The is the beginning of an N part series about setting up an Acquia Drupal website. I am using a remote host and my own domain name. My purpose in doing this is to have a record of what I am doing and, if anyone finds this and they find some value in my writing, to provide some help to someone that is in my shoes. These posts will be raw and will even include, most likely, some mistakes. Any mistakes I do make will be cleaned up and noted, at least once I am aware of them and have a solution.
My qualifications coming into this are:
- I have been using Drupal for a few years but would not consider myself anywhere near proficient with its use. I am not a web programmer but do have some experience building websites using HTML.
- I am a hack, meaning that my technical skills are scant. I make things work by pure brute force most of the time. Part of what this means is that you should be a bit skeptical of my advice and way of doing things in some cases. I am just doing the best I can to make things work.
If anyone reads this and what I have written strikes you as being wrong, or right, or has some advice to offer about what I have done please leave a comment. It would be great to have some other voices that alert, entertain or advise anyone that reads about my experience. Hopefully I will not be that embarrassed by any errors of my ways!
It is true that there is more than one way to do a lot of things. Often I find with website work there is the technically correct way, other ways that work but are inelegant, bad ways that work but are dangerous or real difficult (open up security problems or are hard to work with, for instance) and really wrong ways that can or do break stuff.
The website to be
I want to use this new Drupal backed website as an education tool. I have some ideas that will push me way past my limits of what I know how to do. It will be necessary for me to get help with some of the functions I hope to put into place. I may even have to pay for that help, which may or may not come to pass depending on how well the project does. More on this as things develop.
So there you have it. Lets begin.