Packt is pleased to announce its new book titled "Moodle 1.9 Top Extensions Cookbook" that will help users to install and configure the best Moodle modules. Written by Michael De Raadt, this book covers many features and techniques in order to allow readers to organize their ideas and thus, to improve teaching using Moodle as a virtual learning platform.

Moodle is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. It is designed to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. Its open source license and modular design allows developers to create additional modules and features.

Moodle 1.9 Top Extensions Cookbook starts off with simple activities such as adding and installing modules. It then goes on to explain an interesting topic about the integration of multimedia into Moodle, covering major multimedia elements. Ultimately, the book shows readers how to use Moodle to accept and assess coursework submissions, discuss work with students, and deliver quizzes, tests, and videos.

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment is a new book from Packt that puts together a variety of modules and activities that will help readers to easily create a variety of tests on any subject and assess them using Moodle Gradebook. Written by Jason Myrick, this book will assist readers to develop and assess simple as well as complex quizzes and tests.

Moodle is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. It is designed to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. Its open source license and modular design allows developers to create additional modules and features.

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment starts off by teaching readers to create different types of questions such as short answer questions, multiple choice questions, and so on. Users will then realize how to integrate all of them in a Moodle quiz and to create a complete test by setting the various options such as Timing, Display, and others. They will learn how to test and assess students through work submitted using Moodle Workshop which also provides an opportunity for self- and peer-assessment of the student's work.

Packt Publishing announced that Pimcore has won the Most Promising Open Source Project Award category in the 2010 Open Source Awards. The Most Promising Open Source Project Award  is a revamped category for the Award this year, featuring Open Source projects, whose first release date is less than two years from 9 August, 2010.

“Winning this Award is a huge boost”, said Dietmar Rietsch, the founding member of Pimcore. “It’s not simply about the money either, it’s the recognition of a year of hard work and dedication from the team and Pimcore’s community.”

“Pimcore is an exciting content management system framework which has great long-term prospects. The project is growing at a fast rate and has good support from its community.” Added Marc Delisle, system administrator and one of the judges for the 2010 Most Promising Open Source Project category. “Pimcore is an easy to use new solution and a high sense of professionalism can be found in everything from the project website to the documentation.”

While Pimcore occupied the top spot in the 2010 Most Promising Open Source Project category, TomatoCMS came in at the first runners up position, while the second runners up position was secured by social networking software package BuddyPress.

With this announcement, the 2010 Open Source Awards has five more categories left, including the Open Source Graphics Software category, for which results will be announced from November 16th through to November 19th.

For detailed results on each category and more information about the Award, please visit Packt's Open Source Awards site.

Packt is pleased to announce its new title WordPress 2.7 Cookbook, which provides users with tips and tricks to secure their WordPress blog and optimize it for search engines. Written by Jean-Baptiste Jung, this book will help users take full advantage of WordPress features and transform their blog into a faster, smarter WordPress platform as quickly and painlessly as possible.

WordPress is one of the largest self-hosted blogging tools in the world, used on hundreds of thousands of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. About 120,000 blogs are created daily. It is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. WordPress’ versatility and ease of use has attracted a large, enthusiastic, and helpful community of users to date.

WordPress 2.7 Cookbook provides users with step-by-step instructions for performing a wide range of tasks and handling common problems. This book has been fully tested with WordPress 2.7 and contains 100 useful recipes, which will help users take full control of their WordPress blog’s layout, themes, widgets, and plug-ins.

ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development is a new book from Packt aimed at helping developers build, manage and extend a Content Management System using ASP.NET and its features. Written by Curt Christianson and Jeff Cochran, this book will help developers set up users and groups within the application and explore management tools.

ASP.NET 3.5 web application framework that allows programmers to create dynamic websites, web applications, and web services. It is equipped with a built-in security system, standard design templates, and easy configurations for database connections, which makes it  an ideal language for building a Content Management System.

Readers will learn different ways to build and customize powerful websites, create valuable content and manage the layout of their site efficiently by using elements like Master Pages, Content Placeholders, Themes/Skins, Regions and Zones. The book explains the concepts of inheritance, site navigation, and website management from a single point using Administrator privileges. Developers will also learn the n-Tier architecture within Content Management Systems.

Using the code snippets and screen images, readers will explore the exciting alternatives to design and develop a Content Management System that allows them to administer Articles, Images and Files section. With the various management tools available, developers will be equipped to face all kinds of challenges that occur during the development process.

ASP.NET developers looking for a fast-paced guide to create their own, powerful Content Management System will find this book useful. This book is available from Packt. For more information, please visit: ASP.NET 3.5 CMS Development

Packt is pleased to announce a new book on Joomla! 1.5 , which aims to help users debug, validate, and package templates. Written by Tessa Blakely Silver, Joomla! 1.5 Template Design is a complete guide for web designers to create unique website templates for Joomla! 1.5.

Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS), which enables users to build websites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla one of the most popular CMSes available. Joomla! 1.5 has a radically enhanced template system that is very different from that of Joomla! 1.0, and comes complete with the ability to create template overrides and customize "module chrome".

Joomla! 1.5 Template Design focuses squarely on the new enhancements to the Joomla! 1.5 templating process and walks web designers through the process of turning a working XHTML and CSS "mockup" into a fully functional Joomla! 1.5 template. It is designed to help users create effective and flexible templates and help them tweak their existing templates with Flash, extensions and JavaScript libraries.

Users will learn to set up a basic workflow for Joomla! template design and create Suckerfish drop-down menus and dynamic forms for their website. They will also learn how to package finished templates in a ZIP file and use the W3C's XHTML and CSS validation tools. Additionally, they will also learn how to use the wrapper (Wrapper Menu Item) for fully working AJAX applications.

WordPress 2.7 Complete is a new book from Packt that will introduce users to the rich and powerful features of WordPress, and get them started with a state-of-the-art blog as quickly as possible. Written by April Hodge Silver, this book will help users to customize and market their blog using WordPress as a CMS.

Developers will be introduced to the main aspects of a blog – users, communities, posts, comments, news feeds – and learn how to manage them using WordPress. They will learn how to upgrade from older installations, and personalize and control the content of their website using feature-rich widgets and plug-ins.  In addition to this, users will manage the look and feel of their WordPress website with customized themes and templates.

This book teaches readers how to manage and handle a mutli-user blog, including a detailed outline of the roles and capabilities included in WordPress. Additionally, it covers, from start to finish, how to create a non-blog website using WordPress. It includes discussion of designing  a theme, getting set up, creating custom pages that display post content in non-blog ways, customizing the homepage to contain dynamic content, and creating a news page.

Developers interested in creating a blog in a straightforward manner or customizing and expanding the capabilities of a WordPress website will find this book useful. The book is out now and is available from Packt. For more information, please visit: http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-2-7-complete-2nd-edition/book

Alfresco is an open source platform for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. Packt's "Alfresco Developer Guide" will help customize Alfresco with actions, web scripts, web forms, workflows, and more. It will walk one through the customizations made as part of an enterprise-wide rollout of Alfresco; from custom actions to RESTful web scripts and everything in between. You would be able to learn to customize the entire Alfresco platform, including both Document Management and Web Content Management.

"Alfresco Developer Guide" is jam-packed with real-world, step-by-step examples to jump start your development. Implementing Alfresco usually involves extending the repository to accommodate your business-specific metadata and business logic. These extensions are done using some combination of Java, JavaScript, XML, and FreeMarker. This book takes you through a set of exercises as if you were rolling out and customizing the platform for a fictional organization called SomeCo, which wants to roll out Alfresco enterprise-wide. Each department has a set of requirements that need addressed. This book will show you how to extend Alfresco to meet these requirements.

Alfresco 3 Enterprise Content Management Implementation is a new book from Packt that guides readers to customize, use, and administer websites using the Alfresco CMS platform. Written by a team of four Content Management experts, this book gives users a clear understanding about how to integrate external applications such as Liferay Portal, Adobe Flex, iPhone, iGoogle, and Facebook to meet their Content Management needs.

Alfresco is one of the most popular Java-based Content Management System. Alfresco 3 is its upgraded version which includes Alfresco Surf, a new N-Tier Architecture, which delivers scalability and accommodates more users on existing hardware resources. Alfresco 3 offers true Enterprise Content Management (ECM) by providing an Open Source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, and Interwoven.

This book guides users through creating smart, collaborative content repositories and shows how to use Alfresco 3 to create more elegant document sharing, better collaborative working, and reliable automated workflow processes. The book explains how administrators can set up Alfresco 3 for multiple business units as a single-instance multi-tenant environment.

Packt is delighted to announce the launch of our Packt Author Website. Available at http://authors.packtpub.com, this new website is designed to be a one-stop resource for potential authors, covering all aspects of developing a book title – from the initial idea, right through to the editorial and publication processes that drive a book to market.

Packt Publishing is an IT publishing company that focuses on producing cutting-edge books for communities of Developers, Administrators, and Newbies alike. We develop books and publications that share the experiences of IT professionals in adapting and customizing today's systems, applications, and frameworks. Established in 2004, the company has published more than 230 titles.

The author website contains information on submitting title ideas, understanding the writing process, how our editorial team operates, and all Packt's latest news. There are articles on topics such as Why You Might Want to Write a Book, and Our History with Open Source. With regular updates from Authors, Packt Editors and the Marketing team, the site will develop into an invaluable resource for people who want to know more about writing for Packt, and how to make it happen.

Packt invites aspiring authors to visit the website at http://authors.packtpub.com. For more information, please write to us at author@packtpub.com.

Joomla! E-Commerce with VirtueMart is a new book from Packt that helps users to build their own Joomla VirtueMart e-commerce web site with Joomla! 1.0/1.5 and VirtueMart 1.1.x. Written by Suhreed Sarkar, this book guides users through installing and configuring a VirtueMart store using the Joomla CMS platform.

Readers will learn to configure their stores with the most essential shop functionality such as creating and using the appropriate zones and currencies, configure payment methods, shipping methods, and taxes. In addition to this, users will be able to manage manufacturers, vendors, products, and product categories.

Developers will be able to customize the appearance of the website by installing and configuring VirtueMart themes, managing products, orders, and using search engine friendly (SEF) URLs, thus helping them in attracting customers to their store. Along with this, they will be shown how to build a wide customer base by learning about VirtueMart’s promotional tools such as banner ads, featured products, newsletters, coupons, etc.

By using region-specific taxes, multiple currencies, installing new languages, and translating the language of the site, users will be able to add further value to their store. To broaden VirtueMart functions for bulk import/export of products to the shop catalog, users will learn to add third-party extensions to their website. They will be able to spice up their shop by updating multiple product information on the shops website, and displaying sideshows with product images at the same time.

Along with installing, setting up and customizing a brand new VirtueMart store, developers will learn to secure, maintain and troubleshoot it by backing up and restoring files and databases of the store to the server.

Packt is pleased to announce a new book that guides users to integrate JavaScript into themes and modules using the Drupal CMS platform. Written by Content Management expert, Matt Butcher, Drupal 6 JavaScript and jQuery will give users the keys to the toolbox, detailing how to use Drupal’s JavaScript libraries to make modules and themes more dynamic, interactive and responsive.

Drupal is a free Open Source modular framework and Content Management System (CMS). Drupal is extremely scalable, making it ideal for both a simple personal website as well as an industrial strength commercial or institutional web presence. Written in the programming language PHP/MySQL, its power and flexibility combined with its exceptional design means it is one of the most popular choices for creating a CMS website.

Through this book users will learn to create powerful AJAX-enabled scripts, striking visual effects, and view-enhancing behaviours using jQuery. This book is written for themers and module developers interested in building richer front ends with Drupal 6 and JavaScript. This book will guide users in incorporating AJAX technologies, developing themes in JavaScript, and using the JavaScript translation system. In addition to incorporating JavaScript into the Drupal modules, users will learn how to design and authorize simple PHPTemplate files in order to maximize scripting potential.

This is a project-based book wherein each chapter begins with an introduction to a new topic and, by combining with short projects, illustrates aspects of Drupal's JavaScript capabilities. Using JavaScript in themes is covered extensively and for more advanced developers, later chapters cover the process of creating a JavaScript-centred module.

This book is out now and is available from Packt. For more information please visit http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-6-javascript-and-jquery/book