5 Things I learned on updating Joomla CMS

Posted by Nvizion

June 5, 2008

FINALLY done with the Dayton Chess Club website {be sure to check it out}. I am finally done with it…minus some ‘tweaks’ that need to happen but the majority of it is knocked out and I found out some things about updating your software.

1st - DO YOUR RESEARCH! I thought I had but apparently I didn’t do enough. Now I know I there is point where enough research can over-take the project, which I still agree with. Nonetheless in this particular project I was relating a CMS update via Joomla (from 1.0 to 1.5) to WordPress. WP was easy and within 5 minutes I was done. Joomla…well, that took me Friday night through Tuesday.

Not a good thing Joomla.

2nd - BACK-UP EVERYTHING! Thank GOD I knew enough about php databases in the sense of not erasing them. Even though it wouldn’t be the end since the content level was low but it’s nice to know you don’t have to recreate items.

3rd - NOTES - NOTES - NOTES. I made notes of every little thing I did. The updates, the transfers, the over-written files. ALWAYS….ALWAYS write some notes as you go along. I forgot to do make two notes and ended up having to delete the files and reinstalling them - ALL. Not a god thing.

4th - TRIAL & ERROR. When you update your system software things are bound to happen. Don’t get too mad because you cannot plan for every-little-thing. There are going to be problems that pop up. Shake your head at it and take a deep breath THEN tackle it.

5th - DON’T DO IT ALL! There is just no way you can do it all. Big companies such as Microsoft have “patches” that you need to install and I know sometimes my BlackBerry needs the software updated. If we spend 100% of our time getting 100% of it done then nothing would get done. If you work 100% on getting 90% done then your already ahead of anyone else.

That’s what I’ve learned…what have you learned from projects?

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