summer of code

After 18 months of development, Geeklog 1.5.0 has been released.  As I mentioned last month, changes found in Geeklog 1.5.0 incorporates the following projects implemented during the 2007 Google Summer of Code:

• New user-friendly install script
• New Configuration Graphical User Interface
• New Webservices API based on the Atom Publishing Protocol

Additional new features and enhancements included in this release:

• OpenID support.
• New LDAP remote authentication module.
• Updated FCKeditor to version 2.6.
• Rewrite of the underlying story code which addresses issues with special characters and HTML entities.
• Comments can now be closed, i.e. existing comments will still be displayed but no new comment can be posted.
• The Polls plugin now allows for multiple questions per poll.
• The Static Pages plugin now supports comments.
• The database backup admin panel now lets you delete and download backups.
• Theming improvements including the support of XHTML.

Geeklog 1.5 can be downloaded at Geeklog.net.

Sigurd Magnusson wrote to us letting us know about a YouTube video where he talks about his company's content management system, SilverStripe. The video was recorded while at a recent function at Google for software developers.

Here's some interesting content for both you and your readers, providing a  quick overview of our project, company and our success with the Google  Summer of Code project.  :-)

While the content management system, SilverStripe, has been on my radar for some time I never really took the time to cover the Web application here at CMS Report.  Now it so happens that SilverStripe has been nominated as one of the most promising open source CMS out there.  About the only thing I can do to correct my oversight is to put SilverStripe on a list of the "top 30" CMS we focus on here at CMS Report.  Sadly, mostly out of nostalgia, SilverStripe will be bumping Simple PHP Blog off the "CMS Focus" list.

Earlier this month, SilverStripe 2.1 was released.  The folks on the SilverStripe team appear pretty excited about this release, with just the right synergy brewing to give this CMS a good future.  Some of the new features and improvements in SilverStripe 2.1 include:

• New security system (benefiting from Google Summer of Code)
• Blog Module (with drag-n-drop widget support including tag clouds, RSS feed, etc)
• Support for Updated Gallery Module

Download links to SilverStripe 2.1 are available via SilverStripe.com.

I really can't display every open source project's invitation for college students to apply to Google's Summer of Code.  But just like the invitation from Drupal, Wordpress would be another one of those projects I wouldn't have minded working on when I was going to college.

Looking for something fun to do this summer? All college and university students around the world are invited to apply to get paid $4,500 USD to work on your favorite open source project this summer. WordPress is among the 131 accepted to Google Summer of Code, of more than 300 projects that applied

We have eight committed volunteers who are enthusiastic to mentor, learn, and make WordPress a little better in the process.

Check out our ideas for projects, or propose your own. You must apply by March 24. Good luck!  Original Post

Coding during my college years would have been a whole lot more fun than some of the jobs I did have while in school.  There is only so much reward you can get from stocking shelves at a grocery store during the night shift.  Of course I'm not so sure Turbo Pascal would really have been up to the tasks of today's Web 2.0 environment.