A fish out of water with a sob story.

I am a stay at home mom. For years I decided to try different types of sites and just couldn’t get anything going. I enjoyed posting on forum sites and eventually decided to try it myself. After several trials and failures I finally went with something I know and enjoy and have had some success with it. My site focuses on food and the celebrity chefs on TV. I have used a paid forum software for years and I learned how to install it and edit templates for add on features. I am not savvy with HTML or CSS but if I have something that spells out things step by step I can usually manage to do many things on my own.

The software I am currently using on my website is by a large well known forum developer and they recently launched a whole new design with a hefty price tag. I paid it, and installed only to find myself hacked and my traffic hijacked to another site. It was weeks before I knew because I never google my own website, I just knew traffic had dropped, well long story short I finally figured it out, but my google rank had dropped and all of my advertising revenue disappeared. Heartbreaking because I was finally able to contribute to our family income once my husband retired from the military without having work outside the home. The site still isn’t earning what it was before and I don’t know when it will return. To pay so much for software and then actually LOSE income has been a hard hit, so I am afraid to launch another site using the same thing. It seems they have many bugs to work out.

For that particular site I am locked into using the forum software I have now. But, another TV channel will launch soon and I have purchased the domain name to create a fansite for it as well. For this site I would like to do something different. Maybe articles and blogging, Can I do this with Modx considering my limited webdesign knowledge? Will it offer me the features I need?

I am out of a comfort zone leaving forum software, but I would like to try. Is this the best option for me or would I be in over my head with Modx?

Depends on how much you are willing to put into it. I was also a stay-at-home mom, with no education beyond high school. I built my first computer around the same time my first grandchild was born. Before that I made quilts for extra income. I’ve been working exclusively with MODx for the last several years because it is so easy for me to work with. Now, granted, there is a difference here; I make my money by web development , not from a website’s income; in fact I finally just yesterday put a PayPal "donate" button on my site (mostly to make it easier for my development clients to pay me; I don’t expect my visitors to pay for whatever use they may find my site to be). I, personally, despise advertising; always have ever since I got curious enough to do a term paper on the advertising industry in high school, but I can understand how it’s useful for others. Anyway, if you can do any HTML and CSS at all, then you shouldn’t have a problem with MODx. Who knows, you might even find you enjoy it as much as I do!

Articles and blogging with MODx are very easy. As far as getting hacked, that will primarily rest with your choice of hosting provider, and keeping your own computer clean of trojans that allow hackers to track your activity and capture your login URLs and passwords. We’ve had very few attack vectors, and are quick to patch any that are even only theoretical. The core itself is sound; occasionally a third-party add-on will have a vulnerability, but it’s such an active community that it’s found, reported (usually including the fix) and fixed in a very short period of time. There’s also a security topic on the forums that should be subscribed to, as well as a section in the MODx back-end that runs the security RSS feed.

I helped a friend create the site below, which might or might not be like what you’re looking for.

http://cookbookandlook.com

I considered doing it in MODx, but ended up using WordPress instead. I did the design, because we couldn’t find any WordPress themes she liked. There are a zillion of them, though, and if you can find one you like, you could be up and running *much* faster in WordPress. My friend is not very computer savvy, but she had almost no trouble learning and using the WP site.

I think MODx would be very difficult for you if you are not well versed in CSS and HTML. Although MODx would allow you a lot more control over the design and would let you add a lot of custom functionality, WordPress might be a better choice. Learning HTML, CSS, and MODx at the same time would be a pretty tall order.

Thanks. I have 2 domains that aren’t listed right now and I have been playing with some different software. I installed Modx on one and it does seem rather complicated for me. I would like to have something that is a full CMS but wordpress does seem like it would be easy to manage. I have been looking for something that would maybe convert word press to a CMS and give me other options than simply a blog. I started out with PHP nuke years ago and I don’t know if the product is better now, but I didn’t care for it when I used it long ago.

It’s so hard to choose. So many options these days.

Thank you for your input.

MODx would definitely be a better choice the PhpNuke, IMO (and if you could handle the old PhpNuke, you could probably handle MODx).

You might put a little time into finding out how your site was hacked if you haven’t already. It may not be the fault of the Forum software (and if it is, it may have been fixed). Many sites are hacked because hosts leave register_globals on or because they don’t isolate users on a shared server from each other. As Susan mentioned, you can also unwittingly download a trojan or key-logger to your own machine that will capture your passwords.

Once whatever hole the hacker got in through is plugged, you may be fairly safe running the original package (or an updated version of it).

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Thanks. Yes I have been thru all the help forum steps to cover the hacking. It wasn’t just me there were many people. Many of us with high traffic sites were hit. I did patches and the makers of the software issued a security release shortly there after.

Right now I am looking at moveable type. And I do have ModX installed to look at as well.

Thanks again.

I am not an advanced user, but I think you can get modx working for you. You can go a lot farther with modx than you can with WP.

I spent just a few months learning a bit of html and css, so I am at about intermediate level. I did have someone turn a dreamweaver static site into a basic modx template though.

To me, its a balance between simplicity and power and control, to extend and develop the site. WP is fine, I have used it before, but it doesn’t give you a lot of control. Its advantage is simplicity.

Now I have a great deal of control over each and every page. I can adjust the sidebar at will, each section of the site can have a different sidebar if I wish. I just emailed my webmaster yesterday, crowing about how much control I have over the site. Again, I am not an advanced user, either.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Good luck!

My website, still under development: http://www.rayxi.com/index.php?id=1

Ohh, I like your site. Bookmarked for next time I need to make some good food ;-)