Content Management

Drupal Gardens preview video by Acquia

Not long ago, Acquia announced a new product/service called Drupal Gardens. In the announcement, Dries Buytaert gave his description of Drupal Gardens.

For those who have not heard about Acquia Gardens, this product will provide an easy on-ramp for people to experience the awesome power of Drupal without having to worry about installation, hosting and upgrading. Think of it as Wordpress.com or Ning for Drupal. Think of it as 'Drupal as a service'.

Cool App: Joomla client for iPhone

Several weeks ago, I mentioned the Wordpress for BlackBerry client which allows you to submit articles to your WordPress blog remotely. Recently, CMS Report, was pointed to a Joomla! client for the iPhone, the J Admin Mobile! application.

Similar to Wordpress for BlackBerry, J Admin Mobile! (JAM!) allows you to manage many of the core features of your Joomla! 1.5 site remotely. We can only conclude that the smarter and more Web capable our phones become the more established this trend of moving the CMS client over to mobile devices will become.

JAM! 1.4.0 was recently submitted to the Apple App store with the developers expecting to see the updated version available soon. Some of the new features in JAM! 1.4.0 include:

  • Inserting images into articles
  • Adding users
  • Ability to change the user type (Registered, Author, etc)

Social Publishing with BuddyPress Video

During the past year, I've posted various articles on social publishing systems. Open source content management systems such as Drupal, Movable Type, and WordPress have done a lot in the past year to better incorporate social media features into their web applications. I think the topic of social publishing will continue to be an interesting topic as the CMS continues to evolve in order to stay current with the current social tech trends.

The following is a WordPress.TV video of Andy Peatling, Automattic, talking about the WordPress social networking system BuddyPress at WordCamp Montreal. In the video Peatling gives practical advice for people considering WordPress/BuddyPress as a platform.

Reviewing Barrie North's Joomla! 1.5 book and video

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.

University lecture on Drupal

Kieran Lal, Acquia, recently had the opportunity to give a presentation on Drupal in front of an information system's course at San Francisco State College. It's a good video for anyone that wants to learn everything they possibly can about Drupal and given only one hour to do so. I would have loved to seen more questions and answers on the video as Kieran is one of those people that responds very well when people present him with good questions and good ideas.