There is a new version of TYPO3 available, version 4.2.  There are lots of usability and performance improvements in this latest package. 

The main focus of the new 4.2 version is improving usability, but there are also many enhancements for system administrators and developers. Including bug fixes, there are nearly 650 enhancements in TYPO3 4.2.

What is very interesting about this version of TYPO3 is that it is one of the first CMS that have dropped full support for PHP 4 in a stable release.  TYPO3 and a number of other Web projects took the "goPHP5" pledge earlier this year and we watched it happen.  To run TYPO3 you will want need to make sure you have PHP 5.2 or greater on your Web server. 

TYPO3 version 4.2 can be downloaded from TYPO3.org. Technical documentation and the release notes can be found at typo3.org/development/articles/release-notes-42.

"I was looking at some library Web sites recently when I spied one with a badge stating that the page was created for viewing in Netscape. Once a geeky emblem of honor, the badge today is simply a relic of days gone by."

Complete Story at School Library Journal

A few days ago, I mentioned that "Drupal 6 feels ready to me" for public release. Evidently, that was more than feeling as Drupal 6 was released early Wednesday morning.

As a user of Drupal, let me start by saying thank you to all the developers and advocates that brought Drupal 6 to light. I've been watching Drupal 6 grow from a distance this past year and have made some observations. There is a lot more sweat, tears, and love put into Drupal than most outsiders realize. Those of us that have used Drupal during the past six years owe a lot to those of you active in the Drupal community.

You can check out the release announcement at Drupal.org for all the new features and enhancements that have been rolled into Drupal 6. Let's look at some of the highlighted features in Drupal 6 which I've listed below.

"First a bit of background. There are two types of cookies, session (sometimes called temporary) and persistent cookies."

Complete Story at the DotNetNuke Blog

"Many organizations can't understand why their software doesn't perform as expected, or why users make unexpected errors. According to David Crow, usability adviser at Microsoft Canada, and Jay Goldman, president of Radiant Core in Toronto, waking up to the need for usability testing is akin to hitting rock bottom. At the Free Software and Open Source Symposium at Seneca College in Toronto last month, the two offered a 12-step program for getting back on track, along with some recommended reading."

Complete Story via ComputerWorld

Focus on Usability and Performance Improvements, in addition the new release contains dozens of smaller features, system enhancements, and bug fixes. This version focuses clearly on usability in every aspect of the system as the one goal that has been set by the Development Team for all 4.x releases.

Release Notes: http://typo3.org/development/articles/release-notes-41/

News Release

"User profile pictures (or avatars) have been around for about as online bulletin board systems themselves. Drupal has included this ability for several versions, but we’ve found it lacking in both user friendliness and consistency...Using imagecache and hook_form_alter(), we can make beautifully consistent and easy user profile pictures."

Complete Story

"Faced with a tedious task of ordering a set of rows using a weight column? Don't want to type the numbers out? Would rather find a difficult but more interesting method? I have the answer for you!

In Drupal, menu items (like the projects list on this site) are ordered by giving each one a weight. This means you can order the items in anyway you like! The problem I had was I imported about 60 menu items but not in alphabetical order. I didn't really want to type all the numbers out again so I sought out a less tedious but much more complicated method - its what I do!"

Complete Story