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

2. Plugin System

Joomla 1.5 made big improvements to the plugin system for the CMS. You can now install plugins, modules, components, and templates all through the same interface. Manual installation with WordPress is a bit more complicated, themes need to be uploaded via ftp; plugins and widgets can also be uploaded or installed through the admin interface.

Finding addons for Joomla is a lot easier than with WordPress. Joomla!’s extension directory allows for very easy searching of over 4,400 extensions in a very granular way, you can search by licence, free/non-free, and by extension type. The extensions are also grouped into well organized categories.

WordPress in contrast, has over 5,400 plugins that are organized only by user defined tags. While in theory this sounds great, the tags aren’t as specific or as well assigned as Joomla!’s categories.

Both WordPress and Joomla! have good user rating and comment systems.

The big advantage of WordPress over Joomla! is the ability to search for and install plugins directly from within the administrator console. It is very easy to try out different plugins quickly and all of the plugins are transferred and installed on your site without having to visit the developers webpage or downloading anything to your local machine.

Winner: WordPress

3. Templating

Having templated many Joomla! websites and only two WordPress sites I probably can’t be considered an expert in WordPress templates, however from my experience I have found WordPress’ templating system to be very convuluded. Joomla! templates are contained in one index.php file that then references supporting images, css, javascript, etc. Joomla! also allows for overriding any of the content templates for any of the view types. The biggest strength of Joomla! is it’s module system. The template can define an infinite number of positions for content, usually these are a left column, main content area, right column, header, footer, banner, and maybe a debug position. The user of the template only uses those module positions that they want and this can vary from page to page. Ont index.php file defines all of that!

WordPress on the other hand uses a theme system that applies a template to each page/view type. For example, the index.php file is the default view, but if you want to have a page that has two columns, and one that has one column, these would be two separate templates, index.php, single_column.php. Each view type, archive, category, search, single article, all have their own templates. This is in contrast to Joomla! which uses one template and components to define how the content is displayed.

I personally find Joomla! much easier to modify. If you are a person who just uses out of the box templates then you might find WordPress easier. If you want to move things around and customize your site then you will probably find Joomla! easier.

Winner: Joomla!

4. Software Updates

This was a big reason I switched to WordPress for this site, Joomla! can’t even compete with the ease of updating WordPress. WordPress allows for in place updates of plugins and with the Automatic Upgrade Plugin you can do an in place upgrade of the WordPress installation as well. Friendly alerts tell you when things need upgrading.

Joomla! currently has no upgrade system. Upgrade are handled by manually overwriting files via ftp.

Winner: WordPress

5. Initial Setup

Installation of both Joomla! and WordPress are about the same. Copy some files, set up some basic parameters and you’re ready to go.

Winner: Tie

Final Thoughts

I still think that Joomla! is the best opensource CMS out there. Version 1.5 was a huge improvement and the developer team is working hard to keep Joomla! on the leading edge. What it came down to for me was ease of use. I’m not modifying my template every day (historically I’ve done it every three years) and Joomla! is overkill for a simple blog. WordPress is lacking in some areas as well, creating custom RSS feeds, and having extreme control over content display are two area, but WordPress doesn’t market itself as a CMS, it’s a blogging platform. I will continue to use Joomla! for my corporate sites, but for a simple blog WordPress will be my choice.

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.

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.

The Vine Street Showcase, last Saturday night, is one of those local secrets that everyone loves but doesn’t want anyone else to go to. With thousands of people milling about between 8th and 22nd streets Vine street becomes a pedestrian traffic jam with people listening to dozens of live bands, choirs, and soloists, getting free cotton candy, candy canes, and pony rides. The entertainment and activities are great but if there were just a few less people it would be a lot easier to get around and a bit harder to loose the people you came with. Crystal and I went to Vine St. with my parents and her sister and brother-in-law. We lost them all after about 20 minutes and next year I think we are all going to wear flashing lights on our heads or carry walkie-talkies. We’re over 18 so we could take care of ourselves and we had a great time.

Some of the highlights of the Vine Street Showcase were:
- the Atascadero High School Marching Band parading down the middle of the street bulldozing anyone in there way,
- the Latter-Day Saint Church giving out FREE Christmas DVD’s and Videos (I’m biased on this one),
- Athena (a very beautiful solo voice),
- the group of 20-30 belly dancers,
- a silent stage featuring portions of The Nutcracker,
- “The Singing Hands” (a group of signing children who were also at the Winter Wonderland the previous night),
- the “antique doll house”
- and of course the one house everyone loves to hate, the “Home of Ebenezer Scrooge”!

There were many more great attractions and I could probably write a story on each one of these but I’ll just say that everything was amazing. If you aren’t in the holiday spirit before these two huge events then you will definitely be after words. I just want to thank all those who volunteer to make these local events such a success, we all appreciate it.

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).