It’s been a pretty busy ol’ time here at Digitalmash HQ. I’ve been spreading myself between anywhere from 5 to 7 different clients (and projects) at a time. Let me just say, this is not a good idea. It’s gotten to the stage where I wake up, sit down at my computer and work away till it’s time to go back to sleep again (of course, I eat now any then too, but I’m being dramatic here).

But now the light at the end of the tunnel is shining brightly and I promise to devote a little more time to dropping my ‘mind grapes’ around here more frequently. And perhaps the first order of business should be detailing my recent move across to Expression Engine.

Engine change

I know it may seem like I’ve neglected this journal, but ha! You would be wrong to assume such crazy things. I’ve actually been slogging away trying to bash this Expression Engine system into something recognising my site. There were a few crazy database moments, and it was down for a good 24 hours, but I’m pleased to say we’re up and running once again. I’ve still got a few little things to iron out (please let me know if you notice any bugs), but on the whole, I think the move across has gone pretty smoothly. All the while it looks much the same on the surface — which sort of makes the whole thing slightly anti-climactic. If only you could see what I’m looking at now. A nice orderly way of running my site and writing my posts…ahhhh.

I’ve been wanting to make the move over for a while because I’ve not really liked how my site was set up in “WP. Lately it’s been annoying me more than usual, then having it get hacked last week was the catalyst for me doing something about it.

Watch out for the train…

Once I finally decided to move across, most of my time was actually spent simply coming to grips with how the EE system works. I think having moved across from WordPress made the whole thing a lot quicker given that I’d already chunked certain parts of my pages. But after a weekend (and most of Monday) of solid immersion, I can say I’m a fan (on the whole) and am now pulling out all kinds of crazy curly bracket goodness.

Anyway, knowing what I now do, I think I’ll make a point of writing up my lessons learned so I can maybe spare someone having to trawl through the pea soup that is finding answers on EE. In all fairness, I think Ellis Labs do an excellent job in supporting their stuff, but I think the whole ‘pay to play’ system seems to extend to getting any meaty information or tutorials beyond the documentation. So sit tight, and I’ll be hitting you with some pithy goodness soon.

Over and out.

—Published 12 March, 2009

Next