June 2007

Summer Schedule

I just spent the day with my son hiking along the trails of a nearby state park.  My son is only 3 1/2 so some of the the sights, sounds, and smells are still new to him.  Those trails I've walked a hundred times also becomes new to me when I allow myself to see it all through his eyes.  I left the cell phone in the car and the only modern tools we carried were our walking sticks which were found and left in the woods we traveled.  It was a good day for both of us and the experience served as a reminder to me the value of taking a break from IT now and then.

For the rest of this summer I will be turning it down a notch on the number of posts that are placed on the "front page" here at CMSReport.com.  You shouldn't notice a difference in quality, but I suspect some of you may miss the quantity of new posts.  While we do schedule the time for when a post or excerpt is placed on the front page, by choice we do no automation when it comes to the placement of excerpts on the front pages.  In other words, for an article to make the front page...I need to be sitting at the computer and that's not going to happen as often during the summer months.

If you really want to help, create an account today and start contributing your own CMS stories here at this site.  Even suggestions for links to other articles is appreciated.

CNET: American Conservatives and Technology

Interesting observation by Karl Rove as well as good commentary by Charles Cooper.

In an illuminating interview published in the June 4 issue of The New Yorker, White House political aide Karl Rove suggested that a nexus exists between the spread of technology and a centrist-conservative outlook on the world.

"There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture," Rove told the magazine. "One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people's principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand."

A Joomla 1.5 book on my doorstep

Image with Joomla 1.5 bookA couple weeks ago, I found on my doorstep Hagen Graf's book, Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5 Beta 1.  The book was sent to me by the book's publisher, Packt Publishing, in hopes that I would review the book on the Joomla! content management system here at CMSReport.com.  While I do not promise to review every book or Internet link that comes my way, I always appreciate the opportunity to do such reviews.  In this case, I was eager to review the book since I have lost track of the new features introduced in version 1.5 since Joomla!

Serendipity 1.2 on the horizon

A new version of the blogging application Serendipity is now at the beta stage, Serendipity 1.2 Beta 1.  The most significant changes in this new version of Serendipity is the authentication and session scheme for easier plug-in interaction.  Also support for theming/template authoring has been improved using Smartyfield.

The following is a list of some of the new enhancements according to the Serendipity 1.2-beta1 announcement since Serendipity 1.1:

  • Templates for Backend (Entry Editor, Master Template) via Smarty
  • New session/login system
  • Improved database support for SQLite3 and PDO::Postgresql
  • IPv6 support

Lorelle on Wordpress: Are you Blogging your Passion or Blogging your Blog?

So you want to write a successful blog?  Or perhaps just have a successful Website that people actually visit?  Lorelle reminds us just how to make your blog of interest to others.

I have many friends raised within countries which still play by these rules, where you are and do what your father or mother did, and maybe your grandparents before you, not what you want to do. Where apprenticeship programs are the only way into a trade. Where you are tested and found competent for a specific job, not because your heart leads the way.