Ronda, Spain, Spanish, Themes, and Everything Else

When I first started working on my own websites I only used HTML pages, which are great, but you reach a point where you want to spend more of your time writing content, and less time working on your HTML coding. Then you start to realise that a content management system (CMS) is needed. I guess you could use Dreamweaver and its templates, but your website will still be HTML, and this reduces your flexibility somewhat.

Of course the problem with most cms software (and blogging tools are included here) is that they are usually written in php and have a database to manage your pages. This is great because it lets you do so much more with your website, but now you can't test your website on your own computer anymore, it needs to be tested on a webserver. If you have 'Windows XP Home edition' installed on your computer, you'll know that a webserver doesn't ship with our version. Thankfully I found a solution. Read More

EditCheck out Installing Serendipity

Wow, that went well, and it even looks pretty hot if I do say so myself

This article shows you everything you need to know to make Serendipity blog work. If you're not familiar with webservers, don't panic, I know they can be confusing but I promise to explain everything in plain english. Also, feel free to register at the Serendipity forums where I (my username is carl_galloway) and hundreds of other users are waiting to help you with your installation.

Before we get involved with installing Serendipity I want to share a couple of the reasons why I use Serendipity. If you've seen any other Serendipity blogs you'll know that my blog is completely different. It looks different, and it includes multilingual translations. I've done this deliberately to demonstrate what can be achieved with a little patience. Your blog could also be wildly different from the average blog. This is Serendipity's major strength, and all this is possible because the developers of Serendipity have incorporated two major features into the software. The first is the smarty template language that allows theme designers to create spectacular themes without having to know PHP programming. The second is the Spartacus online vault for templates and plugins which enables any user of Serendipity to automatically install new templates and plugins when you select them from a list within the administration suite. Read More