It’s Friday, and I don’t feel like doing squat-shit. But that’s pretty normal, right?
Random things:
- I totally forgot I was almost out of insulin in my pump. So I went out to lunch, and now I have 1.5 units left. That will not last me until 5. Oh, what to do…
- Social networking is a little douchey. Maybe a lot douchey. Not that being on Facebook or Twitter in itself is douchey. It’s just douchey when you also come across as a hipster, probably my age, and spend a whole lot of time re-posting trendy things. Or if you just advertise bullshit. Seriously, ga-vomit.
- Living in our new house has been completely awesome. How and why did we stay in apartments for so long? I love having a yard and a garage. Though planting some flowers last weekend really kicked my ass. Who knew that was so much work?
- I really hate this purse I’m carrying right now. Earlier this week I found a bottle of syrup and two screw drivers in it. It’s pretty ridiculous.
- My blood sugar is spiking. I need to go home to change my pump reservoir. But I’m going to have to come back up here because I have a meeting at 3 something. God damn it.
- I do not like Friday meetings.
Hello, get ready for a random post. A couple years ago, I started looking into content management systems (CMS) for a few of my websites at work. Our servers are all Windows IIS, so I was primarily looking for .NET and open source (free!). I wasn’t against looking for something PHP-related (or anything else), but .NET was my top choice.
I think it may have turned out well that there are very few open source .NET CMS out there. The biggest one, which I had heard of before, is DotNetNuke. I didn’t look into this long before deciding it was not for me. Honestly, I have not looked back since, so I can’t even go into detail why I didn’t like it. My remaining feelings are: hard to template, messy, bloated, dated-feeling.
Shortly after this I discovered Umbraco. Oh, the love. And I didn’t even understand how it worked right away. When I found it (2008? maybe 2007?) the documentation was pretty sparse, but they did have a few good articles to get you going, and also a forum that provided a good resource if you knew what to look for. What drew me to Umbraco originally was how easy it was to make your site look how you want. No needing to learn some crazy templating language. No extra markup being added anywhere. This was the easiest part to get going, and because I need that above all else, I stuck with it. Haha.
Anyway, it worked out well for me. I now manage every website I can with Umbraco and here’s my long list of why:
- No limitations.
None. No, really. I can create my own code accessing my own databases (or the Umbraco database) in ASP.NET C# and plug it into Umbraco with extreme ease. Just create a user control in .NET, place it in the ‘usercontrol’ directory of your Umbraco install, and add it as a Macro in the Umbraco interface. Umbraco even lets you use the control’s properties. This is such an asset, I can’t even tell you.
- Create your own document (content) types.
I can make a document type with any properties I want. Basic page? Just add a rich-text editor. Maybe a ‘hide from navigation’ flag. Want to add personnel? Add separate fields for name, title, phone, email, and bio. Add a training course? Add fields for a start date picker, end date, description, and simple check-box to add a sign-up form using a Macro I created in a .NET user control.
- Display document types however I want.
Each document type can have its own template. You can also use XSLT to display, for example, a list of personnel on any page you want. Don’t like XSLT? Use a .NET user control like I mentioned previously. It’s just so simple and limitless. You can format any property of a document type however you want.
- Import packages.
Umbraco has a great developer community with people who create packages (plug-ins) you can easily import into your site. My favorites are a search–which creates a simple XSLT search of any document type(s) you choose starting from any location in your site, and allows you to format your search results however you want. Other good ones for me are a blog and member controls (log-in and sign-up forms).
- Multiple site management.
I can host multiple websites from one Umbraco site. This is so helpful to me when I have 20+ websites using a common template, or parts of a common template, which brings me to…
- Easy templating!
Already mentioned this some, but Umbraco uses ASP.NET master pages. This means I can have a parent template, which may have the header and footer. Then say I have sites which will all use this header and footer, but look different in the middle. Rather than duplicating the header/footer markup, I can create child templates where needed. Also, because Umbraco is so flexible, I can make document types with fields for CSS and javascript, and write my template so that it will incorporate these if they exist (one page may have them, another may not). Another cool thing is that I can choose to make document properties (fields) recursive or not. Seriously, so well thought out. I have yet to see another CMS that does anything like this.
- User control, version history.
I can add users with limited access to the Umbraco administrative interface. They may only need access to some websites, but not others. You may want them to be able to edit pages, but not publish the changes. You can also see the version history of changes made to a page in your site, and revert back to old versions if you messed up. This kind of stuff may standard for a CMS, but it’s still nice it’s there.
- It uses .NET.
I’m a big fan of C# and ASP.NET. I prefer its structure and code-behind model to PHP, which can be very spaghetti-like, and less strict in terms of coding format. Not that I don’t like PHP. But, I’m anal, and C# appeals to my neat side. ASP.NET has come a long way since it’s 1.1 days, and it’s quite fun to develop in.
Anyway, what prompted all this Umbraco love? Well, sometimes I am placed in situations where I am helping develop a website for another group in their server environment, which is not Windows. Instead, they’ll have Linux Apache/PHP/MySQL, and I’m not in a position to change this environment. Therefore, Umbraco is a no-go, and I need to look into other CMS solutions if I’m going to use one.
And that is what’s funny. There are far more Apache/PHP/MySQL/Whatever open source CMS solutions out there. By a ton. It’s ridiculous. And not one of them come close to holding a candle to Umbraco. I get so frustrated trying to figure one out, partly because I have a hard time letting go of Umbraco long enough to give something else a chance.
What about WordPress?
I mention that because I use WordPress for this site and not Umbraco. While Umbraco has the beginnings of a blog package, it is no where close to as well-developed and easy-to-use/feature-rich as a simple WordPress right out of the box. But, while WordPress may also be used as a simple CMS (and I am a HUGE fan of WordPress as a blogging platform), it doesn’t have the CMS power of Umbraco on a larger scale.
I actually do use WordPress at work for our blog-type (news article) sites. One cool thing to me, is that I have a WordPress as a virtual directory in an Umbraco site.
My focus is so in the toilet this afternoon, just sitting here is torture.
I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next 27 days. I want to be in the house now! Not in the office! Not in our apartment–which is growing increasingly annoying by the second!
Blah. Ugh. Hurry up, April.
I really hate car accidents.
Well, duh. But I’m ridiculously afraid of someone I love or myself dying or being mangled in a car wreck. It seems the most likely way for someone to die. Also one of the stupidest and most senseless ways to die. One second of choice could change the outcome. I hate thinking about it.
And I really hate hearing of fatal accidents in my town. Much less on a major intersection I travel 4+ times a day. A teenager was killed at such an intersection this afternoon.
This intersection is ridiculous. I’ve lived in my apartment complex for 5 years and the area has gotten increasingly busy, to the point where the city started to expand it a couple months ago. The intersection is between one 30 mph road with a stop sign and a 60 mph road with no stop sign. The 60 mph road is only 2 lanes. It is HORRENDOUS. I’ve been wanting them to expand the road and put in a light there for years. Well, I guess that’s what they’re finally doing with the construction. The problem is that while the construction is going on, they’ve made the intersection a hundred times worse. There is no speed slow down and they’ve blocked all sides of the road with construction barrels, leaving no room to move if someone pulls out in front of you. Plus these barrels completely block the view of those on the 30 mph road trying to turn or cross.
So, it came as no surprise to hear of an accident on this road today. AGAIN. There have been countless accidents just in the 5 years I’ve lived here. People suck at driving and don’t pay attention, that’s a general rule. Add that to this completely unsafe construction and road conditions, and now we have a fatality.
Just makes me more ready to move and be done with that intersection and that road (the 60 mph one).
Sometimes I feel like car wrecks like this are some kind of cosmic warning to watch myself. Or worse, a sign that I will soon be in such a situation. Because I’m just narcissistic like that. It easily could have been Andy or me in that intersection at that exact moment. And obviously this can happen anywhere else for that matter.
Speaking of car accidents, I recently finished reading The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson. It starts off with the narrator getting in a car wreck that leaves him so burnt he loses all his toes, a few fingers, his hair, tear ducts, ability to perspire, burnt off lips, raspy voice—oh, and his penis burned away too. Really fantastic book though; I highly recommend if you can stomach his injuries.
I really hate car accidents.
I really hate it when people tell me how they feel so much better and have sooo much more energy they have after changing their diets to eat tons of vegetables and no sugar or fat.
Horse shit.
You know what makes me feel better? Eating a can of Pringles and washing it down with a bag of chocolate chip cookies.
