Packt is pleased to announce a new book, the Professional Plone 4 Development, which is the very first book on the newly released Plone version 4. Written by Martin Aspeli, one of the most prolific core developers of the Plone project, this book will help users to master the latest Plone technologies and put theory into practice with a realistic case study built from chapter to chapter.
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Packt announce Finalists for 2011 Open Source Awards
Yesterday, Packt Publishing announced the finalists for their 2011 Open Source Award. This announcement signals the start of the next stage where the finalists are now open to public vote, which lasts until October 31.
Not all the categories in the award are content management related, but if you have an interest in open source I think you'll find each one of the finalists have a great story to tell. The finalists, listed in alphabetical order across all the categories, are as follows:
Open Source CMS Award
- Drupal
- Joomla!
- mojoPortal
- Plone
- SilverStripe
Open Source Business Applications
- Magento
- NopCommerce
- OpenCart
- PrestaShop
- SugarCRM
Most Promising Open Source Project
- Chamilo
- FLOW3
- ImpressPages
- Nette Framework
- Seo Panel
Open Source Mobile Toolkits and Libraries
- FoneMonkey
- jQuery Mobile
- Min3D
- PhoneGap
- Sencha Touch
Open Source JavaScript Libraries
- Dojo Toolkit
- jQuery
- Raphael JS
- Sencha- ExtJS
- YUI Library
Open Source Graphics Software
- Airtime
- Blender
- GIMP
- Inkscape
- Krita
Users are invited to vote for their favorite open source projects across all the applicable categories and maximize their chances of winning their share of $24,000. Public votes will be combined with ratings from a panel of Judges with the winners announced on November 7.
In other Awards news, Packt has introduced subcategories to the 2011 Open Source Awards finals for the CMS and JavaScript Library categories. To read more, click here.
CMS Expo: The Right CMS For Government
The use of content management systems in government is a personal and work interest of mine, so this is a panel that I'm looking forward to hear from the speakers. There is actually a lot of diversity in what governments need their CMS to do and I'm curious to see how well the panel handles that diversity. I'm expecting Tony White, Ars Logica, to be the moderator for this panel.
Leaders from Featured CMSes will be on-hand during this panel discussion to participate in a live analysis of the CMSes, asking probing questions of each, to determine how their represented Content Management System (and supporting community and infrastructure) best meets the demands of today's governmental needs, whether at a municipal, state or federal level.
Represented on this panel are: Lee Middleton (SilverStripe), Shaun Walker (DotNetNuke), Brian Colhounyan (TERMINALFOUR), Benjamin Mack (TYPO3), Ken Wasetis (Plone), Jeff Kline (Accrisoft), and Casey Neehouse (Umbraco). The following questions were asked either by the moderator, Tony White, or audience members. The panels' answers to these questions are paraphrased.
What features in your CMS make it a good choice for government?
- Plone - Government is already actively using Plone. Plone can address complex and flexible workflow. Import/export capability for security purposes.
- TYPO3 - Addresses accessibility (Section 508 in US government).
- Umbraco - Lots of state agencies are switching to .Net CMS. Umbraco and Dotnetnuke are .Net CMS. Section 508 compliance.
- Accrisoft - Local government is the specific client for this company...delivering a turnkey solution.
- TERMINALFOUR - The UN is a client. Multi-language is why the UN chose TERMINALFOUR for their CMS.
- SilverStripe - SilverStripe sees government as partners and have built a very robust product that can be used by government.
- DotNetNuke - Microsoft has helped partner with DotNetNuke which has been a positive in introducing DNN and open source to all level of governments.
CMS Expo: Tour of Plone
For the final session of the day at CMS Expo I decided to sit in on the tour of Plone talk. Admittedly, before this session it had been a long time since I took a hard look at Plone. I love the Python computer language, but I've never came across a project that sent me to Plone. Don't let my inactive use of Plone give you a reason to not consider it for a project of your own...Plone has a lot going for it.
Plone is among the top 2% of all open source projects worldwide, with 340 core developers and more than 300 solution providers in 57 countries. The project has been actively developed since 2001, is available in more than 40 languages, and has the best security track record of any major CMS. It is owned by the Plone Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, and is available for all major operating systems.
Ken Wasetis, President and CMS Solution Architect at Contextual, was the speaker for this session. After giving usual general background information for Plone, Ken quickly dives into what he believes to be one of Plone's biggest strengths: security. Due to the security strengths he also emphasizes to the crowd that Plone is larger than you think in government.
List of Fake Content Management Stories from April Fools Day 2011
For the blogger, the most difficult day of the year has to be April Fools' Day. This is the day where jokes are played and stories are made up. Computer geeks and CMS junkies easily get into the spirit of this celebrated day by pulling all kinds of online pranks. One of my fondest April Fools memories is from 2007 when the official Japanese and Russian Drupal sites migrated for a day from the Drupal CMS over to Joomla!. Good times, good times. The folks over at ocProducts have gotten into the 2011 April Fools spirit by announcing ocPortal 7 with HTML6.
I need your help! Please help me keep track of all the CMS related April Fools' stories that you find online. Please feel free to add to my list by of content management pranks via a comment below or through Twitter. If you prefer to tweet the story instead I suggest we start using the Twitter hashtag: #aprilfoolscms.
List of Fake Content Management Stories on April Fools Day 2011
- ocPortal - ocProducts announces ocPortal 7 with HTML6
- Drupal - Announcing CertifiedToSUCK.com
- TYPO3 - New paradigm for TYPO3 4.6 development
- Drupal - Announcing the Drupal Retail Store
- Joomla - Joomla Templates from YOOtheme
- Real Story Group - No more content management
- Sharpened.net - The End of the Keyboard and Mouse
- IBM developerWorks - Scrum Alliance 2.0
- CMS Made Simple - Intuit Announces Acquisition of CMS Made Simple
- Enano - Enano merges with Joomla!
- EpiServer - EPiFAX 1.0 Released
- Plone - Plone Announces New Release Naming Scheme Effective April 1
The Plone 4 CMS
The Plone community has raised the bar on their flagship content management system with the release of Plone 4. With the unveiling and release announcement of Plone 4, this is proving a busy week for fans of this CMS that runs on the Python-based Zope application server.
"Plone 4 is much faster, requires less memory, and performs well even when serving up massive files. ", says Plone co-founder and Firefox User Experience Lead Alexander Limi. “They [Plone users and developers] also didn't want us to sacrifice what we do well to get there — and we haven't. Plone 4 is not just more powerful — it continues to improve in areas Plone has always been known for: usability, security, and a CMS that is easy to install, upgrade, and looks great right out of the box.”
Some of the significant changes and improvements in Plone 4 include:
- Notable performance improvements
- New theme
- Search and indexing improvements
- Group Dashboards for a Customized User Experience
- Massively improved handling of large files & media
- New, faster folder implementation
- Improved management of users and groups
- Dynamic forms framework based on jQuery Tools
- Improved first-run experience
- Smooth upgrade experience
- Reduced memory footprint
- Upgraded infrastructure
Interestingly, the announcements and even the Plone 4 download page discuss the "under the hood" improvements available in the CMS in preparation for Plone 5. That's right, they're already talking about Plone's future with Plone 5.
For addttional details about the Plone CMS be sure to visit Plone.org.
Book Review for "Plone 3.3 Site Administration: Manage your site like a Plone professional"
Book Review for "Plone 3.3 Site Administration: Manage your site like a Plone professional" by Alex Clark.
This book is written for the person who has to set up and run a Plone site. It's not a development book-- it doesn't show you how to write software, rather it shows you how to acquire, install, and configure software components that will greatly enhance your Plone site. It covers a lot of ground, but much of it is covered in only the barest detail to instruct you in how to add a feature to your site. It doesn't devote much text to explaining what the add-ons do, only how to get them and how to integrate them into your site. There's also a lot of good general advice for a web-site administrator.
Here's a rough run-down on the contents of the book:
Chapter 1
What you'll need to run a Plone site (computer and basic tools, like a text editor) and installation procedures.
Chapter 2
Is titled "Site Basics" and covers the use of Buildout, which is a framework for installing add-ons in Plone. Buildout is very important for a Plone administrator, so it's nice to have coverage of the tool. Truth be told, I wish there was a little more material on Buildout in this book, but this is enough to get you introduced and the web can tell you the rest. To the book's credit, it uses a hands-on approach and immediately instructs you on how to use Buildout to change the default portlet navigation feature of your site and how to add blogging capabilities.
Plone 3 Products Development Cookbook
Plone 3 Products Development Cookbook is a new book on plone development from Packt publishing open source. After receiving it, I decided to take a quick glance to it. The book features 364 pages, which makes it quite a big book for its price, organized in a cookbook approach, making it a very useful book.
Though the book is not written in a clasical style, because of its cookbook approach, there's a progression in the recipes, as we can notice in the index:
- Chapter 1, Getting Started
- Chapter 2, Using Development Tools
- Chapter 3, Creating Content Types with ArchGenXML
- Chapter 4, Prevent Bugs through Testing
- Chapter 5, Creating a Custom Content Type with Paster
- Chapter 6, Creating Lightweight Content Types
- Chapter 7, Improving Product Performance
- Chapter 8, Internationalization
- Chapter 9, Adding Security to your Products
- Chapter 10, Improving User Interface with KSS
- Chapter 11, Creating Portlets
- Chapter 12, Extending Third-Party Products
- Chapter 13, Interacting with other Systems: XML-RPC
- Chapter 14, Getting our Products ready for Production
As you can notice from chapter titles there's a progression we can follow through the book.But thanks to the cookbook approach we can easily find the recipe we need and use it. Note that it's advisable to have knowledge on Plone, as the book doesn't stops on explaining the basic concepts.
Don't misunderstand this, the book is very thorough, it starts with the installation process, in Linux and Windows. The book is also very well explained, but basic knowledge is advisable so you can make the most from the book, as it's not a beginners book.
Full Exposure: CMS Expo Helps You Choose the CMS That’s Right for Your Business
Wordpress. Joomla. Drupal. Plone. Choosing between the top content management systems is something every business with a web presence must do eventually, so wouldn't it be nice to compare them side by side at your leisure and then learn the ins and outs of each from acknowledged experts? CMS Expo, coming May 3-5 to Evanston, IL, lets you do all that and more. This unique conference allows aficionados of the top four content management systems to come together under one roof to share best practices, make new ones, and, of course, convince those on the fence to choose their CMS over the other three.
The guest list for CMS Expo 2010 reads like a who's who in the CMS world: Mitch Pirtle, Chris Coyier, Dries Buytaert, Alan Runyan, Ben Bassi, Ryan Ozimek and more, all together at one conference dedicated to improving all four CMSs. The conference offers seven tracks: Business, Foundations, Power, Joomla!, Drupal, Wordpress and Plone so that business owners familiarizing themselves with the CMS world and web professionals looking to push the boundaries of that world can collaborate under one roof and share their expertise with like-minded individuals from across the CMS spectrum.
Whether you represent a growing small business, a thriving nonprofit, a savvy educational institution or any other organization looking to streamline its web operations with a content management system, CMS Expo is your chance to pick the brains of the pros of each of the three major CMSs on the web today.
Create an Interactive Educational Website with Plone using Packt's New Book
Packt is pleased to announce a new book on Plone that helps website creators maintain, manage and edit educational websites. Written by Erik Rose, a member of the Plone 4 and 5 Framework Teams, Plone 3 for Education will help website creators represent educational courses using Plone's various built-in content types such as news items, collections, and events.
Plone is a free open source Content Management System (CMS) that’s built on top of the Zope application server. Plone lets non-technical people create and maintain information for a public website or an intranet using only a web browser. It is because of its superior security and advanced back-end, that it holds a technological edge over many major CMSes.
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