HornCologne.com - Now wearing pants to work.

Separating your files from Drupal's, and simplifying upgrades

Drupal's developers are constantly fixing bugs and striving to make our Drupal installations as safe as possible - there have been 6 security updates of the 5.x and 6.x branches so far in 2008. If you have several sites, the maintenance work can really cut into your time.

I'd like to share with you a little trick I use in my server setup to streamline the upgrade process when a new core release is available. It not only makes core updates quicker and safer to implement, it also leaves the previous version ready to use on my server in case there are problems with the new Drupal core version.

My setup involves keeping the sites directory outside of the main Drupal installation and using symlinks to tell Drupal where it is. This saves me the step of copying the directory from one Drupal installation to the next when upgrading, which can be time consuming and a potential source of problems on a content-rich site.

Got inspired by Denmark and made this Viking Drupal logo.

Vikings are like Nordic pirates! Yay!

Looking forward to presenting a little bit tomorrow and doing some hot Update-on-Site action here.

Following two incredible Open Source Con experiences in the last three weeks - frOScon in St. Augustin Germany and the DrupalCon in Szeged Hungary - I have been feeling incredibly positive. I feel that I found what really matters to me in the FOSS world and probably the world at large ... I felt strong moments of epiphany in Szeged on this ...

It is all about community. Community, bringing people together to cooperate, working towards common goals and ideals, this is what makes us strong and successful in the Drupal community and what can make us strong elsewhere in life.

UPDATE: My photo "South Tower of the Cologne Cathedral" made it in to the Schmap guide guide of Germany! Have a look! I am considering adding a Schmap widget to the sidebar here ... time will tell.

Thanks again, Schmap!

Overcast - The Music of Ed Partyka Performed by the Sunday Night Orchestra Featuring Efrat Alony

I am a long-time fan of Ed's music, but I've chosen to share with you a short sample of the only arrangement on the record, an eight-minute (!) version of "Time" by Tom Waits. This number really gives me goose bumps. I really should post a sample of Ed's music, too, since that's the actual point of the production ...