That was a weird error from the forums.

Ha! Yeah, that can get pretty slimy, pretty fast. Backups are always a hot-button topic.

But at least it's so much cheaper to run a server yourself, than to generate the site statically, and run the forums on a SaaS? Right?

That's merely an excuse to not learn proper big boy Linux system administration.

Personally, I think the best OS is the one I use: Commodore KERNAL/Commodore BASIC 2.0

If it's good enough for my Commodore VIC-20, it's good enough for me!

Actually, T-A-G has multiple Linux boxes as well, he's got Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla sites and can have any he wants, the problem is all in the migration of stuff over. e.g. http://joomla.astlan.net/

Joomla is a different Content Management System. This current site uses a CMS called DNN (Dot Net Nukem) which is windows based, and the forum is called YAF (Yet Another Forum) that can run independently or inside DNN. It too is windows based.

WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are three competing CMS's they are all Linux based (if there are Windows ports, I doubt many people are using them)

All three are huge for blog sites and websites. You would be amazed at the number of interactive sites that run on one of these three, particularly WordPress.

The big thing about a CMS is that they are basically website skeletons into which you plug prebuilt modules for functionality and then just worry about content, not the mechanics of the website. They allow users to graphically rearrange content and simply type it in and format it like a program and not use any code.

All three Linux ones and DNN are opensource and free. The Linux ones are the biggest ones, period. DNN is probably the biggest on Windows.

There have been quirks and issues with this site and DNN, and Mikey has suggested on a couple occasions moving to one of the bigger 3 and do it at a completely hosted location so it takes up less of my time. Right now I run the servers and everything.

The big 3 also are really big and have lots of developers and are extremely stable and tested, and if I ran it in a fully hosted environment, I wouldn't have to worry about maintenance etc.

However, since, as part of my day job, I have the servers, capacity etc, and I'm a Lenamare style control freak, I figure use something of my own so I can do exactly what I want.

Now, I have explored moving to one of the others. joomla.astlan.net is one such example. And there is some attraction to that, there were design changes to how DNN works, and the theming tool I use for it, won't work with the newer version, but it does work with the big 3. So basically my DNN site and its code aren't really getting much in terms of updates. To get updates I need to go to newest version that breaks my themes. So there is a reason to go big 3.

However, to go to big three I have to move all the content to a completely different system and that takes time, testing, etc. And that's time that would otherwise be spent writing more books...

So the move is in Limbo at the moment.