The event was what I expected from a small town event. It reminded me a lot of the Thursday evening Farmers Market in San Luis Obispo except that there was maybe a thousand people and most of them were children. There were loads of street vendors and fund raising groups with the occasional carolers, and of course Santa Clause. The highlight of the Winter Wonderland was the snow manufactured from 180 crushed ice blocks. There were three snow locations downtown, 2 were for snow ball fights and the third was set up on a hill for sledding! This was by far the most interesting thing at the event to watch. (more…)

Crystal and I just finished watching the movie “Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Proportions” by Morgan Spurlock. The film is a documentary about Morgan who goes on a one month diet of only McDonalds’ food.

Before I watched the film I had a feeling it would be interesting but I had no idea how much I would learn about the food industry and obesity in America. This film is so powerful that Crystal is now thinking of going into a career of educating youth about health and nutrition.

In the course of the month Morgan went from being in excellent health to having a failing kidney, decreased sexual ability, depression, fatigue, and gained 24 pounds. It then took him 14 months to loose it following a strict “healthy” diet.

This film is a must see for all Americans! It is rated PG-13 for a few choice words, a stomach stapling procedure, and a nice little description by Morgan’s girlfriend about his decreased ability in the bedroom (she actually is very tactful in her explanation).