What’s a content management system? Well up until now, every time I add a page to fusion101.com Christian singles help section, blog or any other page like the one you are reading now, it takes me forever, and editing the page means I often need to edit every other page to match! How could I get in such a mess? Well I won’t bore you with the details but basically it’s because apart from having to run and develop every aspect of Fusion myself, I am not particularly web-technical and have not had time to learn all the aspects I’d like to, meaning something that should take me a few minutes has often, through lack of funds, knowledge, time and frankly sheer obstructionism by my developers who wanted me to throw in the towel and hand everything over to them which I refused to do has taken years – in this case I’ve wanted a CMS since 2001! I’ve even paid for several to be coded or installed (along with emailers and other desperately functions) but in the end have abandoned them as useless.
Here is the process I’ve had to go though till now to add a page; First I have to go into a program called Dreamweaver, create a new page, add a heading, add a logo, add a footer and try to code it so it works on different platforms which it rarely does. The problem with this was that every time I want to change the colour or logo or style on one page – or make it ft with some new Internet standard, I then have had to manually re-style 2-300 pages which I’ve had to do several times over causing me severe stress and RSI issues.
Why couldn’t I get someone else to install a CMS for me? Well these guys effectively had control over my server and therefore me, and had been promising me a CMS for years, so long as I hand over 50% Fusion101 to them and complete control of the site! This I was not prepared to do, since all the hard work I had done myself.
At last I no longer have to edit 100’s pages manually every time I want to change one!
As it turns out the server software on fusion101.com is not suited to the CMS software I have chosen but never the less I have managed to install and manage it myself on a different server (the one you are looking at) so at last I have a means to quickly create a new page all templated and ready-to-go that automatically works on all platforms and looks great!
Small as it is – this will change my life! And Fusion101!
Thank the Lord – and I really mean that as the last 16 years have been nothing short of a nightmare trying to get anything done and I have lost a lot of sleep, money and health but praise God He has finally given me a means and knowledge to fix what turns out to be mind-numbingly simple tasks of managing my site, server and CMS myself and stop paying through the nose to the point of running out of money.