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I suggested a friend look at joomla -- they asked "how come the official demos have been offline for over a week, even the clientside demo?" I don't know the answer, so I thought I'd post here and ask! Were the demos at http://demo.joomla.org/ taken offline due to resource use or some kind of abuse (spam/security issues?)

This is a great question, as someone who is trying to get an installation going I would love to see a demo and a list of all the settings/setup

I read where it will be back online again shortly. Some security issue I believe needed to be fixed to keep vicious and malfunctioning people from hacking it or something like that. Send your friend to our testing site and http://www.joomlaacademy.net/stable/ to view the default install. There's a couple of features being tested there but nothing to affect "looking" at the default site.

Thanks very much for the link to your demo site -- I also found the opensourcecms demo yesterday.

However, my basic debate was of this nature (and I don't mean this in a snide way at all, so please don't read it that way):

For active sites, I love what I see Joomla is capable of. But for a small fairly inactive site, is Joomla a good tool? For example, for a site of a couple dozen pages where changes will be made a few times a year, will the overhead of keeping Joomla patched and up to date take more time and effort than just manually making the changes with an html editor, ftp client, etc. The demo being offline for so long (while the link is still on the homepage) made me wonder too -- obviously this site's demo would be a big target for any malicious activity, but if Joomla themselves can't patch / keep online the demo where no critical data is even involved and had to take it down for over a week because of time constraints, etc. what does that say about the overall effort needed to maintain the Joomla backend for a small site such as the one I'm considering using it for?

Well, ya gotta get the shoes that fit the foot. For small, static content, web presence sites, the J!.15 horsepower isn't needed - after all, it "is" a CMS, not a website creator. Something simple could be created using NetObjects Fusion or any other html program without the bother of a MySQL db or PHP involvement.

It also says "nothing" relative to the last part of your posting. It simply means that J!1.5 isn't the right platform of choice for what you are doing. Heck, a cheap old "build a website at godaddy.com" service could fit the bill nicely without learning curves or upkeep issues.

Like I said, if you feet are size 9, no need for a size 15 CMS if you have to pack the toes with newspaper to make it fit the foot.

Fusion was in one of the programs I started out with and I used it heavily from 1998 through 2001 -- I've used it quite a bit over the years with legacy sites too. The drawback there is that the content is "stuck" in Fusion for all time (the generated html is messy) and one thing that appeals to me about a CMS is having content that will "last" as it can be reskinned, reorganized, etc. in Joomla. Also I like the idea that two people can work together in a site pretty easily with Joomla. But it might be like using a race car to drive to the store (drive to the store once a week and then have to spend hours turning up, etc.) A simpler leaner site creator is what I'm really after, but I've not found one that I've liked to date. I haven't looked at godaddy's tools -- I did see the tucows site creator offerings a year ago and they didn't impress me much in terms of flexibility or interesting layouts that I've seen actually created with them.
I do see that godaddy says on the "website tonight" website builder at the bottom:

Performance may begin to slow at varying numbers of pages depending on potential physical and practical constraints, including (but not limited to): system architecture, system capacity, system load, end-user Internet connectivity and end-user computer configurations.
"Unlimited Pages" does not apply to WebSite Tonight® Premium versions prior to 3.0. These earlier versions have a 20-page limitation and are also limited to the Disk Space and Bandwidth allocated at the time of purchase.
If you are unsure what WebSite Tonight® version you own, set up/launch your site from My Account. Version 2.7 users will find their version number above 'Current Page' near the top/left side of the page. Version 3.0 and higher users will find this information directly below the Website Tonight title bar.

which makes it sound like they have multiple versions running; if the site had been built with a prior version and now wanted to add page 21, it sounds like it might be stuck and have to be recreated in version 3.

So with joomla I'm worried about the overhead maintaining and patching such a complex system for such a simple task. With simple lean website builders I'm worried about being locked into a limiting framework later where the content is "stuck" in that website builder and a feature later wanted simply can't be added, or the website builder isn't supported over time.

Coffee Cup's html creator might be worth looking at also.

Moving to Sites & Infrastructure Feedback.

Thanks igeoffi. In an interesting coincidence, I see that mamboserver.com's official demo is also offline as well as joomla's which might suggest some cracking or spamming group targeted both cms sites and brought both demos down

island2 wrote:Thanks igeoffi. In an interesting coincidence, I see that mamboserver.com's official demo is also offline as well as joomla's which might suggest some cracking or spamming group targeted both cms sites and brought both demos down

No correlation at all. Did you read my latest blog post?

I did catch the note here: http://www.joomla.org/component/option, ... temid,105/ which was posted back on the 28th that the demo site "will be back soon." I shouldn't pry, but it does have me very curious what happened.

My latest post: http://www.joomla.org/component/option, ... 105/p,489/

Nothing happened. We just didn't have time to get around to doing what is needed to put the demo online. You may not be aware, but a demo site is not just a Joomla installation, it has to be locked down to secure it etc etc.

Definitely understand that -- heck if I had time to finish half the things in my own to-do list I'd be much happier and richer

I suppose I want to talk myself and others into believing Joomla is "easier" than it actually is, but it will take a real investment to come to terms with and maintain on an ongoing basis. I think it will be worth it in the end, but I'll have to make sure anyone I recommend it to is in it for the long haul or I fear they will be frustrated.

island2 wrote:Definitely understand that -- heck if I had time to finish half the things in my own to-do list I'd be much happier and richer

I suppose I want to talk myself and others into believing Joomla is "easier" than it actually is, but it will take a real investment to come to terms with and maintain on an ongoing basis. I think it will be worth it in the end, but I'll have to make sure anyone I recommend it to is in it for the long haul or I fear they will be frustrated.

What does that have to do with the demo being offline?

If you want to see what Joomla! is all about check out the Site Showcase forums. If you want a demo, people are free to download and install and demo to their heart's content at their leisure and convenience at any time. Download yourself a copy and set it up and have your friend take a look see.

What does that have to do with the demo being offline?

That's the question My fear is that if it takes the most experienced joomla developers two weeks to install the new version and apply the same lockdowns that locked down the previous version as the demo, it may indicate that the code has so much complexity to deliver the rich features that make it appealing that it will take quite an amount of work to maintain it long-term as new releases and patches come out.

island2 wrote:

What does that have to do with the demo being offline?

That's the question My fear is that if it takes the most experienced joomla developers two weeks to install the new version and apply the same lockdowns that locked down the previous version as the demo, it may indicate that the code has so much complexity to deliver the rich features that make it appealing that it will take quite an amount of work to maintain it long-term as new releases and patches come out.

Sure, but if you are just demonstrating for a friend and then removing the installation, there is no risk there.

The risk is that if they like the functionality (which I suspect they will) but can't handle upgrades on their own, or don't have time to complete a time consuming upgrade and check process in the future, I'll be the one they call to get it done.

island2 wrote:The risk is that if they like the functionality (which I suspect they will) but can't handle upgrades on their own, or don't have time to complete a time consuming upgrade and check process in the future, I'll be the one they call to get it done.

Yeah, well.. maybe Joomla is not for them then. In fact, any dynamic script is probably not for them.

It doesn't take two weeks to set up and install Joomla!.

Where the difference lies is I hope you and/or your friend would not be opening up the administrator backend of your site to millions of people on your sites. That is why the demo is a totally different issue in terms of security and locking it down. Also setting up the script to reset/reinstall the whole site every so many hours to refresh it, takes time.

You are comparing apples to oranges.