Urgent Drupal Security Update

Ok, so after spending most of yesterday swearing under my breath at my Drupal test site trying to get the getID3() module to install properly I arrived at work today to discover it had fixed itself while I was away. Well, more likely is that my cache had cleared and my attempts to fix the problem were finally visible but it was annoying none-the-less.

So then I get told to run "Cron" (which is what searches for updates on your behalf I believe) and discovered an URGENT SECURITY UPDATE!!! needs to be made to my drupal site. I have to say, I am going through the instructions and it does seem rather labour intensive. So much so that I think I must be reading the instructions wrong. The go something like this :

Step 1. Make a back up of everything (common sense so far)
Step 2. Turn off all of the custom themes and modules that you spent hours, nay make that days of your life trying to get to work in the first place.
Step 3. Delete pretty much your entire site and upload the new version
Step 4. Re-Upload and turn back on all of the themes and modules that you spent hours, nay days, getting to work as mentioned grudgingly in step 2.

There must must be an easier way than this. I am making this hard work, surely?

Anyway ... I've just completed step 3. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: It worked, my drupal site didn't die and all is well in the world.

Drupal Update

So far my Drupal site consists of a Gallery module (using the open source Gallery2 software) and a Glossary (a module that uses Drupal's Taxonomy to provide mouse-over definitions of key words). They are both potentially very useful for teachers. I have also managed to quite successfully manage to fiddle with the CSS and image files from one of the download-able themes to create something that fits the school 'branding'. I'm going to spend some time now looking at podcasts and embedded video ... excitement!

What I haven't seen yet in the book is how to create a new home page ... or in fact any page that isn't module driven. Sometimes when you create a site you just want a plain old page that doesn't do anything fancy, just a bit of text and a few images. If the rest of the project is any indication, it can't be too difficult ... once I got over the whole mySQL database fiasco at the start of the project things have been pretty plain sailing.

At the moment it's just taking me a long time to do anything with Drupal, which I suppose is to be expected when learning a new workflow ... although not as long as it would have taken to build that image gallery or glossary from scratch I suspect!

Why Don't You?

I've got the tune of an old 80s TV show from my childhood going round in my head.

Whyyyyyy don't you ...
Whyyyyy don't you ...
Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set
and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?

Well in my case it's probably the eeepc that needs turning off rather than the tv ... but I'm trying to think of something less boring than watching hubby play on his new toy (a Ps3 with the jollily titled 'Killzone 2') while waiting for facebook to get through with its 'maintainance' and twitter to recover from the fail whale while everyone tries to tweet about facebook being down.

So far my favourite less boring activity would be to bake something but that causes a) washing up and b) inevitable eating. I can see a stack of junk mail that needs shredding, am I that bored? I think not. I could blog something, although it would be an extreeeemely dull post ... oh.

;o)