Mike Ball

I’ve just spent a lot of the weekend trying to sort out the problems I created in ballfam.net. I tried to add a module that would let me post the Roseate article for family only. I didn’t succeed in that, but one of the modules I was trying out killed the picture gallery. I had to find the offending module (an experimental process) and then recover the data base from before the time I added it in.

A lot of time went into understanding how these web tools work. The interfaces aren’t really isolated very well at all. That’s geekspeak for “Everything interacts with everything else”. It makes testing a nightmare, with the results I saw here.

I just set up my professional blog again. You can find it at http://mike.ballfam.net/professional or from the blogroll link in the sidebar.

Lots of people mix their personal and professional blogs. I prefer not to do that. For one thing, I started this blog mainly for family and close friends, and I think many of them won’t be interested in my professional notes, even if they are more personal than formal. I also can’t see bothering those who are interested in professional matters with my day to day travails. Anyone who wants both can read both.

Setting it up took up most of the evening. I’m giving up now and going to bed.

I haven’t had a lot of comments, but all of the ones I’ve had have been positive. The change is now official. ballfam.net is now the new website. There’s still a link to the old one if you want it. I’ll be getting to the help files as soon as I can. See the next post for why it might be a bit delayed.

I’ve got an all-new (except for the content) version of ballfam.net ready for it’s first outing. For the time being you can find it at http://www.ballfam.net/new. Try it out and see how you like it.

Family members should get a login id so you can post things to it. I’ve already created logins for some people because I know their usual passwords. I’ll send email to you individually about them. Anyone else can register for a login and password. I set it so that I’ll have to approve them, just to keep out idle strangers. I’ll certainly approve any family or close friends as soon as I can. It may take a few hours though, and in the mean time you can use the same login/password that you used on the old website. Please do get a personal login, though.

Anybody can:

• browse anything but family private data
• leave comments

Family members can, in addition

• Read private data
• Post or edit anything on the website

This is a test, and I’d like comments, praise, objections, suggestions, anything. If you find something confusing or ugly, let me know with email or comments, either here on on the website itself.Nothing is locked down at this point.

When and if people like it I’ll change over. At that point, I’ll write short “how-to” instructions on posting, uploading pictures, using the forums, and anything else somebody wants to know about.

This post is in a new category (Web Administration) aimed entirely At family who are interested in the ballfam.net domain. Anyone else reading this can just skip it.

I’ve been trying to install a new system to let anyone in the family post to the website, and in particular to post pictures. The system I decided to use, Gallery2, turned out to be much harder to install and integrate with the blogs than I expected. Worse, there appears to be no user manual. Searching the web has indicated that others have had similar problems, and I find comments like “It makes me want to cry”. I think I made a bad choice. I’m going to look for an alternative method of incorporating pictures in blogs and the website. The way I’ve been doing it is just too painful, especially when done remotely.

This is why the recent post on Columbus was so late, I was hoping to use Gallery2. I didn’t, I just did it the old way.

I’m also working on installing a forum system, and in fact got one installed. Then I discovered a more inclusive system that gives us more general capabilities, and I’m getting ready to install that. I just got sidetracked by the whole Gallery2 mess.

My goals for this are:

• Ballfam.net content that can be posted to by any family member
• A photo gallery that lets any family member post photos to ballfam.net
• A discussion forum (Bulletin Board) as part of ballfam.net
• Blogs for those who want them, with pictures fully integrated
• Access control, so that family members can post and read everything, others can read whatever we allow
• Simple instructions for doing all of these wonderful things
• Simple admin (for me)

I’ll keep you posted as things actually get done.