Blog

When I was rebuilding www.jeffgeerling.com in Drupal, I decided to use the testing domain new.jeffgeerling.com. This presented me with a challenge, once I started working a bit more on the site, as I set up imagecache, the file system, the favicon, the logo, internal images in posts, images inserted into blocks, etc., into my /sites/new.jeffgeerling.com/files directory.

If I simply renamed the directory to 'jeffgeerling.com' and went live, I'd end up with tons of 404 errors. Currently, there's no easy way to switch the location of your files directory in Drupal. Lacking an easy method, it's time to get your hands dirty with a little SQL (I entered the following commands via phpMyAdmin, since my host doesn't yet allow SSH access):

As of today (October 5, 2009), I have moved all the content off the old Lifeisaprayer.com into a new Drupal-based site, in order that I might not have to do so much manual labor in maintaining and updating the site.

This has been a long time coming, as I had the idea to move to a CMS (it was a heat between Drupal (for extensibility) vs. WordPress (for it's ease of use for blogging). But as I didn't know exactly what I wanted this site to become (is it about articles? the blog? photo galleries? what???), I figured Drupal would be the best choice, as I can have a lot more freedom in building out new functionality now. Wordpress is a little limiting if you want to really stretch your site into different directions.

I'm working on the site's theme right now, and probably will be tweaking it over the next few weeks. Please let me know if you have any problems or have suggestions for improvement!

Have an exiting day! Or... should that be exciting?

I hope our nation gets a heck of a lot better at grammatical usage. Spell checkers are not the be-all-and-end-all of making sure your design is ready to go to press. But in the day of trimmed budgets and text messages, this kind of thing will happen more and more.

I recently had to find a way to use SMTP for one of my email accounts which only allowed SMTP access through a port that was blocked by my ISP (AT&T), port 25. I decided to use my Gmail account, but realized my name/email would be changed to my gmail account (including the reply-to address). So I set up a new Gmail account for the sole purpose of acting as my SMTP server, and changed the default sending address using the following steps.

1. In your Gmail account, click on Settings.
2. Click on the "Accounts and Import" tab.
3. In the "Send mail as:" section, click "Send mail from a different address."
4. In the window that appears, put in your name and your original email address.
5. After you add your original email address, you need to make it your default by clicking the 'make default' button.

Now you can set up your email client to use the Gmail SMTP server instead of your non-functional one, using port 587 with SSL turned on. Your email client should use [email protected] (for your Gmail account) as the username (just FYI).

Remember, O most blessed Mother, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence, unworthy as we are of thy protection, in the presence of God the Father, the Author of Life, of God the Son, Who gave marriage the dignity of a Sacrament, of God thy Holy Ghost, Who sanctified marital love, we entrust our courtship to thy motherly protection.

Guide us during the course of this relationship; make it a holy and loving friendship. Keep our courtship pure and chaste. Bless our friendship with a holy love. Watch over us from Heaven. Send us grace to live in the favor of God and to share in the eternal love in which we shall be united forever in Heaven.

Amen.