# README

Long Beach is a blogging engine I created to host my personal blog and website. The blogging engine is a little different than traditional blogs. It allows you credit authors and sources in link posts. For example, if you're posting a link to an article by Walt Mossberg at Re/code, you can add the link to his article and the attribution will appear as a part of the post. This additional attribution metadata also allows you to search the blog by author or source.

That said, this is also a traditional blogging engine. You can schedule posts or back-date posts. You can write in [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) or pure HTML. The code will prompt you to automatically generate an updated sitemap after each post which you can link to in Google's Webmaster Tools.

When it comes to logos and your identity, drop in your logo and 2x retina logo which will look great on retina screens. There is also hooks for icons -- all kinds of icons -- that you will find useful.

## Languages
This project uses the following languages/technologies:

* PHP
* MySQL
* HTML
* CSS
* Javascript
* Markdown
* SmartyPants

## Database
This project is configured to run off of a MySQL database. The SQL to create the necessary tables and data structures can be found in /SQL-setup.sql.

## Edits Required

### /admin/.htaccess
You will need to update the path to the .htpasswd file

### /admin/.htpasswd
Add a username and hashed password to the .htpasswd file. I suggest you generate your username and password using this [htpasswd generator](http://aspirine.org/htpasswd_en.html).

### /common/dbconnect.php
Update the login information to your database. 

### /common/footer.php
Add your personal information and email address.

### /common/google-analytics.php
Add your Google Analytics account ID.

### Images
* **/favicon.ico** -- Create and upload your own favicon.
* **/images/icons/** -- Create icons for your site. The icons needed are referenced in /common/header-links.php
* **/images/** -- Background image for top. I used MEK-Studios.png and MEK-Studios_2x.png. Both are referenced in /css/notional.css.

### Removing references to MEK Studios
MEK Studios is referenced throughout. You'll likely want to include your own website. This includes references to MEK Studios in text as well as URL references.

### Text Files
I included links to /about/ and /privacy/. Both of these pages are generated by /text.php which takes its cues from /.htaccess redirects and uses text files in/text/.

## License
This software is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for details.