Extreme Makeover.
Feb 16
Well, unless you are using a screen reader and suffer from the same proverbial blindness as a bat (Holy Smokes Batman) you might have noticed that the look and feel of the website has changed just a tad. Reason for this is a: The old logo and look and feel was getting.. erm … old, AND I did not really know how to change everything around without breaking it.
The Knightwise.com website runs on a Joomla Backend, Joomla being an open source (of course) content management system that makes building of dynamic websites by html illiterates like me .. easy to do. I got talked into Joomla by the ever so powerful Codemonkey Rob who had been using the system for quite some time. He helped me overhaul the site and understand the basic concepts. But all the fancy stuff (setting it up, creating modules and components and organizing menu’s) was a little beyond me. After two years of using the system a got the hang of it a little bit, but I stuck to adding content and moving stuff around, nothing major. A shame really that I did not find (or make) the time to dive into it further.
Until last week when me and my big mouth talked about using open source and content management systems at work. Only to be baffled by the request to : "Set it up and make it happen" Talk about being thrown in in the deep end. I do not need to mention the fact that the learning curve was so steep I needed a safety rope and suffered from altitude sickness. But it was worth it. Getting to play with Joomla and the whole LAMP back end thought me how CMS systems like these work AND also : What you could do with them. Adding themes, installing components, moving around content and what have you.. And also : Setting the whole thing up from scratch ( Like : from a linux server with LAMP installed and talking it from there ) Let me tell you : Doing stuff like this is like Porn with a keyboard ! You learn stuff, find out things, get to tinker and play.. get frustrated, have epiphanies.. Its like bloody childbirth !
So you know your geek right ? When he gets a new toy : He wants to play with it. So when I learn an new skill I want to implement it. What better subject to experiment on then my own website . (You should be happy I did not study to be a plastic surgeon, otherwise my wife would have six breats by now). So with the help of some co-workers (who knew the HTML mumbo-jumbo that was alien lingo to me) we managed to take down KW.com, overhaul it .. and put it back on line. Et voila .. here is the finished result.
