What is Web 2.0?

It is the next phase of the world wide web.

In the beginning, there was HTML.

In the mid-nineties, Tim Berners-Lee crafted a new markup language by extracting a subset from an older markup language and boom! The Web was born.

Web technology continued to improve over the next decade, producing a whole slew of applications with each having their own set of bells and whistles. Then in 2004, ten years after the birth of the web, another Tim, Tim O'Reilly, declared the birth of Web 2.0.

With all the new technologies and seemingly endless array of options facing web users, Web 2.0 in many ways goes back to the basics in terms of usability and scalability.

In Web 2.0, no longer do you have to handcraft each web page, or know a programming language to have a web site, you do not even need a web guru to run your web site. In Web 2.0, you enter the world of content management systems(CMS), search engine optimization (SEO), web services such as RSS and Amazon, web automation such as Google sitemaps, and countless other improvements.

What does this mean for web site owners?

Well it must be a mercury retrograde, because everything is happening at once!

Drak.net, our server host, is upgrading Apache, PHP and MySQL all at the same time. And Drupal, our content management system, just announced that another security upgrade is now available, version 5.3. So just as I need to work on web sites like crazy, the server may will be acting up!

Ai yi yi! And I just finished getting most of the sites on 5.2!

Well last night I managed to upgrade Katrina's Joy and since it was available, I installed version 5.3. Great! One down, six to go!

But first, I am going to skip over futher upgrades in the 4.7 version and bring Connect DC up to 5.3 in one swoop. Wish me Luck!

But first I have to create four new themes and modify some workflow elements on the current site.

At some point, I need to explain the difference between a web design and a web theme. I will make that a separate post.

In the meantime, I have my work cut out for me this week.

So follow my example, measure everything twice and show some respect to Mercury.

Blessings

After fighting with apache, php, drupal and phpadmin just to set up a drupal testbed on my G4 Mac running 10.4, I decided I needed a place to "log" all my fixes.

So a blog is born ... Welcome to Amber's Blog!

Amber Eyes is changing. And this new web site is part of that change.

We continue to offer event registration and business management services. But now we offer so much more.

Amber Eyes Solutions is now a web design, web hosting and web support company too.

• We are licensed resellers of Drak.net, a woman owned web hosting company that has set high standards for community based technical support and transparent business processes. DrakNet specializes in hosting for progressive sites, and actively supports non-profit organizations.
  
   
• We have standardized on Drupal for our web designs. Drupal is a feature rich, high quality, open source Content Management System (CMS) built using PHP/MySQL. At it's very essence, Drupal is a community-building tool that is created by a community of programmers.
  
   
• Ambers Eyes Solutions adds value to these industry leaders through our training, technical support and maintenance packages. With Amber Eyes Solutions, you will always have someone looking out for you and your web site.

Welcome to the new Amber Eyes Solutions:
Event Registration, Web Development & Business Management Solutions!