Moving from VPS back to shared hosting

Posted by in IT on 27th Feb 2010 | 0 comments

A couple of months ago I wrote about how I’d migrated this blog to a Virtual Private Server (VPS)  from a shared hosting provider. Well, since then I’ve moved back to a shared hosting provider.

Why the switch back? At the time, I was learning how to manage a VPS for work-related purposes so it was exciting to apply what I’d learnt to my own personal blog. But it only took a few months for a few things to sink in:

  1. Managing a VPS takes quite a bit more time than a shared hosting account – not just the setup, but also the maintenance of security patches etc
  2. A VPS with enough resources to take the same traffic as shared hosting service costs more than the latter
  3. A VPS with managed services (so that you don’t have to deal with the maintenance) costs US$30 upwards
  4. My blog doesn’t really get so much traffic that it needs the resources of a VPS (a little ego-shattering but true)
  5. I run a standard install of WordPress (plus a few plugins) which are well supported by just about every shared hosting service

Ultimately, a VPS gives you a great deal of flexibility and power – but if you’re only going to be hosting a simple low-traffic blog on it, then it’s overkill in terms of cost and effort (i.e time). Perhaps some day when I have more need for the resources will I switch back to a VPS.

Right now I’m on a US-based shared hosting provider by the name of powerMonster.

Don’t be put off by the odd sounding name – the cost is low, speeds are fast (I’m on their Litespeed/DirectAdmin server in Los Angeles) and they have excellent technical support – responding to my support tickets in 15 minutes or less! I’d greatly recommend anyone looking for a fast webhost with good service to check them out!

School website – The Joomla migration

Posted by in IT on 5th Jun 2009 | 0 comments

Some time in late 2004, I realised that it was simply impossible for my school to keep an up-to-date presence on the internet when all content was being channeled through one bottleneck – the webmaster! After examining available options (including the possibility of getting Macromedia Contribute!), the decision was made to migrate the website to a free, open source and surprisingly easy and simple to use content management system named Mambo.

Quite a bit has changed since. The original website themes, generously developed by an ex-colleague over weekends, have since been modified (or rather, clumsily hacked by yours truly) to draw attention to different parts of the site. After Mambo’s much publicised internal dispute, the school website  also transitioned to Joomla rather than staying with Mambo.

Today, slightly more than four years later, it has migrated again – from the Joomla 1.0 series to the Joomla 1.5 series.

joomlalogo

Since  Joomla 1.5 has turned out to be less than 100% backward compatible with Joomla 1.0, I thought it might be helpful (to myself, and whoever else is using this as reference for site migration) to list out the alternatives I sought.

Here’re all the components and modules in use at the website, along with the alternatives used where an updated 1.5-compatible version is unavailable.

  • ArtioJOOMSEF -> sh404SEF (note: a 1.5-compatible version is available, but sh404SEF seemed more flexible)
  • DOCMan
  • FacileForms -> QContacts (we were using FacileForms only for the contact form with captcha built in)
  • GCalendar
  • JCE
  • Mambatstaff -> QContacts
  • My Content -> Camel City Content
  • PartyStaff -> QContacts
  • swMenuFree ->  not needed any longer with the built-in suckerfish menu of the new site template
  • Google Analytics -> J!Analysitcs
  • AJAX Header Rotator -> Simple Image Rotator
  • AllVideos Plugin -> AllVideos Reloaded
  • CalDate -> YouJoomla Date
  • Plugin GoogleMaps
  • NewsFlash Scroller Pro -> Simple Scrolling Newsflash
  • Multithumb -> Mavik Thumbnails (JUMultithumb is actually closer in functionality, but our site content editors needed more flexibility)

And in case you’re curious, the school website is right here.