Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Our 4th newsletter is now available for download.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/newsl ... etter4.pdf

It's a quick run down of what has been happening here at BYAP and whats coming up in the near future. I should have released this a couple of months back, I'd finished most of it then, but became side tracked with so many other "things" going on. We should have another newsletter out very soon, I'll try not to forget this time..

Hey Joel - I never got an email link for the latest mag, didnt even know it was out

Is that the 4th or 5th edition you're talking about? 5th edition is all finished but having it's final check over by our proof reader. Should be out in the next week or so.

Hi Joel ..

This is impressive!

Would be great to have a subscribe option somewhere .. maybe on signup ..

Regards choice for automatic download of your newsletters!

Hmmm I hear ya.. Totally new website is seriously needed, I'm looking into drupal as it very easy to update, and easy to have subscriptions etc, only it takes some serious mucking to get it set up to begin with..

Any drupal experts out there.....?

Make sure you really like Drupal before you commit to it. I use alot of open source software and normally don't have issues with it, but Drupal seemed to be its own kind of evil.

All of the pages or anything else in Drupal have node numbers which is how you browse to them, alot of people like to use a mod to let you use friendly names in the URL's for search engines and to be able to give out something that looks real, I found Drupal mucked that up alot where they worked pretty buggy. Also in my custom templates the more I used it the more I ended up hard coding stuff in as things didn't quite work right.

Also another issue we had with it is random HTTP 500 errors, it appears while debugging that issue that Drupal loads almost the entire site into memory on every page load, I think it may have been overloading the database, I found this issue even exists on the Drupal main site!

Something else I didn't much like, all the content management stuff felt like it was from the 90's, you can get mods for Drupal to make it feel more up to date, but they all seemed like they were hacked in pretty bad.

I ran into alot of other issues while working in it that gave me the feeling it was developed by someone while going through a college programming course, each section seemed like it was written in the style they were teaching that week!

I don't normally like to give such bad reviews of products, especially open source ones and I am a very big supporter of open source and I contribute to open source myself so I know how hard it is to be giving your time away for free on projects like this. I just want to make sure you guys really go over it before deciding to switch over to it. There are alot of people that really like Drupal, I just don't happen to be one of them.

I don't have a good suggestion on what would be a good alternative, I have written my own content management system I use everywhere, but I don't think it would be a good fit for what you guys need so no need to shamelessly plug it.

How about Joomla???

I'm not sure I'll really like any CMS software

I've been going down the Drupal - Joomla debate and there were a few reasons I'm leaning towards drupal from what I've read:

Google searches Drupal sites better - thats what I read somewhere.
More adaptable and flexible
more plugins and larger cummunity.

Of course it's probably a little like the holden(GMH)/ford debate.
Been looking today at Acquia drupal packaged distribution, makes life a little easier for someone like myself without much idea, I can actually do it on my computer rather than online.

If it helps. You start out with a holden and then switch after you have driven a Ford.

Something that may be slightly helpful:

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

That site has just about every CMS installed there so you can play around with them without having to install them first, lets you figure out which ones seem like you want to pursue them further.

Picking out a CMS is a royal pain, but the time you spend figuring out which one is really the best for you is well worth it. Nothing is worse than rolling out a whole new system and realizing you hate it.

If you can't afford a Dodge, dodge a Ford and buy a badge engineered Holden made by Isuzu.

I like the Vipers.

Vipers look awesome

but have a minor issue with wearing out break pads in a hurry

I use drupal and Joomla - find Joomla to be a FANTASTIC system - drupal is more low level - Joomla just works from the get-go.

I would be willing to offer my services in trade for a decent pump :-)

Actually I would probably do it for nothing.....

Just out of interest which version of drupal were you using?

I am no expert but I have had some experience with setting up sites and in php module development for drupal, I would be happy to lend a hand if desired.