Subversion version control system is next in line then 
have a look at www.unfuddle.com it’s free for a small set of code, has a nice system.
SmartSVN is my personal client of choice
Excellent news with finding the absolute cause of the issue 
DT.
@ DoubleTop,
Excuse the ignorance, but what in the heck is “Subversion”?
I took a look at the unfuddle.com site you linked to, and all that stuff is way wayyyyyyyy over my head. Is it a hosting company, a consulting firm . . . what?
How would I use whatever they offer to go forward?
Subversion is a version control system. Each time you make a change to a file and then do a checkin, the previous versions of files are kept. In my line of work it’s invaluable to be able to see who did what and be able to go backwards to old code. It basically means that even if someone does break the code by tinkering, it’s recoverable.
Unfuddle host the Subversion servers, and you place your files into a repository on the Unfuddle system, then using SmartSVN every time you make something live you check-in the code and have a complete history of all the changes you have done
Setup a subdomain on the live server, staging.domainname.tld Then you can all have access into the development/test site and not worry about breaking the live site
DT.
@ DoubleTop,
OK . . . I think I’m getting a little of what you’re driving at and it makes sense. But I only have the general idea down and not the specifics . . . will have to look into this some more to get my arms around it. Still a bit over my head on the specifics.
So would I have to switch hosts to this fuddle.com and set up my domain there? Is there a hosting fee?
Or can the existing host be used and I would store some files on fuddle’s server? Fee for that?
nothing is hosted on Unfuddle, it’s just having the source files there so you can use version control.
Your live site remains completely untouched, no change to domain settings or anything like that. The free Unfuddle accounts will give you enough storage for a Joomla site
@ DoubleTop,
OK . . . lemme’ see if I understand this correctly.
Before a live site edit I would store all the public-html files on this fuddle/Subversion thing, and then if I didn’t like the edits or they borked the live site, I could just restore it to the way it was by cutting and pasting the files from the Subversion server? Would that restore the db too?
I’m sure I’m missing something, but if my understanding is correct then I don’t even need this local site setup.
What am I missing here?
that’s close to how it works yes, to do it with the database though you would need to take regular database dumps, and put those dumps under version control.
I work in a place where this is invaluable, multiple people working on code you can tell who did what from the version. Ofc, we still keep a stage and live site though, or dev and live depending on the type of project.
Keep live and dev and just use this as offsite backup as you get used to version control, because if you do put them on the same server you have a single point of failure
DT.
@ DoubleTop,
Now I’ve got options up the kazoo.
What I have to decide is “what’s the simplest” way to go, because at the end of the day the guy’s daughter is going to have to deal with it. I’m removing myself from the picture, but I don’t want to get calls from her everyday . . . “Uncle Bob, now what do I do?”
And I DO want to give her a “test” method because I don’t want her (or me for that matter) borking what I’ve already got on the live site (and your fuddle method sounds like it would certainly achieve THAT goal). But I have to decide if that’s the simplest way to go FOR HER. She’s moderately computer literate, and actually pretty sharp. I’m not much further along the computer literacy scale than her myself.
Someone on another forum suggested that since the site is so simple now, I should just convert to “static HTML”. I’m guessing that would eliminate all concerns about php and css coding and a db. My assumption is that I would rebuild the site just with a text editor or a simple IDE. Look out w3c web site, here I come.
I’ve always used the CMS as a crutch, but it does make some sense since the site is so basic. But there would be a steep learning curve there for me too.
I’ve never done just raw code and don’t know what to do to “upload” it. FTP I guess would do, but then would I remove all my Joomla stuff on “public_html”?
Would I just name the front page “index.html” in my text editor and upload that? What about other pages? Like would the Privacy Policy page be “Privacy Policy.html”? (Are spaces valid, and would the name of the page be taken from the file name or would it have to be within the code of that file?) And I guess I’d have to build a contact page with pure HTML . . . as I said, look out w3c web site, here I come.
I’d like to try to do this on my local machine first. So how would I do that and still keep my Joomla site just in case. Would I create another VirtualHost in the apache2 config?
Geeezzz . . . another option.
Thoughts?
Yes. On most hosts there is a file in the root directory of your domain called index.php which sits there until you upload your web pages. As soon as index.html hits the folder, this takes over and your web site is born to all intents and purposes. To upload the pages, you can use any ftp proggy and your host will give you details of the info required to st this up. Other pages can be named anything you want and I tend to just add a .htm extension for all subsequent pages.
My personal host allows you to upload individual files through a file manager built into the control panel and it also has a facility for you to edit html files online too, which can be a time-saving bonus.
To try your site out locally, you can place the files in any folder on your C: drive and as long as any links to jpg files etc are correct within that file structure, you can just double click on the index.html file to view it in a browser and right-click and select “open with” to edit it in something like Notepad, my tool of choice for web page building. It’s also good for keeping a local back up in case of trouble with the live site. Just ftp the files back in case of emergency.
I don’t know about Joomla and how it works, but if you are changing to a new host you will have to sort out your domain name so that it is hosted on the new one.
Spaces in web page names are not a good idea and should be removed. The browser will substitute it with “%20”, but it can cause issues with linking from other pages.
For a contact page have a look at THIS PAGE. This page was created using a Form for customers to fill in and a button to send it. It depends on the host allowing me to create something called a FormMailer, which is a 5 digit number that is converted on the host site and allows the message to be sent to any e-mail address. The benefit of this is that you don’t have an e-mail address sat on the web site for all the google bots to pick up and :spam: you