Kwaree Blog

Installing Joomla 1.5 – A New Install

Ok, so on to the installation of Joomla 1.5.

Before I did anything, I bought a domain name and pointed it to my server. That is basic stuff. I set the domain up on my server and created a mysql database for this application. That’s more basic stuff.

After that was all good to go and the domain resolved to the server, I went over to Joomla for the latest download, which happens to be version 1.5.4. I clicked the link in the left navigation column and downloaded the “Joomla_1.5.4-Stable-Full_Package.zip” file and saved it to my desktop. I unpacked the zip file and placed the contents of it in my website folder. Since I already had the FTP account set up on my server, I uploaded to contents of my website folder to my server. Here is a word of warning…there are almost 4,000 files. If your host has file limitations, you should find out what they are. Since I have a dedicated server, I am not worried about that. Also, remember that your database is still empty. That will be populated during the install.

After all the files were uploaded, I headed back over to Joomla and clicked on the “New Installation” link about half way down their homepage. Since I am familiar with these types of installations, I skipped past all the upper links and clicked right on “Installation.”

Apparently, there are two different types of installs…one being the web browser method and the other being the manual install. In this case, I did the web browser installation.

In my case, I am did a remote installation to the domain root directory. I did not use a sub-domain, a local install or install the package in a sub-directory. If you would like to, there are instructions on how to go about this on the Joomla website (the same instructions I am using). Basically, you have to visit your domain and, if you have done everything correctly so far, you should see the first Joomla installation screen.

The first screen asks you to choose your language. Simple enough. Since I speak English, I kept the default “English” setting and hit the “Next” button.

The next screen checks the server to see if everything is set correctly and if Joomla is able to utilize it’s resources. In my case, everything checked out fine, but I was told that the “configuration.php” was not writable. After reading the instructions, I found out that this is a regular occurance. I actually didn’t see a “configuration.php” file. I clicked to the “Common Issues & Error Handling” page and read about it. The page gave a few options:

* Do a manual installation
* Create a completely empty file, name it as configuration.php and upload it to your joomla_root/ directory before commencing the installation. Joomla! will then enter the details as the installation proceeds as normal.
* Wait until the end of the installation when at Step 7 the Finished Screen is displayed a list of the variables and settings for the configuration.php file will be displayed. These should then be copied and pasted into a new text document and saved as configuration.php
* As with the last suggestion wait until the end and using the information provided in Step7 manually alter the content of the configuration.php-dist file (this is simply an example file and not a part of the functioning installation) included with all Joomla! installations. There is clearly a greater chance with this method of making mistakes so greater care should be taken. Once the variables have been correctly edited, change the name of this file and save it as configuration.php

I decided to go with creating an empty file named, “configuration.php” and upload it to the root directory. I also chmod the file to 777.

This time, everything checked out, so I clicked the “Next” button.

The next screen is nothing but the license agreement. I read the entire thing and understood it. Then, I clicked the “Next” button.

The next screen is the database configuration. Remember that empty database you have sitting there? Well, you have to fill in the required information.

I entered the information and clicked the “Next” button.

The next screen is the FTP configuration. This is the first time I have come across something like this, but I filled in the FTP information. They suggest to create a local FTP account and not use one that can control the entire server.

Since I am getting slow in my old age, I placed in the FTP username and password and then clicked the autofind path button. That worked and filled in the path automatically.

The next screen is the main configuration. I placed in the main (Super Administrator) email address and password. Then, I clicked the “Install Sample Data” button. I was told that the sample data imported properly.

A word of warning: My first attempt at installing this application gave me an error message that read, “Error: the XML response that was returned from the server is invalid.” on the FTP page and when I tried to install the sample data on the main configuration page. The reason for this had to do with the “configuration.php” file. I needed to upload one and set the permissions correctly. After I did that, I was able to pass those pages. You can read more about the issue here.

The last page looked like this…

Basically, the page gives you the option to view your site or log in to the admin section. I always like to log in to the admin section so I can get the URL. Also, the system says to delete the entire “installation” directory. Lastly, I like to download the now populated config file for backup.

To log in to the admin area, the username is “admin.” Obviously, you should change this.

You can take a look at the site I just set up at http://www.fiixer.com. Next up, configuring and customizing Joomla. Ye haw.

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latin1_bin VS. latin1_general_ci – MySQL Database Collation – Case Sensitive

As you may already know, for the past few weeks or months, I have been in the process of migrating all my websites over to a new hosting company. All the sites are now over and running smoothly. Among others, I have five websites that are almost identical…only the content and look is different. The database tables, structure and files are the same. I moved three of those sites over to the first server and migrated the other two over to the second server.

The first three websites were up and running very quickly and have had no issues. Strangely enough, when I went to import the backed up databases for the last two websites on the second server, I got an error reading something like, “Key length is too long on line 26.” The support guy at the hosting company was kind enough to change the database collation to “latin1_bin,” from “UTF8,” which allowed for the database import with no problem. Well, until a few days went by…

I began getting emails from my sister, Stephanie (who does all the customer support for those websites) about people complaining that they couldn’t login or properly search the websites anymore. For instance, if they tried to search, “Jay G,” about 5 results would return. If they tried to search, “jay G,” about thirty results would return. In other words, the websites had become case sensitive.

I called the hosting company who was at a loss. Then, I submitted a support ticket to the developer of the software. The developers returned the ticket and informed me that the hosting company had changed the database collation to “latin1_bin,” which was binary and thus case sensitive. They told me to change the collation to a non-binary collation to fix the issue. Neither of us knew if this would really fix anything after the fact.

Now, one thing to remember is that you can easily change the collation of your MySQL database when it’s empty. You can even change it when it’s full. The problem is that you will only be changing any new tables that are put into that database. Any existing tables would need to be changed manually, along with all the table columns. So, that’s what I did yesterday…for about six hours. I changed both databases to “latin1_general_ci” (which stands for case insensitive). I also changed all 268 tables and over 1000 columns in those databases. This was not fun. Actually, it sucked.

The outcome is that both websites are now functioning properly, which is a nice thing.

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Business Hosting and Beyond – Website Migration

If there is one thing I have learned from doing this business thing all these years, it is to work with the best companies out there. The problem is, they are kind of a pain in the tush to find. You are bound to get involved with the wrong companies here and there. I sure did.

Today was another day spent transferring two of my websites over to my new hosting company. By the way, this is called website migration. It’s not the most difficult thing in the world to do, but it can take some time if the site is large. At this point in my life, I am very good at it.

I woke up this morning and decided to optimize a few databases that were left on one particular server of mine. One database was rather large…I mean huge. It was a little over 750MB. That’s pretty big. When I began my process, the page hung…the database was too big. This, in turn, took the MySQL server off line. I called support at the wickedly horrible web hosting company (the one I have been moving away from) and couldn’t get through, twice. Then, I called a third time and got through to the Philippines. I swear I have nothing again the Philippines, but I vow to never knowingly do business with a company who uses them for customer support. They are all very nice people. The issue lies with the company not giving these customer support people any authority to do anything on their own. If they are just going to be working the telephone and passing the issues through to the real support department, why not just use the real support department to start off with? I have a real feeling many of these companies are actually losing money by outsourcing their support. That support is enough to drive even the most regular person nuts.

This morning, when the server (yes, the entire server) went down and I finally got through, I explained the problem. I told the girl to reboot the machine. She continued to troubleshoot by reading off her little card. I tried to tell her again just to reboot the machine, when she put me on hold. I waited for about ten minutes when I realized that the same scenario from a few months ago was actually happening again. I decided to hang up the phone and just transfer the sites over to the real hosting company. That, my friend, was the best investment I have ever made. It saved my sanity and saved my hair.

Well, the transfer process is almost complete. The DNS of both sites still has to resolve, but things are looking up. One of the only issues left to deal with is the data loss. I was forced to use my own database backups…one from January 2 and one from December 16. So, if you placed any ads on any of my websites in the past two weeks, please re-register and replace your ads. My apologies.

Here is one word of wisdom for you if you are in this line of business – no matter how much your website hosting company tells you they do backups, backup your databases and files yourself to your own computer. The last time this happened with this company, I was informed that they had no database backup. Nope, they just didn’t and I suppose I would have to travel to the Philippines to argue about it.

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