After putting it off for months, I’ve finally switched over Studio Moqa to Joomla! (from Mambo). I’m using Joomla! 1.0.11 Stable (Sunbow), and liking it a lot so far.

The Joomla! backend shows the most improvement — slicker interface, with some changes made to make navigation, editing and content creation more intuitive, and faster (fewer clicks).

I also finally wrote a template from scratch. All CSS, no styling in the index.php file, it’s all in the template_css.css, the way it should be. Decided to go for a minimalist look, for my first template, but I expect to build on it in the coming months, and probably showcase several templates using the Joomla! template-switcher module.

Forget about remote installation of Debian/Ubuntu. I decided to get a new server, with a new host, Rackmounted.com. Chose the CeleronD option, at 2.66GHz.

They will install Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake for me, and after that I’m on my own. Just the way I want it. The package is $64/month (no commercial control panel, just going with Webmin… Plesk is an additional $35/month! Forget that…) with a $99 setup fee. They waive the fee if you pay for a year’s hosting, but I’m not willing to do that. Want to try them out first. Check back for additional reports.