On content management systems

I'm not reviewing every single CMS available, just the ones that in theory are the fastest/easiest to install and get up and running with that are still installed and being 'tested' on a private server.

I'm down to two now. e107 from http://www.e107.org/ and Joomla, (created by the dev team that originated mambo), from http://www.joomla.org/ .

Off the mark they're both fairly easy to install provided you've already installed PHP and MYSQL. You'll need to be sure that which ever CMS package you go is compatible with the versions of PHP and MYSQL you've got installed.

Before we go on let me say this about MYSQL. There are all sorts of flavors of this, some customized by third party developers to make installing and getting the basic configuration done. I highly advise you look for something like that if you've never tackled this type of install before. Secound the people that develope the main branch have an excellent freeware gui tool for administering MYSQL. Lastly choose non-trivial passwords for the root access admin to MYSQL. You really don't want someone finding a backdoor into your database.

Ok, back to the CMS packages. After you've got them installed they both give you the option of loggin into the admin page or the front page of your new web portal site. Since you haven't done any configuring in the admin section yet the front page is going to be the default page so it's better if you dive into the admin area first.

Here's where these two packages depart company. In e107 you can with fair ease get the framework of your site set up, add in extra functionality with plugins from http://www.e107coders.org/ [free registration/access]. Add new 'themes' ie layout and color templates. The builtin help is minimal but sufficient and there's plenty of info and help to be found at the main e107 site.

Now joomla.. joomla looks really nice from the sites that I've seen running it.. well, ok.. from the sites that took the time to do a nice job of setting up. But having installed it, and that was a breeze, we ie I came to a near dead stop. The admin area is baroque in it's terminology and setup requiring you to stop, read, study and then read and study some more.

You get the idea. There's a 20 page pdf manual you can download to get you started on the road with joomla if you have the patience and time. Joomla looks like it could potentially be more powerful and perhaps more friendly to a wider group or web browsers. That's just a first impression though.. I've only read up to page 5 so far and it gave me a headache so I'll go back to it later.... or not.