I think I might get cracking on a MODx setup

Hi everybody, I’m new here, and you may soon grow tired of me.
I’ve been looking for a CMS of sorts to toy around with thought about dotNetNuke, but also doing a PHP version something.

What Server setting’s will I need to ask my IIS webhost for?
They don’t give any write space in the webroot, the databases are all a level up, and out of the webspace.
Is this going to be a problem?

You may have seen me around on styleGala forum boards, I’ve got in 700+ posts since joining them on Halloween, that is scary...!#$#!
Boo!
Curious if where the dev team is from I’m in Ohio, USA.
Ty
My experience level is lot’s of html experience, really no straight Xhtml experience, but moderate comfort level with CSS design, it’s getting to be almost fun!
Another question to throw out, are there any video tutorial’s, those contribute greatly to one’s confidence level, for quick starts.

The technical settings questions I will leave to the more qualified. I dont think the databases a level up will be a problem you will just need to specify a valid path/address for them in the set up.  As to IIS specific issues I know there are a couple, specifically with FURL’s (friendly alias’s i.e. mysite.com/friendly.htm instead of mysite.com/index.php?=12) as it requires Modrewrite. 

You will not regret jumping onto the MODX bandwagon. It has been a ride for me and my company. 6+months now and the people here are simply the best. Friendly and helpful and if they are not tired of me, they can get tired of no one.

As to video tutorials I do not beelive there are any official ones. Our company has put together a little over an hours worth of step by step CONTENT creation tutorials for customers. But no install type tutorials. If prevailed on, I might be battered into making a quick video tutorial for install on a *nix enviroment host.

Welcome aboard I am in the big OH too.

Is there any chance this project is being considered for any other scripting languages than .PHP.
Highly unlikely, thought I’d ask —my boss is very reluctant to ever install PHP on his servers.
Things are always changing though. Maybe even Billy Gates will warm up to PHP someday, that would sure be interesting.
I know what you mean by friendly URL’s, that’s probably a big part of getting the pages to get indexed on search engines then isn’t it.
Modrewrite can’t be used on IIS then you’re saying, and currently no other option’s then that you know of what is the preferred server then for the modX Apache did I read?

Who cares what Bill Gates does? IBM supports PHP. What more can anyone ask?

I beleive a modrewrite type of solution is available for a IIS host but most "shared" hosting providers do not allow it I am thinking. As to porting to any other script lang. good lord I should hope not. That would be a nightmare project me thinks. Any clue why your boss is set against PHP? Security? Surely, there is enough security in php for "most" applications outside of say national security and swiss bank accounts. Friendly urls are arpart of getting indexed on google etal. Apache is the prefered I beleive. I dont think it would be difficult to get MODX up on say even Monkeyserver or some such sort.

Yeah... security are his issues, he’s been in internet since back in the day, and doesn’t mind paying for software, probably got burned on some earlier open source scripting, and I know there have been security headaches.
Maybe someday he’ll give it a go. If I develop a bag of trick’s using the modX, would help.

There’s a programmer here at work, they are all about MS business level solutions.
Me being self-taught I’m all about free and open source. Barely scratched the surface on any actual application development, just upload ’em and run. A few .asp applications like megaBBS by pd9soft.com for one. IT’s a nice forum easy to manage forum.

Any thought’s on if I should set up the application on a home test server, or just go with my actual hosting server?
My pc is running the Home XP version but I think I’ve found a nice server to run on that called Abyss Web server instead of PWS, and it’s freeware. I’ve already installed it with no problem’s but nothing running on it really.
Is local testing really necessary does anyone think, or just set it up live on a remote server?
Thanks, again.

Sorry for making the thread all about me here.
Shoutout’s to Ryan he hangs out on the forum.stylegala.com sometimes too.

Well, people who are good M$ company people are not going to be disuaded from ASP. Once you get the goompa of a liscense and the chutzpah of a billion dollar advertizing campaign its not worth fighting it. You could easily set up a LAMP set up on a spare home computer or dual boot your own. But with shared hosting around cents a day, just get a cheap cheap host that has VPS’s or VPS LAMP’s. There is no compelling reason not to throw up a test site then when you want to go live drop the tables and reinstall.