Last night I encountered some severe bugs, that was causing our SQL database to lock up. I had to take the site off-line yesterday to fix the problem so I could continue updating the site with content, newsfeeds, links and categories etc.

It should have been a quick fix, but low and behold I encountered several more bugs after re-uploading my website scripts. There is a total of 3,500+ files and one mySQL database with 70+ tables. This site is quite large compared to other content management systems out there, but it is capable of doing so much more.

As you can see I did get the site back up and going, but in the process I accidently deleted a file with all my url redirects. I didn't remember the old address to the list of contests, so when you guys tried browsing to the link, you either got a red page with 404 error or you got our frontpage. You currently can get to the contests by going to http://www.djhunlimited.com/internet-contests.html

Now I still have some problems to address like how the frontpage of this site is not displaying any menus or modules. Pluss the articles are not in the correct order. I'm not real sure whats going on. I hope to get it sorted out soon though. The bugs just keep pilling up, as I add more and more plugins, extensions and modules I encounter more bugs. As a whole joomla is pretty bug free, but now its time to work out the kinks between the various plugins. Its kinda like installing software on your computer and then adding other things to that software to enhance it.

With every new feature you introduce new areas for problems to form, so you have to take it a step at a time. Many times you fix one thing in the code. Then someone introduces a new plugin that makes the software do cool stuff so you install it, but now that one thing you fixed must work with 3 things instead of just one. So once again you have find a way to code it, so that it works smoothly in all directions at every step of the way. Most of this is trial and error. Kinda like trying to put a bolt through a hole that is to small. You either make a bigger hole, get a smaller bolt or you meet in the middle by reworking both because you may not have a drill big enough, or can't find a bolt small enough.

To help eliminate problems like this we have decided to use mostly commercial plugins, so that we can have a development team to back them up. All the software and scripts we use for this site are released under GPL mostly, which is opensource. Open-source software is developed by people all over the world and is mostly free. Sometimes opensource developers do charge money, but its more like a donation or subscription for support. We just about have all our plugins picked out, but now we must save some money in order to purchase them.

There is only about a handful of commercial plugins that we will be using. We are still going to use non-commercial plugins, but the user communities surrounding them must be quite large and very active. We don't want incomplete or bad plugins. We have been watching every single developer through-out the joomla community and know what their capable of, and what they are not capable of. Once the site is %100 percent development will stop. We are hoping that this site will beable to withstand about 2-3 years of service and let us grow to our potential during that time. After 2-3 years we plan to develop a totally new and revamped djhunlimited.com, but by then we will have hired a developer to take on the task to make the transition to the new site seamless, unlike the struggles and problems you are seeing us take on today.

Good Luck, Hope You Win Something Big & Cool