Content Management Systems have taken off massively in the last 2 – 3 years.  I suppose the reason for this is that more and more stuff is being published on the web, but the number of people that have ability to do this is far smaller than the amount of information or number of people that want to publish stuff.

So why does a content management system help?  Well the idea behind a content management system is that the user need know nothing about publishing on the web, in fact all they need to know is how to type in order to publish their information.  Alright, I agree there are one or two things that they need to know such as creating links, adding images etc. but all this is done far easier in a CMS than when coding from scratch.  The content management system allows anyone to manage content and publish it on the web.

So what software can be used in order to produce a content management system.  There are several systems out their but for me I always use WordPress.  Many people would ask why, since WordPress is traditionally a blogging software, and maybe they are right, but until someone can convince me otherwise I am sticking with WordPress.  I use WordPress because:

Its easy to grasp:  you can really learn the basics of writing pages and posts in a matter of days

• Pages:  WordPress was one of the first ‘blogging’ platforms to use pages which allows you to write pages in a parent, child method
• Include a blog: even though you are using WordPress as a CMS, many sites these days will want a ‘News’ section and therefore why not take advantage of what WordPress was built for – blogging which is what a news section basically is
• Custom Fields:  WordPress’ custom fields enable me to display content in a way that other systems don’t.  By using custom field with both pages and posts I can display information other than what I write or display in the content of a post or page.  They provide real flexibility within WordPress.

I will write more about Custom Fields in an up and coming article, so watch this space.

When using WordPress as a content management system it is best to keep your static content as pages.  By this I mean pages that are written about a particular topic and do not need a data stamp and time that they were written.  The page content itself may well change but the actual page itself stays in the same place all the time.  Also when writing pages think about what structure/navigation you are going to want to use.  You will need to take advantage of WordPress’ parent and child pages in order to get WordPress to automatically add pages that you create to your sites navigation.  For example you may have a page of a site called ‘Services’ if you were a Security firm for example.  Your company may well offer several services and therefore you would write pages that are child pages to the services page that outline all the services that you offer.  With the correct coding in your template files you can allow WordPress to list all the child pages of the Services page when you are viewing the Services page.  This makes navigation for your visitors much easier and it also makes publish pages easier as nothing needs to be added apart from the new page in order to get the page to appear on the site.

In terms of getting a News section on the site I would recommend that you create a ‘Home’ page and then set that to display as your WordPress homepage in the settings section.  Then create News page and set that to display as your blog posts in the settings section of the dashboard.  That way you can still use categories etc when writing news as well as tags.

I hope that has given you a little insight into using WordPress as a content management system and please check back for more posts in the coming weeks.  You can view some of the site that I have created using WordPress as a CMS in the Portfolio of Equal Design.

Yesterday we experienced some downtime with our websites (Equal Design) which was probably about 2 hours in the morning.  Therefore it was time to get onto the live chat and see what the problem was.  This char happened in the evening though which I think confused the support representative a little too much.

I have to say that I have been very pleased with the level and competency of the support that we have received whilst using this hosting company, however this conversation last night was rather infuriating.  It was like “Charlie” just was not listening.  We kept going round and round and round.  In fact it was very much like talking to a politician as “Charlie” was determined not to answer the question of why the sites had suffered from some downtime.

info: You are now chatting with ‘Charlie’
Charlie: Hello and Welcome to Live Chat Support.
Charlie: How may I assist you today ?
Mark: My websites experiecned a lot of downtime today. Could you please advise of the problem. Domains effected where penny4them.com, equaldesign.co.uk and cliffbashforth.co.uk to name a few
Charlie: Give me a moment please. I am looking into this.
Mark: thanks
Mark: any idea?
Charlie: I am still working on the issue, Please allow me few minutes
Charlie: I will update you shortly
Charlie: Please check now
Mark: they are live now but were down for most of the day for some people
Charlie: The issue is fixed now
Charlie: You should not face this again
Mark: what was wrong?
Charlie: I have made necessary changes for your account in php.ini
Mark: i am now down to a 99.90% uptime
Mark: you gurantee 99.96%
Mark: this is over a period of 11 months
Charlie: This was not server issue.
Charlie: The issue with your php.ini
Charlie: I have uploaded the php.ini file and made necessary changes.
Charlie: The domains are working fine now
Mark: but it was an issue with you not me
Mark: i havne’t and am pretty sure that I cannot change php.ini
Mark: if it affected my uptime then that must be part of your guarentee
Mark: as the uptime guarentee doesn’t stipulate only server problems
Charlie: I have uploaded php.ini for you.
Charlie: This was not the server issue .I have made necessary changes for you.
Mark: back to my original questions then – WHY did the problem (whatever it was) occur
Charlie: As I said there was issue with your php.ini file under your public_html folder
Mark: and how did this ‘issue’ occur?
Charlie: You did not have php.ini file under your public_html folder
Charlie: I have uploaded this one for you. and made necessary changes
Charlie: you could also make changes with php.ini file under your public_html folder
Charlie: The server was not down
Mark: i have never touched it – which domain are we talking about here were you have uploaded the php.ini file
Charlie: penny4them.com
Mark: think we have wires crossed here
Mark: the outage was this morning between 0615 (or earlier) and 0840 when I first got the site back
Mark: however some other people have said that sites (not just penny4them.com – i am on reseller) were down much of the day
Charlie: Yes, have you checked your all account for php.ini
Mark: but all sites are now working so that couldn’t be the problem
Mark: even if php.ini is not there now
Mark: I haven’t touched the sites all day
Mark: I went to bed at 2300 with all sites working
Mark: woke up at 0615 with NO sites working
Mark: what went wrong as I did not move any files
Mark: especially no php.ini
Mark: *not
Charlie: Okay.
Charlie: The domains are working fine now. If you are still having any issue please mail us at support@eukhost.com
Mark: i am NOT having an issue I just want to know what the issue was when they were down
Mark: i have clients websites on my reseller and they want to know (rightly so) what the problems are
Charlie: Mark, There was not any server wide issue.
Mark: so why were they down then?
Charlie: As I said there was issue with php.ini and it has been resolved.
Mark: sothat was an issue on ALL my domains?
Charlie: I have made changes for those which you have asked
Charlie: penny4them.com, equaldesign.co.uk and cliffbashforth.co.uk
Mark: but they were working before you changed them
Charlie: Mark, You can ask to reseller that the issue has been resolved as it was with the php.ini.
Charlie: If any of your reseller still having issues please ask them to contact us
Mark: so let me get this straight – at some point this morning before 0615 all the php.ini files for all the domains that I have were deleted, but no t by me, my clients or you?
Mark: then half the world could see domains again at 0840 without you touching anything and half couldn’t?
Charlie: We do not make any changes on the server without client permission.
Mark: so who made the changes then?
Charlie: Give me a moment please. I am looking into this.
Mark: i have now just conducted a little experiment. I have renamed the php.ini file that is in the public_html folder of penny4them.com to php1.ini and the site still works – proving that it could not have been a problem with this file that you cause the downtime
Charlie: Allow for few minutes
Mark: k
Mark: any idea?
Charlie: Mark, Still checking on the server Please allow me few minutes
Charlie: Will update you shortly
Charlie: Mark, Please check the logs
//
Mark: Yes that would have been when I was updating my site to WordPress 2.7 so it was down for about 5 minutes
Mark: but that is all at 1910 not this morning at 0615?
Charlie: Mark, Your all domains are working fine now.
Mark: I know
Mark: But you still have not answered my initial question
Mark: My websites experiecned a lot of downtime today. Could you please advise of the problem
Charlie: Mark. There was not any issue with the server.
Charlie: If you will again same issue please contact us immediately at the moment.
Charlie: If you will face*
Mark: so you don’t know then?
Charlie: As I said there was any issue on the server and I am still investigating it for you.
Charlie: Will mail you on your registered mail id once I have done with.
Mark: ok
Charlie: We need more time as the logs get rotated for your previous down time.
Charlie: Mark, Your patience appreciated

As you can see if you have managed to read all that, he just didn’t get it.  What I think is important to say is that this conversation lasted around 2 hours!  I think you are right Charlie – my patience needs to be appreciated!