I used WordPress Import, a pretty powerful tool which is still in development mode. On the surface it's a straightforward process of installing the module, uploading your WordPress .wxr file and then mapping out which posts are 'owned' by which users (aka authors). It then transfers both posts and comments associated with it.

It becomes a hell of a lot more complicated though when your .wxr file is 17mb. like mine, and I have nearly a hundred different subscribers and authors.

The actual migration is extremely resource intensive, so to upload the big file and handle the job you need to tweak these things: One, php.ini to allow for a large upload (the default is only 2mb.), and Two, Drupal's settings.php to allow for both a longer session time and to for more RAM to do the job, otherwise you will receive errors midstream like I did, and only transfer, say, half your posts or an increment instead of all.

To be specific, I changed the line at php.ini from this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 2M

to this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 64M

Then you'll need to add these two lines to your settings.php:

ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

Naturally you'll need to restart the webserver and make sure everything, including your other sites hosted on it, is fine. If you're doing this on a live server (meaning there are people reading the website), you need to do it quickly, then return the settings to their original immediately.

It so happened I bought a new domain so I'll be practicing on that one first before finally jumping onto MomEx.

Another issue that's been licked is the 'Clean URLs' problem. As I use Lighttpd, using .htaccess rules is out of the question, but I managed to find a good tutorial here, and another one that deals with imagecache issues, an important feature to handle images, using Lighttpd here.

There's only one more issue I need to fix before finally getting it all together.

MomEx's pageviews are counted by a WordPress Plugin called Clickcounter, which as the name suggest, registers a 'click' everytime someone views a page and displays it on the page plus stores it in the db.

A transfer to Drupal will negate all the registered hits! Drupal has its own click counter equivalent I'm sure, and I could probably tweak it to start counting where it left off, but that would require some MySQL magic which I'll have to investigate.

I know it sounds a little vain to want to keep all those registered hits but hey, we worked for those, some of which have gone up to the thousands. It'd be a pity to just lose it all.

When I do get that fixed there's the issue of finally migrating the site while it's online. That means I'd have to take it down for a a day or two just to make sure everything works. I can probably start on it in the morning and if I don't get it working, use the backups and go back to the old site in the evening, then start again the next day. The documentation I've read never mentioned these, as they all assumed you'd be migrating to a different domain. Migrating from WordPress to Drupal using the same domain is something new, so I plan to document it.

As with most daunting techie tasks I'm usually overwhelmed at the start but I eventually get over my wussiness and fix it, usually realizing it wasn't all that hard as I thought it was. In other words, I'm confident, and let's face it, getting something to work when a minute ago it seemed impossible feels GREEEAAAAT.

I'm excited about the fancy stuff I can implement once I get it on Drupal for sure, but the tremendous geekiness of it all is partly why I'm doing it as well I think.

Now I know that counter can be wrong and is nowhere near as accurate as I'd want it to be, but 2412 times?!?! Even if the right number is just half that, I'd still be floored.

The reason why these things surprise me I think, is really because I really just write for myself when I write on this thing. Now I know that sounds like a whole lotta hallelujah, but that's the truth. Stuff happens to me, and I wanna write it here so I won't forget. Writing it here, I get to put a date and time stamp on it, and maybe two or three folks, like, say, a batchmate or a relative, will check it out and chime in with their own thoughts. Perfectly reasonable, right?

But 2412?!? Wow, if I say so myself.

So anyway, to the subject at hand (for a person who claims he just writes for himself, he sure is saying a lot).

Jill and I spend a lot of time looking around at other Kikay websites, along with Chief Mom Jen, looking for other Mom / Parenting sites as well. Anyway, so from looking at them, I realized the common denominator, and that is - a distinct need to learn Photoshop.

So ok, some of them need to learn to write too. But that's the minority, and heck if a site doesn't 'speak' well it doesn't even rank, so those sites are out the window. For the most part, those that do hold promise show the following common issues: a.) oversized pics, b.) badly cropped pics and c.) badly placed pics. A and B can both be fixed by some Photoshop knowledge, while C requires some HTML knowledge, but if you're good at Photoshop to begin with, you may be able to pull a good post off while staying in WYSIWIG mode.

So now we have pinpointed the issue, here's my (ahem) advice:

1. Recognize that each post is a production. A blogpost for a magazine style blog such as Kikay or Momex has to be worked at. There's research involved, to make sure you're not talking crap and not just making things up. Then you have to start looking for appropriate pics - and when you find some, make sure they're non - copyrighted, or if they are, make sure to give due notice where you got them. Next, you sit down and properly write it up, then finally, you lay it out using your html editor along with Photoshop.
2. Buy a Photoshop Book. A cheap, beginner one will do. You will need to learn two things a. How to resize images, and b. how to crop. THAT'S IT. A Big honking Photoshop book will look impressive, but you only need to learn those two things and none more, so spare your money. Alternatively, you could:
3. Look it up on the web. Google 'how to resize images in photoshop' and 'how to crop images in photoshop'. I won't do that for you, you go right ahead and cut and paste that into Google and DIY.
4. Try to keep your images mostly the same size. If it is a pic to accompany a post, something with the width or 300 pixels or so will do. Once you've done that, use the same size more or less, for future posts. I promise you that the whole blog's index page (aka home page), will look greeeaaat and professional if the pics and blogposts are well - aligned and the same size. Further note: If you are using WordPress, or a blog hosted in WordPress.com, you may also want to learn more about the powerful 'more' tag, which is terrific for making posts uniform in height. Alternatively, you can also try the 'page' tag.
5. Use the following code to wrap an image to the left of text:
   <img src="http://whereyourpictureis" align='left'/>
   Change the align value to right if you want it to go to the right. If you want it to be centered on the page, wrap it around div tags, like this:
   <div align="center"><img src="http://whereyourpictureis" align='left'/></div>

   That's a good trick for very large pics.

6. To put a 5 pixel amount of whitespace in between your pics and text, insert vspace='5' hspace='5' onto your img code, like this:
   <img src="http://whereyourpictureis" align='left' vspace='5' hspace='5'>.

   This may or may not work depending on your CSS stylesheet, some of which automatically insert white space around images, some of which inexplicably, ignore them. Experiment with these first.

Well that's it for the moment, I'll append to this if I think of some more img related stuff.

I admit one of the reasons I like helping out these Kikay girls to make their Fashion websites is because such sites are, to me, what passion about the Internet is all about. I love it whenever I hear of someone passionate about something deciding to put up a page or two describing their hobby / career / whatever it is that rocks their boat.

The people who do these, to me, are what makes the Internet interesting. Not the techie stuff. Not the geeky stuff, but the geeks who write about their geeky stuff. It can be some dude rocking on about his comic book collection, or some guy who talks about his muscle cars, or yes, some girl who loves fashion and make up and who just wants to share her finds with the world. It's these people that power the 'net.

But passion isn't enough. Looking at all those sites that've fallen by the wayside, that's become fairly obvious. If you're gonna do it, do it right (insert a thousand other similarly framed cliches here), and learn the tools you need to get your stuff across. For now, take up my tips above, if it doesn't help say what you feel at my comment section below. But whatever you do, if you gonna make yourself a site, learn Photoshop.

Ok so since blogs are diaries of a sort I'm writing here my notes on my recent successful move from Centos to Ubuntu, which has been met with success in no small part due to Ubuntu's wealth of online help and support.

What I'm doing here is compile all the info on the docs I used to a.) install and configure Ubuntu 6.10 Server aka 'Edgy', b.) install and configure ssh server on it, so you can access it remotely, c.) install and configure libtorrent 0.11.4 and rtorrent 0.7.4 (the latest versions as of this writing. Just change the versions as needed.) and finally d.) install and run screen, which is like, duh easy.

At the end of this you'll have what I have, an Ubuntu computer accessed remotely via SSH (using a nice friendly SSH client like Putty) which happily downloads torrents day in and day out (for whatever nefarious reasons you may have which you will leave completely to yourself of course). Meanwhile my XP work computer, is saved from the trouble.

I'm doing this not to help world hunger or anything, rather the opposite - this doc is purely for myself - so I can remember what I did and reference to it from time to time - which means that it'll be written in SIMPLE EASY TO UNDERSTAND ENGLISH as opposed to a great deal of linux docs out there that are either heavy on theory, heavy on trying to be cute and funny, or both, making it totally unreadable and useless. Yup you know what I'm talking about.

So off we go.

The essential documents I used are thus:

Very very useful:

Tutorial Ninja's Rtorrent Howto Page - terrific, except for the rather vague Screen instructions. It assumes you're using a GUI (I think he's referring to KDE). I did it all on console though. The only difference between this and the Softpedia one below is that this asks you to create a directory first which I unfortunately did not do
Softpedia's Howto Rtorrent Page - Absolutely DA Shit, except it doesn't have Screen instructions, as it assumes you're doing all this on the computer itself. Remember, you're doing this all via SSH.
The Screen Man page - Best way to learn Screen instructions. Who knew?

Other essentials:

The Libtorrent and Rtorrent Wiki page (with very important MAN page, screenshots, download directory and other impt stuff)
Sample .rtorrent.rc file - linked from the tutorialninja site. You can copy it as is or use as a basis for your own settings.
Ubuntuforums - for like, you know, when you need to ask stuff. You can check out my stupid questions here.

Optional:

OpenDNS's Ubuntu page - I needed to change the DNS settings from Ubuntu default. There are other instructions for your choice of OS.
How to generate a set of encryption keys - for when you wanna get into more ssh stuff, although the default keys are fine they don't offer protection.

Notes:

I was initially gonna cut and paste the all the instns but after checking out the length of the tutorialninja howto I decided against it. Rather, I'll just put in a few notes to remember:

1. Ubuntu Edgy 6.10 Server Edition (as opposed to the Desktop Edition) is only a 451 mb. download and 30 minute install. It contains the core stuff, but (remember!) NO OpenSSHserver (only SSH client) and NO Screen. Therefore you're gonna need to run the ff. commands: sudo apt-get install ssh and sudo apt-get install screen. I'm not sure if a reboot is necessary with re to SSH install but what the heck I did anyway. FTP will therefore get in using only using SFTP over SSH2.
2. If you wanna FTP onto Ubuntu, you'll need to chown the dir you're gonna mess around with first, which is cool, as opposed to Centos which allowed me to log in as root (and therefore since we're all lazy makes us do it by default I think).
3. As I said earlier the Screen Man page is the most excellentest way to learn Screen. The only commands you're ever gonna need to know for the purpose of running rtorrent in the background is screen -a to start a new 'screen' (hard to explain, but basically it has to do with letting you run rtorrent in the 'background' whilst you can log in / out)) - after you run rtorrent, use ctrl+a+d to 'leave' the screen (so you can log out), and screen -r to 'go back' into the screen (so you can check out how rtorrent is getting along).
4. 'Could not parse bencoded data' means that what you're trying to download is not a torrent file. Why the heck it just doesn't say that beats me. But hey this is Linux, where a certain level of mind - reading is required. No wonder sysads are weird. Anyway moving on..
5. the rtorrent man page is again, the best place to learn. The primary commands you'll need to know is backspace to add the url (or directory location in your PC) of the torrent, ctrl+q to quit, 1 (to view main page), 2 (to view torrents by name), 3 (to view started torrents), 4 (to view stopped torrents). Also useful are ctrl+s to start torrents, ctrl+r to hash them before they start, ctrl+d to stop them (and another ctrl+d to remove it entirely), as well as the various numbers and acronyms beside each torrent and at the bottom of the page to tell you how things are going.
6. Learn the .rtorrent.rc file well, as it contains all the configs you'll need to run things smoothly. In particular are the ports it'll use, the use_udp_trackers = yes (or no. depends on you) setting, and the directories rtorrent should watch so it'll auto download files that are put into it. VERRRY neat - considering Azureus (I think) has to use RSS to do same.

Ok so far Ubuntu + rtorrent seems to be da shit. I'm gonna need to use it now for /var/www stuff, so I can finally get on with my plans to rule the world. Will update this as necessary, which says a lot given I've only started on Ubuntu 2 days ago (and I've used Centos for more than a year and never learned half as much as what I know now). Not to knock it, but it just wasn't the solution for newbies / occasional users like me. Later.

Seriously, just wanted to share with you how to steam chicken with carrots and potatoes in a microwave, using a p200.00 microwave steaming contraption you can buy anywhere. I bought mine at some hardware store. I promise you it's delish. Here we go:

The plastic contraption steaming cooking thingy has three parts. You put water at the lowest part, filling it to about half is good.

Then you need some chicken parts. Rock salt and pepper to taste.

And you slide it right on top like this.

Then you get some greenery going. Here's some pechay leaves.

Carrots..

Potatoes..

All bunched together. Looks good already.

Cover it up with the lid.

And it'll look like this.

Shove it in there.

And here's the tricky part. I go for about 10 minutes at 450 watts, our microwave's lowest setting, but you can go up to 15 for somewhat chilled chicken. Although we can, of course, go faster, what we're going for here is to boil the water for a prolonged time, otherwise you can overcook and the veggies can get burned and the chicken turn leather tough.

10 mins or so later, Et voila!

A closer look.

Ok that may not look all appetizing as i couldn't get a pic of the steam rising out. But trust me the smell is wonderful, and a mere poke or two at that marvelous soft, juicy chicken and that cooked - just - right potatoes, carrots and greens will make your mouth water. You can also use other crunchy greens, like brocolli or lettuce.

You can also start steaming rice just before you do this, and the cutting / preparation time + the 10 mins or so it takes the cook will approximates the time to cook the rice, so you'll have both fresh rice and steaming, oil-free healthy chicken ready at the same time. By Gad my stomach's grumbling.

And another thing..

The chicken fat will drop down to form chicken stock with the water underneath, and you can use this as a base for soup or thickened as gravy. I hate throwing it away but I've got so much of it now so, sayang.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

It comes with a 24 pin cable to the motherboard. Unfortunately my PC uses only 20.

But not to worry, you can remove the extra 4.

Like so.

So anyway, here now is the new DVDRW drive from Lite-On which promises such things as the "Super All-Write' feature, which promises "SMART-WRITE : Through drive's self-learning function, automatically detect and decide the optimal write strategy of DVD recordable media (DVD+R & DVD-R) for the best quality."

Whatever man, as long as it can write DVDs I'm happy. Notice it comes with two facias in black and silver aside from the default bleeech beige it comes with.

To change the facia, you have to remove some of the clip things. Here's one of them. There's another on top and on the other side.

So you use the included piece of wire to manually open the drive.

There you go.

Then you use a downward motion to remove the cover of the flap. Because I'm the adventurous type with a little rebellious streak to boot, I decided to go for a silver / black combination.

But before that, you've gotta take off the main cover first and replace it. (Yes I screwed up and it turns out I have to do this first before the previous step. Hey who said this is an official step by step guide?! So sue me.)

Ok so we're all good.

Et voila!! My silver / black combination DVDRW drive.

You know I feel like such a rebel for not following the black / black or silver / silver combination. No, actually.. more like an artiste with an 'e' at the end, to sorta highlight my genius. Or rather, kinda like a rock star. Yeah I like the sound of that. I'm the coolest, really. Whatever I am, I am a DVD-RW and Power Supply Installing Guy God!!

1. Backup your database and Drupal directory - especially your configuration file in 'sites/default/settings.php'.
2. Log on as the user with user ID 1.
3. Remove all the old Drupal files then unpack the new Drupal files into the directory that you run Drupal from.
4. Modify the new configuration file to make sure it has the latest and correct information.
5. Run update.php by visiting http://www.example.com/update.php.

But everyone knows things aren't usually as they seem, so I went ahead and made a whole drupal howto on my own with pictures and everything. Here goes:

First a few important notes.

• I use Windows.
• The site I'm about to update is Pinoywritersonline.com.
• Drupal 4.7.3, released early August, is a maintenance release + one security fix. It does not have any new features so it's not a major upgrade or anything, so most of the settings will remain the same plus you don't have to learn anything new.
• The pinoywriters installation like most drupal installations uses a theme other than the default one, which also happens to be compatible with both 4.7.2 and 4.7.3. This is important to know later on during the guide, where you might wonder why I did not write over or delete the /THEMES folder. I didn't delete it even when the instructions say I should, because I do not want to install it again.
• Like most people, I rent space on a webhosting service, which like most webhosting services, run Cpanel.
• Cpanel in turn uses Phpmyadmin, a powerful graphical MySQL editing tool. This is important to note since Drupal first time users are often confused with the included HOWTOS which assume terminal / root access to the webserver, hence commands like WGET -zxvf and MV. So to qualify: if you have terminal access and linux / unix skillz, follow the default HOWTO. If you prefer the more common graphical method and use Windows, follow below. (hence why i named this 'for the rest of us')
• Obviously, I use MySQL, provided by my webserver.
• Finally, for FTP I use Filezilla, but you can use any other.

Ok, ready? Let's go:

1. First, download Drupal 4.7.3 here. It's compressed using the .tar.gz format, which Windows XP does not recognize. Why its not available in .zip I do not know. Anyway, you can use Winrar to deal with that.
2. Now, login to your website, using the primary account (the very first account you created).
3. Now let's do that database backup. Create a folder and name it appropriately such as my ingenious, "aug122006_database_dump" on the folder where you usually put your project files on.

4. Now, login to your host's Cpanel area, and go to SITE MANAGEMENT > PHPMYADMIN.

5. Go to the database in question, and to it's EXPORT area. You'll want to select all your database's tables to back up, so click SELECT ALL. Click SAVE AS FILE and then press GO.

6. Your browser will start downloading your .sql file. Save it in the folder we created in step 1. You have now backed up your database.

7. Now to backup the 'sites/default/settings.php' file. Use your FTP software (I use Filezilla). Go to it, and copy it to a folder on your PC just like you did above.

8. As a habit I keep an exact copy of what's on the webserver on my hard disk. Doing so, it's a simple matter of dragging the 'live' settings.php file to the copy on my hard disk. Most FTP software will warn you that they're about to copy over a file, and a window like the one below will popup. Notice the same date and time, which means they're the same exact file. Go ahead and overwrite it anyway, just so you're assured you've got the same exact copy.

   Congratulations! You have now done a backup of your database and settings.php file, the two important files you'll need to recreate your website should you need to. You can now proceed recklessly along knowing that if you screw things up, you have these anyway. Just kidding. Follow these steps strictly.


9. Now, delete all the files about to be replaced, EXCEPT FOR THE /SITES and /THEMES folder. /SITES contains the settings.php file, which you don't want to change, and /THEMES contains the current theme you're using (provided you're using a theme other than the default one).

   If you delete /THEMES, you'll have to install your theme again.


10. Here's how it should look. Highlight ONLY the ones you're about to delete, leaving /THEMES and /SITES then rightclick > Delete.

11. A few minutes later, after deleting everything, here's how it looks. The only folders left are /CGI-BIN (which is not deletable as per the webserver's settings), /THEMES and /SITES.

12. Now drag and drop the new drupal files in there, like so. Again, no need to include the /THEMES and /SITES directories. It's only around 2.12mb, so it will take around a minute or two on a standard DSL connection.

13. Time to run the update file. On your browser, enter /UPDATE.PHP after the domain name and press enter.

14. This page will appear, with a link saying 'run the database update script'. Click it.

15. Two more pages. This one:

16. And this one. I know these are vague, but Drupal likes it that way, so who am I to argue.

..aaand that's it!

Honestly, this How To wouldn't have been necessary if a. the Drupal group would write friendlier howtos, allowing for people who don't have terminal access,. and b., remember that not all users are linux sysads, such as allowing the download in .tar.gz format only for example.

Imo they should check out WordPress, whose easy to understand '5 minute installs' have surely helped mainstream adoption.

Anyway, if you're confused, Email or comment below!

Technorati Tags: drupal, phpmysql, cpanel, php, mysql, drupal 4.7.2, drupal 4.7.3, filezilla,

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As such, I've recently come to encounter Drupal, which, in a sentence, is an open source content management system, and "can support a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites".

Drupal serves as the machinery behind Spreadfirefox.com and Linux Journal, and that was good enough for Aileen, owner of the famous Pinoywriters mailing list, to which every Pinoy writer I think, gravitates towards at some point in their lives. I know I did, which is how I came to make her acquaintance many years in the past. Aileen owns the domain Pinoywritersonline.com, which until a few days ago merely forwarded to her Multiply site, and which now serves as the area where we will conduct our Drupal activities.

At any rate, this post shall be about the install.txt file where obviously, instructions to its installation are thus provided. Unfortunately, it is without a doubt confusing to the average web developer, meaning one who is used to installing php-based applications using Phpmyadmin, instead of the command line access to MySQL which the instructions assumes.

In other words, the instructions are for users with command line aka terminal access, which is likely only if you run the webserver itself, or you rent webspace on one with a 'virtual root account'. While arguably a preferable situation due to the more powerful set of activities a command line provides, most webserver accounts provide for Cpanel site management, making such tasks as creating email accounts, adding hosted domains and installing MySQL and PHP installations a menial, GUI controlled task.

Hence, after going through the installation, I have found a rewrite "for the rest of us" in order, where one will use PhpMyAdmin instead of command line commands.

• Firstly, download this link install.txt, or at least open it in another window in the fashion your browser prefers.

  You may skip the "1. DOWNLOAD DRUPAL" instructions, and just go ahead and download the latest non-beta release, (unless you are sure of what your doing and prefer an untested or older version, which I assume you are not).
  It will come in a .rar file format, merely uncompress it and save on your hard disk.

  Use FTP to upload everything onto your webspace.

• The 2. CREATE THE DRUPAL DATABASE is the tricky area. Instead of following that, proceed to the phpMyadmin section of the Cpanel of your webspace account. It usually looks like this, under "Site Management Tools":
  

  Click "MySQL databases" and create your mysql database. Whatever name you decide will usually be preceded by the webspace account. Assign a user with full privileges to it, and remember the password you gave it. I usually cut and paste it to notepad to avoid any unfortunate events.


• Exit the MySQL area, and click phpMyAdmin. It should look something like this, listing all of your mysql installations.

• The following replaces "3. LOAD THE DRUPAL DATABASE SCHEME"The installation files you downloaded include a database.mysql (for mysql) and database.pgsql (postgresql) file in the (drupal-x.x.x)\database folder.

Mine looks like this:



We're using mySQL, so obviously we'll choose that one. Using phpMyadmin, browse your way to database.mysql on your computer, and press "GO". I did that here:



In a second, phpMyadmin does its magic and performs the necessary 89 instructions resulting in 55 tables (results vary on version you're installing).


• Next, after you've uploaded the files and readied the database, Drupal will now need to 'connect' with it, which the install file covers with 4. CONNECTING DRUPAL. We do that by opening the install file in "sites/default/settings.php", where we see:


Before editing, remember that saving a backup never hurts. Granted you've done so, edit by replacing the username and password with the mySQL username and password you created earlier, along with the database name. The format should look like this, in line 81 of the settings.php file:

$db_url = 'mysql://database_user:password@localhost/name_of_database';

You can leave the "$db_prefix = '';" alone. Save, then upload to sites\default and voila! Enter the domain on your browser and view the Drupal admin page, where you create an account (the first account automatically has full admin rights), login, and start fiddling around.


• Finally, one more thing. At some point Drupal will ask you to create a directory in your installation to store files in, asking you to name it "files/pictures". Go ahead and do so, remembering to set the attributes of the pictures directory to be readable and writeable (666). This will assure the Omen will come and appear onto your Drupal install sometime soon, supposedly June 6, 2006. Just Kidding.

Anyway here I am using my preferred FTP client Filezilla to do so.



Do that, refresh this page:



Then that red line will disappear.

I sincerely hope that someone will find this guide useful. Should it not do so or should I have erred in any way please let me know.

At any rate, let me list down what I did, partially for myself, and mostly really for whoever else out there who wants to learn this stuff. But firstly some groundrules:

• No more discussion about how PHPBB is better or less than Invision, PHPNuke, or some other out there. I learned my stuff on PHPBB, I checked out the endless discussions on maillists and forums, and tell you what, for every one phpbb testimonial, there's another for Invision, and in reverse. Ad nauseam. So the thing to do really is, just give it up and go with what you know. If you get hacked, then likely it's because of your fault really, not the software. Whoever's relying too much on the software's security to begin with (and not doing due maintenance) is to blame in the end, really. (And yes, I know. Having said that I'll probably get hacked soon. Sheesh.)

 

• b. I assume you know what you're doing as far as FTP and adding / modifying / deleting files are concerned. My fave "trick" (not really a trick, more like a habit) is to rename a file before I edit it, something like sep012005_overall_header.tpl, where the previous file name was overall_header.tpl. I do so on the files on my local machine (yes you have to have the same exact files on your local machine. Didn't your momma teach you that?), and the active ones on the server. They should mirror each other and you should keep that mirror clean with a cotton cloth and a dab of alcohol every so often. End of discussion.

 

• My particular situation is rather different, I wanted to have a "facade" to my phpbb installation so as to greet a web visitor with the latest posts, some pertinent data and other stuff, as compared to going to the forum proper (yeah I know php-Nuke can do that. Read above.), so I used MX System. It started out as an experiment, and it turned out ok, so I'll keep using it then. I also use the "Redline" template (sorry I couldn't find a link!), which happened to have support for both MX System and PHPBB. I'll try not to confuse you with those details, so pretend I never said anything about MX System and beside I won't mention it on the Howto below, where I'll just concentrate on the PHPBB part. Newbies will definitely get winded and it's not necessary anyway.

 

• To those really uninitiated with "modding" (aka modifying) PHPBB, PHPBB uses its own proprietary file format ".tpl" which is actually just .php files, except changed to that format primarily for security, and if there's any other reason I don't know what else. It's a good trick as even your average PHP or HTML IDE will not recognize it and will therefore not show it to be an file available for edit in the Open File dialogue box. IDEs like my fave Homesite need to be 'told' to open it by typing *.tpl on the "Open File" field area. BTW if you don't like mucking about your PHPBB, something nice to know is that there are many webmasters out there who don't do anything else but mod phpbb and make a very good honest living out of it. Just PHPBB all - their - lives, nothing else. Imagine.

 

• This also assumes you already know what you're doing re Google Adsense. In this example, I used the largest skyscraper size "wide skyscraper 160x600", but you can use the smaller skyscraper 120x600 size if you want. If you don't know about this, go check it out first as there's far too much info about that to teach you over here.

 
Ok enough yada. Here we go with the HowTo proper:

First we back up:

1. Look for two files within your local phpbb folder:
   
    yourphpbbinstallation/templates/*name of your template here*/overall_footer.tpl
   
    
   and
    
   yourphpbbinstallation/templates/*name of your template here*/overall_header.tpl.
2. rename them for backup purposes. Like I said above, I usually rename them by date, therefore they become:
    yourphpbbinstallation/templates/*name of your template here*/sep012005_overall_footer.tpl

   and

   yourphpbbinstallation/templates/*name of your template here*/sep012005_overall_footer.tpl

3. Open these with your html editor or notepad.

 

4. Save them as their original names, overall_footer.tpl and overall_header.tpl. You nnow have a backup of the orig files to revert to when you screw things up.

 

5. Fire up your ftp application, and rename the overall_footer.tpl and overall_header.tpl files there as well.

 
Now for the editing part:

1. Open up overall_header.tpl with your html editor. Look for this line

   <table width="500" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="10" border="0" align="center">

Directly above it, add this:

<table width="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" align="center"><tr><td>

save it. Close the file.

2. Now open up overall_footer.tpl with your html editor. Look for this line

   </table></td>
   </tr>
   </table>
   </body>
   </html>

   in between </table> and </body>, paste these:

   </td><td align="center" valign="top"><div align="center"><br>

   PUT THE GOOGLE ADSENSE CODE HERE

   </div></td></tr></table>

   should look something like this:
   

3. Upload overall_footer.tpl and overall_header.tpl onto yourphpbbinstallation/templates/*name of your template here*/. NOTE that your ftp server SHOULD NOT ask permission from you to overwrite the existing files, because as I taught you in the above backup howto, you should have renamed them and therefore there shouldn't be files there to overwrite. CANCEL the overwrite and retrace your steps.
4. Check your site, you should see the google ads at the side, like mine
5. Let me know how yours went! If things go well (meaning if the lazy bug doesn't bite), I'll make another howto about putting adsense onto WordPress installations.

Ahem. Anyway, the point is, the thing I loathe most of all is spyware / adware or anything of the sort that loads onto your PC without due consideration or permission from myself. I read an article once about how one does (or should) consider one's PC likes someone's home, replete with private information or even if not - necessarily - private, otherwise real estate should be unavailable to anyone not duly introducing himself and asking - very kindly - first, even if they are what I consider an important app like an IM.

And so we come to YM's Instant Messenger. The installation of which was like below, to avoid its cheeky way of installing Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Extras which, if you think about it, (and I mean really think about it), why would you wanna install in the first place?

click on the images for a bigger version
remember to check "Custom (Advanced Users)". Note that you cannot choose "Typical" without including Toolbar and Extras along with Messenger. Also note that you cannot uncheck "Make Yahoo! my default search engine". "Advanced Users" my foot. There's nothing "advanced" about wanting to install Messenger without the unecessary add-ons.
Custom Install Options allows you to remove unwanted apps, which is basically anything below Messenger. That's Toolbar with Popup Blocker, Extras, Making Yahoo your default search engine, making Yahoo.com your homepage (the nerve!), and making Yahoo Mail your default mail application. That's 5 count 'em 5 stuff you don't really want.
This is what we're going for right here. A clean install of Messenger without uneccessary add-ons.

today August 31, 2005 however, ym updated itself, and in the process updated its way of sneaking into your PC as well.

it all started innocently enough.
then suddenly you'll notice unlike at the top it's a different "Customize" clickable link unlike the checkbutton above, as if that wasn't sneaky enough. Really, what other reason would there be to change the layout if they didn't think that we were wising up? And guess what? I missed it, and installed as-is.
Of course, it all went awry after that
yep, y! finally got my browser with their toolbar
forunately, good ol' firefox managed to stop 'em in their tracks. I didn't know it could do that.
let me get this straight. You don't have to be an Administrator to install (I was logged in as a Power User), but you have to be one to uninstall?

so maybe im finicky. maybe toolbar, extras, and making my my.yahoo.com or yahoo.com itself as my homepage is good for me. I mean, it does have a popup blocker and all right? and besides, ymessenger is so much better than Google's Talk, althought it is still in beta, it's so boring to look at (goodness no emoticons!), and I'm hardly using it except to check on mail, so it's all good correct? And sure, it's easy to remove, and finally, yeah it was my mistake that I missed that "Customize" option while installing it. I was busy after all, when that announcement came up, and I just clicked away to get it over with (or maybe that was the point?).

but tell you what, Yahoo: what if I dont want it. Earth-shaking thought right there huh? I DONT WANT it installed. Sure I'll sing praises about Messenger (like I did 3 years ago in a 5 part series on Instant messengers for PCWorld Phils.,), and yes I'll still use the excellent Yahoo Calendar, I'll still maintain my YahooGroups, and I'll still use my old Rocketmail account.

But thing is, I DON'T WANT Toolbar, I DONT WANT Extras, and I DONT WANT to make my default page Yahoo.com or My.Yahoo.com, and I DON'T WANT to use my Yahoo email as my default mail.

And all this sneaky installation business? It turns me off, and as a result I'm starting to get excited about Google Talk.

I hope you listen up Yahoo.