Googleized

I’ve been Googleized.

A couple weeks ago I moved all my email to Gmail (which I like better than Thunderbird or Evolution). I’ve been using Google Reader for several months. I started using Google Calendar this week. I moved some of my most important document into Google Apps. I installed the Google Toolbar in Firefox (I love the bookmarks feature, forget del.icio.us).

To top it off I moved Shari to Gmail, she then switched her calendar from Backpack to Google. She installed the Google Toolbar. Now we’re sharing calendars, chatting, etc. all through Google.

I’m thinking of moving Crossroads to a Google office. It may not be as full featured as an installed product, but for the price and maintenance costs it can’t be beat. It also seems to be completely adequate for what we do.

Now that Google has taken over the world and has become the next Microsoft, it’s about time for me to start hating it and eradicate it from my life. But for some reason I just can’t help but like Google.

Fun in Vermont

My family and I are on our annual Vermont trip to visit with the in-laws and go skiing.

We skied most of yesterday in what some would call blizzard conditions. When we got home we had to barrel down the 1/4 mile long driveway without stopping in order to get there without getting stuck. I’m amazed that we made it because we spent the rest of the evening shoveling out the truck so we could plow the driveway. I think we shoveled it out at least 5 times. The first photo was taken after Shari cleared a path to the truck door.

Shari and the kids also dug a path through the back yard to the bird feeders. The kids had a blast digging around in the snow. In spots we had over 3 feet.

I’m just waiting for the global warming loons to blame this on President Bush…

Bricolage Thoughts

So far I really like Bricolage, but installation is a bear if you want the latest version. I installed the version that comes in the Ubuntu repositories using Synaptic and had it up and running in very short order, but I’m the sort of person who has to have the version that is shiny and new, so I had to try the install process. Let’s just say that it is doable, but you should do it only if you are a Perl god.

Bricolage is not the sort of CMS you are going to want to install on your average hosting service. If you’re using a VPS or something that would be fine, but I won’t even attempt it on our host. However, because of the way that Bricolage works you don’t really need to install it on the host. I have installed it on an old 1.7Ghz server sitting in my basement. When it goes into production I will move it to our church office and we’ll access it from there. When the site get’s published, the Bricolage server will generate the entire site and transfer it to our hosting service via FTP or SSH.

The beauty of this type of CMS is that it is very loosely coupled with the front end. Everything you want in a CMS is there including being database driven (PostgreSQL), having custom workflows (something Joomla doesn’t have), fine grained control over templates (another thing Joomla doesn’t have), version control (another thing missing from Joomla), etc. However, you don’t get the rich component/module library that Joomla has.

In my opinion, the loose coupling makes a rich add-on library unnecessary. Because of the fact that things are loosely coupled, I can choose any tool I want for any given task. If I want to integrate a forum or calendar with my website I can choose the calendar package I like best and easily integrate it. I don’t have to look for a Joomla component to do the trick or write my own Joomla component (not to mention that a lot of Joomla components are crummy). I have written a few Joomla components and find the process to be cumbersome at best. If I really wanted to, my understanding is that I could even include the entire calendar package (templates included) right in my Bricolage database and have it roll out when I push it to the host (this may be more hassle than it’s worth, but is probably possible).

Because the site is not generated from a database on-the-fly for every request, it is extremely fast. If my site is just a collection of static html pages, each request no longer involves running PHP and making 10 database requests. The file is just served straight up. IMHO, this is the way it should be.

Bricolage

I have decided that the first content management system I will evaluate for a new website is Bricolage. I considered ModX, Plone, Alfresco, Joomla (which we’re currently using), and even WordPress.

My reasons for choosing to start with Bricolage are:

• I’ve been curious about Bricolage for about 5 years now
• Bricolage is Perl based and I’m a Perl programmer
• Bricolage generates a static site, thus the site is really fast
• Because the destination site is static, the generated files can be code, e.g. PHP, Perl/Mason
• Version control
• Custom Workflows
• Multiple output streams – theoretically I could generate a print magazine from the same content
• Separate staging and production areas