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Barrie North has a problem. He can't stop talking about his favorite content management system, Joomla!. So last year, he decided to write his own Joomla book titled appropriately, Joomla! 1.5: A User's Guide. The problem is that people like North are never willing to let that be enough. As Joomla! 1.5 continues to evolve since its initial release so too has North's offerings. Two weeks ago North's publisher, Prentice Hall, sent me a second edition of Joomla! 1.5 as well a new video from their LiveLessons series, Fundamentals of Joomla!. Unlike last year, I decided to actually review the book as well as watch the video.

Let me first say, I'm a reluctant book reviewer. There is nothing that weighs on a person's busy day than having publishers send me a steady stream of content management related books for review. Eventually, those technical books begin stacking up on my desk and secretly I know half of those books aren't worth my time or your money. Luckily for all of us, North's Joomla 1.5 book and Fundamentals of Joomla! video are well worth the purchase. I can't help but give two thumbs up to both North's updated Joomla! 1.5 book and new video.

Two providers of integrated solutions: ocPortal, an open-source Content Management System, and Bitnami, which makes "stacks" for easy installation of web applications, have partnered to release a "stack" for ocPortal 4.1.10. Jointly developed/tested by both companies, users of almost any background can now easily download and run ocPortal on the "big three" operating systems, Windows, Linux, and Mac.

A flexible Web CMS, ocPortal has an emphasis on building online communities, and dynamic and interactive websites. ocPortal provides features for blogging, running a forum, providing downloads, hosting galleries, serving your own databases, eCommerce, and much more. Everything is customizable, done to high standards, and easy to use.

Bitnami has done a fantastic job integrating every major component (Apache, PHP, MySQL, ocPortal) seamlessly, topped off with a straightforward, intuitive installer that makes the entire process a breeze.

Bitnami's "Stacks" page showcases dozens of web-based applications. After choosing "ocPortal" and an operating system, the all-in-one installer asks for basic site info (site name, username, password, e-mail) and configures every necessary component to work properly.

Bitnami represents the next step forward in software distribution by empowering virtually anyone to utilize new web technologies on their own computers.

Bitnami for ocPortal 4.1.10 is freely available at: http://bitnami.org/stack/ocportal.

There is a real fear out there. A fear involving companies commercially supporting open source software and neglecting the "free" community version of their software. Fortunately for us, when looking for proof of this fear Alfresco is in the wrong direction to look. Alfresco Community Edition 3.2 brings so many new capabilities and improvements to the table that you can almost see the enterprise content management landscape brighten up.

“Lean times call for a lean, robust and inexpensive ECM system. Alfresco Community Edition 3.2 has been designed to reduce the cost of information handling while supporting corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Management,” said John Newton, CTO, Alfresco Software. “Our aim has been to deliver a content services environment in which users can work the way they want, with the tools they want, enhancing productivity through workforce mobility and future proofing organizations’ content applications with CMIS.”

CMIS is an interoperability standard that will allow for compliant clients (such as Joomla! and Drupal) and repositories (such as SharePoint and Alfresco) to interoperate and share content across information silos. There are a lot of companies claiming to support interoperability, but it has been my observation that Alfresco is well ahead of the game when it comes to CMIS. Do a Google search for CMIS and you'll find Alfresco comes on top more often than not.