Hello Lochman,

I am honored that you would take the time to give me a detailed explanation of what I need to do. My main objective is to upgrade from 1.5.14 to 1.5.24. In order to do this I need to build a test site.

If you do not mind Lochman I am going to quote a few of your instructions and ask a follow up question for each.


"Can I suggest doing some research on "WAMP" (for Windows) or "LAMP" for Linux?" I use windows.

"To set up a test site for your Joomla installation, you will need to make a copy of the database. (Your ISP should provide something like "phpMyAdmin" to simplify this process.)" When you say ISP are you referring to internet service provider? Can you please explain what phpMyAdmin is?

Thank you for the friendly advice Lochman.

All the best to you.

JB

Hi JB,

It sounds as if you're fairly new to all this. As you're here on the Wrox Forum, I'm guessing that you have already bought a book on Joomla. (If not, "Beginning Joomla - Website Development" would be a good place to start.)

Yes, "ISP" means "Internet Service Provider" and phpMyAdmin is a program in the PHP scripting language that gives you an easy interface to the database application "MySQL".

Apart from reading books, a good source of information on all this stuff is the internet itself. Wikipedia is an excellent place to start and will usually give you a good introduction to something. For example, just copy and paste "phpMyAdmin" into Wikipedia and it will tell you all about that particular program. Basically, the same goes for anything you don't understand. Just type the word or expression into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up!

From there, you could try "WAMP" in Wikipedia as well. That will explain what it is and I would recommend using an Apache server, even if you have a "professional" version of Windows that includes its own server. I have found Apache much easier to work with.

I should point out that you could actually upgrade Joomla 1.5.14 to version 1.5.25 without setting up a test bed on your own computer but, personally, I found it very helpful to do just that. It took me a while when I first started but it's by far and away the best way to learn about it all. If you try updating the live version of your site without really understanding what you're doing, you could very easily make a mess of it all!

I hope that will give you something to be going on with...

Great Advice, I went ahead and bought "Joomla Explained" yesterday.
I will make sure I use Apache.

Hello Lochman,

How are you sir?

Thank you for the kind help with this issue. I have made a backup copy of my websites using Akeeba Back-up, installed WAMP server on my local computer, down loaded Kickstart. I now have a server on my computer.
In the second paragraph of your kind reply you suggested "You will then need to set up a second Joomla site (of the same vintage as the one you're using on your main site) on your own computer. Set it up as a brand new site then simply DROP (delete) all the tables in the new database and install the backup tables from your live site in their place."

Can you please explain this statement to me in greater detail?

I used Akeeba Backup to create a back up file of my site. Does that include everything or just my data files? It has a .jpa extension.

When you say vintage are you referring to 1.5.14 which is this sites version?

If so, where can I find a copy of Joomla 1.5.14?

I truly appreciate the good help that you have provided.

OK, this sounds as if you're making good progress. Firstly, the Akeeba Backup component makes things very simple so it's a good choice. It backs up EVERYTHING: your database files but also the entire collection of files that go to make up your Joomla site. If you're using this, you can forget about setting up a fresh installation of Joomla 1.5.14 on your own server because the Akeeba backup will include that. Just follow the instructions for restoring the backup on your newly created personal server and all should be well. It is possible to get older versions of Joomla from the main Joomla site but they are well hidden! With Akeeba, you shouldn't need to worry about that.

Updating older Joomla sites has always been a bit of a hassle. You have to download a zipped collection of files that then need to be uploaded, individually, to your live site. (You should put the live site off-line whilst this process is going on but you needn't bother with the copy on your own server.) If you're updating a live site, you need a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) "client" (application) such as Filezilla. (Google it.) If you're updating on your own server, an ordinary file manager will do the job.

The latest version of Joomla (1.7) includes the option to update from one version to another automatically. This will save an enormous amount of time and effort!

Akeeba cuts out the need to worry too much about database backups but I would still recommend that you get to know a little about MySQL: how to export an entire database and how to restore a backup version. It will help you understand more about what is going on inside Joomla itself and it's always good practice to keep database backups. (The database backup by itself will be much smaller than your Akeeba Backup file as well.)

Having got your copied site running on your own server, I would suggest that you practise updating that to version 1.5.25. You should find the zip file that you will need here: 2 Shared. (This is the best I can find. You will then need to upgrade from 1.5.23 to 1.5.25 but that only involves a couple of files and won't take long.)

All the best,
Lochman

This is good advice Lochman. I do appreciate your help.
Thanks.

Hey Lochman,

This morning you advised me to
follow the instructions for restoring the backup on your newly created personal server and all should be well.
I was wondering if restoring would be the same as importing? I do not see a restore feature in WAMP.
Also, will I also need to install Kickstart?

Thank You,

Hello,

I could not figure out how to create a test site on my local server so I decided to just upgrade 1.5.14 to 1.5.25 on my live site. It went quite smoothly.

Thank You,

OK... cool that you've upgraded your live installation. However, I would still recommend working through the installation of your own setup. WAMP is a "one-off" utility. It installs three separate applications: Apache, PHP and MySQL. Apache is a web server. When you run it on your own computer, you will be able to "serve" web files of your own. This is usually set up by default as "http://localhost". (This site will not be available on the internet at large: you would have to link it in through a Domain Name Server with a registered domain name if you wanted to do that.)

PHP is a script language that is set up to work on Apache and MySQL is a database works in conjunction with Apache and PHP. WAMP sets up all three for you and just saves you the hassle of trying to install all three applications separately and then get them to work together properly. You should never need to save or restore WAMP as such.

Once you've got your own server running, you will have a folder (usually "htdocs") where you can build web sites. What you do then is to install a new Joomla site in a folder of "htdocs". Before doing so, you will need to create a new (blank) database on MySQL. To do that, I suggest getting hold of a program called "phpMyAdmin". You can install this in its own folder of "htdocs" and run it from there. It will provide you with a friendly interface to the MySQL application. Create a new database there (together with a user), then run the Joomla installation routine and use the details you've set up on MySQL to enter in the appropriate place for Joomla.

Kickstart is just an easy way to install Joomla. It saves you downloading and unzipping the Joomla installation files. Just put the Kickstart script (program) in the folder where you want to run your own Joomla site (in "htdocs") and point your browser to it. It will then do all the fetching and carrying for you.

Sorry if I'm "teaching you to suck eggs"... I'm not sure how much you know already or whether this is all new for you...

Lochman

It's all in the template(the design) of the website, if this stry design it is unlikely that you get, you will need to remake it. Simply download a new template