log into your existing joomla server, usually by executing the following, where non-specific names have been substituted with descriptive names, from a Mac/Unix terminal or PuTTY on Windows:

$ssh mark@YourOldDomain.com
(log into joomla server)

$mysql -u yourUserName -p
:(enter password, this logs you in to joomla database)

>show databases;
(this will show database names, use the Joomla one)

>mysqldump theJoomlaOne > MarksBackup.sql
(actually type the second caret, the first is a prompt, this creates an sql file that you can use to rebuild the database)

>exit
(exit mysql command prompt)

$ls
MarksBackup.sql
(here you are confirming you have a file called whatever you put after the second caret)

$scp MarksBackup.sql MarksUsername@yourNewServer.com:
(this copies the sql backup to the new server)

$[hit control-D]
(this exits you from the old joomla server)

Now log in to the new server:

$ssh MarksUserName@newserver.com
(you should now be in the same home directory where the .sql file is, use “ls” to make sure)

$mysql -u yourUsername -p
:(enter password)

>create database theJoomlaOne;
(use same name as before, if you have trouble google ‘mysql permissions’)

>exit

$mysql -u yourUsername -p < MarksBackup.sql

You now have a full backup of your old site, and are ready to follow the instructions here! ;) — http://rangit.com/software/6-s.....wordpress/ — in case there are any problems recall the first commandment of the internet, thou shalt futz til it works. You can probably do it on your own too, googling each time you get an error message.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Long time reader, new commenter. This is not criticism but in-kind payment for all the fabulous links and thoughts you’ve shared. I think that the challenges of simply publishing online can obscure the greater problem as journalism goes digital — there is a temptation to say “we are content, therefore we should focus on content management.” In fact, it has been ages since WordPress, TypePad, Drupal, and any number of frameworks have been more than adequate for end-user presentation. What I think is missing is something closer to digital thinking — for example, the articles currently featured in your feed, “Cram Jam”, “Jazz Group”, “Pubs Night”, and the border jobs feature, are all rich in data that could be structured, but they just link to Flash websites or pdfs. Where is the database with the jobs you have covered, or how might an impecunious student know from the front page that Cram Jam is 20 dollars without first reading that Minnie H thinks they are fantastic and that she can’t wait to see them? Context is one thing, but if you have actual data in machine readable form it is trivially easy to display, for example, events happening tonight, free events this weekend, or jobs that will require a resume by next week. You can become a great resource for readers by letting computers answer those questions — It would actually be better to completely outsource the CMS aspect of reporting and focus on students differentiating types of information and making them accessible. How would a computer represent the 9 items in your feed as of 9-14-08? It would be a great lesson for students to simply decide on a data model: events have dates, types, locations, participants and costs, jobs another, courses another, lectures, debates, etc. You can collect all these things into useful categories, and the desire and need to reduce duplication will push you towards the right abstractions. I wouldn’t say you should even dwell on particular databases or programming languages, much less web-programming frameworks. People will develop tastes for those things as they go along. If you publish any kind of structured data, something as simple as a text file reading:

event = music ; name = “Cram Jam” ; date = 26 Sep 2008 ; cost = 20 ; location… (worry about geocoding later)

- that data will become combinable with the article and will vastly enhance its value. (You can learn how to store and handle them with databases and high-level programming languages in a few pleasant months.) Not all analysis or research is amenable to these abstractions, but almost everything has some parts that are, and knowing the differences, and knowing how to exploit and apply them, is what I think will be valuable in the next phase of journalism.