Tony's Site

Tony's Site

This is my (slightly unexciting) web site. I created this in response to two factors.

In sorting out problems I have relied heavily on information posted by others on the Internet. I thought I should put something back and share some experiences. Some of these may be rather bland but sometimes, when trying to chose between options, just knowing that someone else uses a piece of hardware/software and that it has no major difficulties can help the decision. Hopefully anyone googling on these topics will find my ramblings.

When I originally started I used Zope and Python. This combination worked for me. I then started to look at Zope based CMS software, which although overkill for my sites would allow me to experiment and gain some knowledge. I first tried Plone but found this too complex and difficult to master in the time I had available. It may be a good tool in a professional environment but not for someone dabbling in spare time.

I then came across Silva. This also is Zope based and I found it much more manageable. I quickly created a number of small sites using it. I would still consider its use in a professional environment. However, recent decisions by the supporters of Debian, Zope and Silva make my continued use problematical. Zope will no longer be a supported product in Debian when Squeeze is released and Silva is no longer available as a product to install in an existing Zope instance. Whilst I understand the decisions made I feel they make Zope and Silva too complex for spare time use.

As a result I have recently started to move to Django. This is based upon Python, which I have built up knowledge of. Although this is not a CMS it provides enough for me to easily create sites and is fully supported in Debian.

This site is a low priority task so there may be periods of inactivity. It is also experimental, is work in progress and at any point in time may be broken, have artistically challenged colour schemes or a blue font on a blue background (You think I joke. I recently spent some time trying to work out why something wasn't showing up to then realise I had exactly this problem).

Please use the contact page if you have any queries/comments/suggestions.