I am just starting my second week on Big Jump Production’s new content management system and thanks to something called MAMP and some very well behaved children over the weekend, I’m off to a great start. At first I heard that Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.2) had an Apache web server built in, which it does.  All I had to do was install the PHP scripting language and the mySQL database and I would be all set.  As I began looking up some of the install handbooks over at drupal.org, I saw a reference to something called MAMP. MAMP is an acronym for the four pieces of software used to run Drupal, and subsequently, the WordPress blogging platform. M – MAC OS X operating system, A – Apache web server, M – MySQL database server and P – PHP for the scripting language. MAMP can be downloaded for the MAC over at www.mamp.info.  It’s awesome.

Now I am not yet a programmer, and with Drupal and WordPress, at the most, I would have to get my hands dirty with only a bit of light scripting, but I spent most of my Sunday afternoon pouring over commands in the OS X terminal window.  Fortunately, OS X is basically UNIX underneath pretty interface. Once you’ve learned a few basic commands over the years, they stay pretty much the same.  I found the documentation on getting started with MAMP on drupal.org and except for small snag around changing my default root user password on the database server, everything went well.

I was feeling pretty good once I bookmarked my Drupal and WordPress sites, both running off right off of my laptop.  How cool! I spent the last half of my day diving right into Drupal.  I Installed a few very powerful modules and started creating custom content types.  I soon realized that there are just so many options available to you, that you find yourself stuck trying to choose the one that users will find the easiest.  I did actually start with a flowchart first.  That was the majority of week one.  I still managed to make a mess of content types and menus.

With Drupal up and running, taunting me to log in and start building, I couldn’t resist. You can only read so much in books and websites, and watch so many Drupal podcasts before you just have to jump in start building. And folks, that what I did.  Sure, I inevitably painted myself into a corner by day’s end, but now I can go back to the books, sites and podcasts with a greater appreciation for all that knowledge I am shoving into my noodle. No regrets. I can’t wait to start again tomorrow.