With a smile on his face, Scott Liewehr sent me a tweet the other day letting me know that he briefly plugged my name while co-hosting CMS-Connected. CMS-Connected is a 60-minute monthly news show, streamed live on the TPN Network with a focus on the web content management industry and includes CMS related news and commentary from leading CMS expert analysts and participating guests. It's a very good video production and well worth your viewing time if you have any interest in content management.

My "plug" on CMS-Connected can be found about 41 minutes and 30 seconds into the January show, Web CMS Industry 2011 Year In Review. This video also includes host Tyler Pyburn and Seth Gottlieb as guest. The inside joke is that Scott didn't intend to mention my name, but was referring to Acquia's VP of Marketing, Bryan House. I've met Bryan a few times and lets just say he deserves better recognition than to be confused with me. Luckily, Scott caught himself and it didn't take him long to give Mr. House his proper dues.

My 1.5 seconds of fame put a smile on my face because it is a reminder to me that people with a passion for content management are drawn together for a reason. I've always said that a content management system is more than a product. If you don't get that a CMS is also about people, business, and information systems you'll never understand the power of a CMS. People like Scott Liewehr and Deane Barker get this.

As a former meteorologist, I think it goes without saying that by default I will talk about any content management system with "cumulus" in the name. In this case, I'm talking about CumulusClips, a video sharing CMS officially out of Beta and released a stable version (v.1.1).

If you are in need of sharing videos but a little uneasy with allowing someone else manage those videos then perhaps CumulusClips is your answer. Requirements for hosting CumulusClips aren't too difficult to meet although you'll want plenty of memory for all that video encoding you'll need to do for new videos uploads.

The video sharing cms CumulusClips is officially out of Beta and released a stable version (v.1.1). CumulusClips is an open source video script that allows users to create their own video website or YouTube like clone. CumulusClips has several great attributes. These include free & open source, mobile support, and automatic updates, just to name a few.

With all the hype surrounding the video recently more specifically online video this is a major break through. Users can now deploy their own branded video communities without relying on the major players like YouTube and Vimeo.

Users have been able to build their own video websites for a while now however these solutions were usually tagged with a hefty price tag (like BrightCove) or encumbered with encrypted source code like other video cms'.

To find out more about CumulusClips visit: http://cumulusclips.org

Buried deep in a month's worth of unread emails was a request for me to take a look at Percussion Software’s CM1 web content management system. The claim is that "CM1 transforms the content management experience for organizations with complex content requirements, who lack the scale required to deploy and maintain a traditional WCM". CM1 was designed to allow marketing teams to quickly build and manage highly interactive, social, scalable websites, and open up content contribution to users across their organizations.

Percussion CM1 from Percussion Software on Vimeo.

Yes, we've heard all the marketing claims before but I have to admit that the drag-and-drop interface in CM1 really looks nice and simple to use. I know a lot of content authors that would like to utilize a similar user interface in their own CMS. I'm going to keep my eyes and ears tuned to learning more about CM1 and you're welcome to comment below what you know about this CMS. I really want to learn more Percussion CM1.

This past week, we received an email from co-developer Audrius introducing us to ImpressPages CMS (not to be confused with ImpressCMS).  In that email he writes:

I want to introduce Web CMS that pushes CMS market one step forward - ImpressPages CMS (www.impresspages.org). Released on GPL. Started in 2009.

Two key features:

• Drag & drop interface and in-place editing.
• End users don't need any technical skills to manage content as professionals.

Among all other good stuff, one all the features was featured at CMS Wire.

So, we'll keep an eye on this particuar content management system. Meanwhile, feel free to take a look at the tutorial video showing you the ImpressPages CMS and giving you a good idea how the user interface works.

ImpressPages CMS tutorials - content management - 01
from ImpressPages CMS on Vimeo.

My back hurts. As with the rest of the United States, my neck of the woods has received more snow and cold weather than one could possibly want for the winter season. Due to the constant snowfall, I have spent a number of my days clearing my driveway from snow with the help of my 15 year old snow blower. Several days ago, the snow blower's auger died on me leaving me with a useless rusting piece of machinery.

Auger Belts

1. Remove the plastic belt cover on the front of the engine by removing two self-tapping screws. See figure 23.

2. Drain the gasoline from the snow thrower or place a piece of plastic under the gas cap.

The death of my snow blower couldn't have come at a worse time. Most stores in my area have already sold out their snow blowers for the season. The waiting list is long for seeing a small-machine mechanic to fix this heap of metal. I didn't even bother calling knowing full well I likely wouldn't even hear from the mechanic until March whether this snow blower was fixable or not.

3. Tip the snow thrower up and foward so that it rests on the housing.

4. Remove six self tapping screws from the frame cover underneath the snow thrower.

There was only one option left, I needed to fix the MTD 22 inch 5HP Snow Blower myself. I would need to start with a replacement part, Auger Belt OEM-754-0430.

5. Roll the front and rear auger belts off the engine pulley. See figure 24.

6. Unhook the idler spring from the hex bolt on the auger housing. See figure 25.

7. Unhook the support bracket spring from the frame.

The problem is that I'm not a mechanic but an information technologist. Not a single computer processor can be found on this snow blower. No keyboard, no user interface, and no scripting language came supplied with this equipment. They say manuals for computers can be confusing, but have you ever tried to decipher an owner's manual from Cleveland, Ohio for a 1996 snow blower?

Note: it may be necessary to loosen the six nuts that connect the frame to the auger housing to aid in belt removal.

8. Lift the rear auger belt from the auger pulley and slip belt between the support bracket and auger pully. See Figure 24. Repeat this step for the front auger.

9. Replace both auger drive belts by following instructions in reverse order.

Before there was YouTube and before there was Web 2.0, I would have resigned myself to spending the rest of this winter shoveling my driveway without the aid of a snow blower. But this isn't 1991, this is 2011. I can't think of a better moment in time to show positive proof the impact the modern Internet has for improving our daily lives. For if you ever find yourself in need to fix your snow blower, you can thank the social web as well as YouTube's Donyboy73 for reminding me once again that there is purpose in Web 2.0, social media, and information systems.

Without a doubt, my snow blower would have landed in the junk yard and my back ruined if it hadn't been for that video. Instead, I spent my Super Bowl Sunday knowing that the next time it snowed, I had a snow blower fixed and ready to be called back to duty. I am tech geek, hear me roar.

Via Dries Buytaert and Jon Stieglitz

Brian Teeman, a Co-founder of Joomla! and OpenSourceMatters Inc., sent us this video. No comments from me as the video speaks very well for itself on the state of the the Joomla! content management sytem and its open source community.

Soundtrack by Kero Dean from http://www.jamendo.com/