mblog

I’ve been researching which will be the best way to go about building my new web sites. My company has been interested in a CMS solutions, but try as I might… I cannot find any 100% positive reviews for any one system. Configuration Limitation this, Clumbsy Interface that.

I believe that the only real way to get what you really want out of a CMS is to build a CMS for the project. I am still interested in implementing a few SaaS or modular applications, but in my opinion, from scratch is the way to go. I would like to stay away from the limitations of a software not being supported, or worse, if development stopped and the site became stuck in the rut of dead technology
The following is a (growing/changing) list of tools and applications I will be using or NOT using, as well, which aspects I have found to be wonderful, troublesome, limiting, or if I found them to work at all:

• Ad Server: We’re not currently implimenting any form of graphic tracking, however, I have used phpAdsNew in the past and found that it was simple enough, but, at least in the version I had used only offered basic stats and i think had limitations to custom settings.
• Analytics: Currently using Google Analytics. It has tremendous feedback, but nothing too customizable.
• Calendar: Still just using PHP date output to list dates, no calendar system implemented
• Framework: Digging around with Zend Framework Beta, but not sure if I will build with it.
• Gallery: Currently using an old ugly script, using Flickr Badge in the blog, but need something better.
• Interactivity: The Sajax Simple Ajax toolkit seems like a good base, and uses actual code unlike Backbase AJAX that uses custom tags.
• Mail Server: We are currently outsourcing through Topica… which isn’t very good and does not integrate into the website, I have not found a good personal mail server.
• Template: This is a new thought for me, but my research leads me to Smarty and Savant. Savant appears to be using pure PHP instead of Smarty’s proprietary tags which strikes me as odd, because Smarty is hosted with PHP.net?!
  

Also, I need to keep a rough reference of good input and output functions.
IN:
mysql_real_escape_string(); - escapes from apostrophes in text input

OUT:
nl2br(); - converts an enter keystroke to