Drupal on Mac OS X

I'm working on enabling a CMS host for Mensa Bangalore with Guru. As a start, I am evaluating various CMS options like Drupal, DokuWiki, CMS Made Simple etc. Since Drupal seems to be a good option, I decided I will create a sandbox installation on my Mac G4. This post outlines the steps I followed to get Drupal up and running on OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Drupal 6.2 is the latest stable version available at the time of writing, so I downloaded the same. Since I intent to use this installation only for test & evaluation, I decided to go the easy way and use MAMP to create a local server environment with Apache, MySQL & PHP. Note that Mac OS X comes with Apache 1.3 and PHP 4.4 (both not enabled/started by default), however mySQL is present only in the server version.

I followed the HowTo in Drupal site on installing Drupal over MAMP. Installing MAMP was easy - as easy as downloading the dmg file and copying the MAMP folder to Applications folder, although the download was a bit hefty at 127 MB. Subsequently, I had to do a few steps to create a database in mySQL and install Drupal. The whole procedure was more or less painless. Now I get to play around with Drupal to see how I can make a decent web site for Mensa Bangalore with members areas and other features that we have identified.

I intent to identify the following to manage the web site:
users, roles, namespaces

However, from a initial evaluation, Drupal does not seem to support a "namespace" like concept that I want - for example, once I enable node view for members who are logged in, they can also view forums and polls. I need to identify a way to create distinct public & private areas.

[23 April] I found a nice article in Lullabot that talks about private forums in Drupal

Korea & Singapore

COEX Mall, Seoul, Korea. A huge underground mall with shops, multiplex, aquarium, food courts etc.

Singapore's Changi Airport. One of my favorite airports. Korea's Incheon is the best rated and most efficient, but Changi is the nicest one to spend transit time. Imagine an orchid garden in the middle of a busy airport!

Riviera: Children's Games

Since summer vacations have started and quite a few parents felt that kids were wiling away their time in front of the idiot box, the Positive Energy Club (PEC) decided to do something about it. First priority was to get the kids outdoor and engage them in a physical activity, a secondary one was to teach them some of the games that we grew up playing which seems like a lost art to the kids of today.

Although the notice given was very short due to last minute plan, quite a few kids turned up - their network is better connected than even the internet. All in all, a very successful event - we played lagori (seven tiles, or in our case, 5 tiles to make it easier for the kids), dodge ball and dog & the bone. A few tears were shed, some elbows bruised, but overall all kids went back home with a smile on their face.

Special thanks to Vineeta, Arti, Anita, Rathi & Sudhir for helping organize the games. Hopefully this will continue as a regular affair.