Joomla is the Content Management System that I chose thirteen years ago to run my websites.  I write an article and add a couple pictures on the backend, and Joomla sticks it into a database and posts it on the internet for all to see.

When I started the website in 2007, mostly as the info page for the wedding, the current version of Joomla was 1-something.  Over the next couple years, I was able to update through the V1 series.  In 2012, V2.5 was released.  I was able to upgrade to it without much trouble.  And that's where it's been ever since.

Late in 2012, V3 was released.  There had been test versions for a couple years because it had changes that weren't backward compatible.  I don't run a very complicated website, but I still could not easily upgrade to newer version.  I had tried a couple times with varying degrees of success, but it never worked fully.  V2 was supported until the end of 2014.  Since then, there have been no security updates to V2.  Not that my website is much of a target.

A couple years ago, I contacted a guy in Texas who I found through the internet.  I forget exactly how much he said it would cost, but it was in the handful-of-hundreds range.  Then, last week, I found a website called Fiverr where you can hire people to do one-off jobs.  I posted asking if anybody would upgrade my website and received a dozen-ish offers overnight.  I picked a guy in India named Sushil.  He has a Comp Sci Masters degree.  I don't know if he has a regular job, but he's very experienced with all sorts of websites and upgraded mine in prob'ly way-less than a day.

Joomla 3.10 will be released sometime this or next year.  It will be the last V3 release.  But it will be receive Long Term Support, so it will receive updates for a couple years.  It's also supposed to be a "bridge" to V4.  There are already test versions of V4 out.  I hope to be able to upgrade to it myself when it is officially released.

So now, I have the current version of Joomla running on the current version of CentOS running the current versions of Apache, PHP, and MariaDB.  I should be good for a while.

I killed another hosting company.  This one was called Hosted Simply.  I find a low-cost hosting company and contract a VPS to host my websites.  They usually last a year, maybe two, then they fold, and I have to find a new company.

I splurged and went with Linode this time.  They're a seventeen-year-old, hundred-million-dollar company.  I hope they last at least three years before I kill them.

In early May 2011, I signed up with JustHost for $129 for two years of service.  That contract is just about up.  I went to renew, and the price was $192 for another two years.  I wrote to ask if we could deal on the price, since they were offering to sign up new accounts for $3 per month.  No dice.  Like most any company nowadays...  They seem to be more interested in getting new customers than they are in keeping the ones they already have.

Well, JustHost isn't the only web hosting company out there.  When I had been looking two years ago, they were near the top of the lists.  So were other companies.  This weekend, I signed up with iPage for $103 for three years.  JustHost wanted $252 for the same length.

Of course, I have to move my websites to the new host.  I use Joomla!.  Akeeba produces a backup module for Joomla.  I made a backup of the websites on JustHost and am in the process of restoring them on iPage.  The first one took a while...  A couple config files were changed during the restore/re-installation.  I just had to ferret them out and make a few changes to get the site to work.  The other two sites should be easy now that I know what to look for.  Luckily, I won't have to do this again for three years.

The Greek word 'borborygmus' ("bor-bo-ryg-mus") is onomatopoeic for, as Pooh says, "a rumbly in my tumbly"...  Rumbling and gurgling noises in the abdomen.  Both borborygmus and borborygmi were already taken as URLs, so I added the suffix '-osity'.

It's also fun to see the look on somebody's face when I say, "borborygmosity dot org".

The site is coming along well.  Of course, I'm concurrently working on two others, so my time on any one is hap-hazard.  I pretty much have the main parts of the template done, but there's still a bunch of futzing to do to get it to look like I want.

I have a hosting account with JustHost.  Price and service are good, though there are a few things missing I could have had with other hosts for a similar price...  Shell access / SSH being the big one.  I didn't look through the details page closely enough to see that it wasn't standard.  I am allowed to host multiple sites on my one account.  I currently have this one and one for the Ironwood Aikido Club.  I'm be moving over the MECCA Ski Club site when I get a template made.

I am running the sites on Joomla! 1.6.  (Yes, the name officially has the exclamation point in it.)  Joomla! is a Content Management System, which means it is a system that manages content.  Capisce?

Imagine the website as a restaurant...  The customer (user) comes in, sits down, and looks through the menu.  After making a choice, the waitress (web-browser) goes back to the kitchen (web-server) and places the order.  The kitchen staff (Joomla!) prepares the order by gathering together the ingredients (content) and preparing them in a certain style (template).  Once prepared, the kitchen passes the order back to the waitress, and she delivers it to the customer.  By having content and style separate, one can be changed without having to change the other.  When I write a new article, I'm just typing in the text.  The template takes care of all the styling.  And, I could switch out the template to make the site look completely different, but still have all the same content.  In the restaurant analogy, I could have three differently themed dining rooms all being served the same meals by a single kitchen.  Then, I could switch the menu and start serving new items without changing any of the dining rooms.

I'm currently moving the website to a new host.  I'll be settling in and re-posting info when I get the chance.