Online (sort of)
About the time I decided to convert the redleopard site to a blog, I switched back to the Mac. That’s when my problems began – but not for the reasons you may be thinking.
When I started the migration Spring of 2002, I did all my coding with notepad on a PC. I believe if I had stayed with notepad, my blog would have been up MUCH sooner.
It started with the arrival of a super-sweet titanium powerbook. I thought “cool, I’ll set Moveable Type up on my powerbook.” That way, I could justify installing mySQL. There were other projects in the corners of my mind, you see.
Well, it couldn’t just be mySQL. I’d install Apache 2. Not that the default, Apple installed 1.3 wasn’t good enough. It was. But I wanted Apache 2 just because.
Shoot. While I was at it, I said half believing it, I’ll install PHP.
I bought the book “Mac OS X Unleashed”. That lead me to a dead end. I tried to compile and install packages. Anyone else out there burn endless nights on that exercise? Well, it didn’t work. Badly. It didn’t work, badly.
Salvation — Aaron Faby (Server Logistics). www.aaronfaby.com
You see, I suck at coding. I can do it, but I’m slow. I’d rather be powerpointing. 🙂 Yet, I was determined to get it all to work. Some days I was less determined than others.
I’d like to say I got my DAMP (Darwin-Apache-mySQL-PHP/Perl) system running but it really was Aaron Faby. His packages simply work.
Anyway, my laptop became my website. I’ve had three redleopard generations that have never been connected to the net.
When Moveable Type released 2.63, I resolved to mirror my DAMP site on my LAMP site (hosted by the folks at Hurricane Electric, www.he.net ). I can’t say enough good things about Hurricane Electric. Their customer support is without equal.
Anyway, it’s been a year since I first started to migrate. I’m finally here. The irony is, if I were using Notepad during that period, the site would have been online a year ago. But it’s online. Sort of. I’m now in the bogs of CSS and MT tags, chasing down all the various templates that must be changed just so. Yet, I claim victory. The cat is out. Live. On the net.
It’s been a long march. I’ve learned a lot along the way. That counts for something.