by Bob | Oct 10, 2008 | Local Tech Notes
Back in the 70s I lived in Berkeley and had a great time. It’s surprising how little things have changed, at least as far as I’ve wandered from my motel on University Ave. Of course, back then there were no cell phone stores or Macintosh stores. And lots of the restaurants have changed. But the streets themselves feel much the same, the buildings look familiar. I haven’t been down Telegraph yet, though, and back then it was a hippie/radical artery. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time to take a tour.
I’m here for what I hope will be a fun weekend for BADCamp (Bay Area Drupal Camp) – 2 days of workshops on a hugely popular open source content management framework that we have been using more and more for our projects. I have a feeling I may be by far the oldest person at this thing. From what I can tell from interactions with the Drupal community, most of the people involved weren’t even born when I used to hang here. But it’s a good, positive thing to focus on while the economy melts down around me.
by Bob | Mar 6, 2008 | Local Tech Notes, Open Source Web Development
We recently completed an upgrade to the Redwood Technology Consortium web site. A few years ago we converted the site from a proprietary Cold Fusion system to the open source Drupal platform. We felt it was time to upgrade since the site was running on a 4.x version of Drupal. 5.x had been out for a while and all the modules we needed had also been upgraded to the current version. While we were working on the upgr
ade, Drupal released version 6 while progress on version 7 proceeded on a fast pace. All this to say I am glad that we went down the Drupal path. Development on the platform is rapid and core improvements and module development is quite intensive
While for the most part visitors to the site won’t notice much difference since the upgrade, back end functionality is much improved. The system allows multiple users with the proper access privileges to maintain the content and that hasn’t changed. The original design by Carson Park Design remains the same as well.
During the upgrade we did move member management to a major module suite called CiviCRM. This will allow for much easier joining, renewal and display of members. For an all volunteer organization, anything that streamlines the process is a huge benefit.
by Bob | Mar 2, 2008 | Local Tech Notes
Last Monday Erik V. Kirk, famed SoHum blogger, spoke at my Rotary Club (I can’t believe I’m in a Rotary Club, but there I am). His talk was a fun mixture of tech naiveté and insights in to how blogging information can spread and come back to the blogger in unexpected ways. What he thought was an obscure journal of life and ideas in an obscure part of the world, seems to have been found by thousands of people and become a hotbed for conversation on local and global issues. His approach to the talk was just right for our group, most of whom, while extremely bright, have not had the opportunity to learn about the power, opportunities and pitfalls of blogging for fun and/or profit.
I’ve recently seen an increased interest in the use of blogs by small business. And in response to a direct question from one client on how to get started, I offered the following advice (more or less):
Blogging can be fun, but it can also be time consuming. Blogging isn’t for everyone and not for every business. First, you have to like to write. Second, you should have something to say about your industry that people would want to read, or something special you want to express to your customers. Third, it can tricky to get set up and keep the software up to date if you install it yourself. This NY Times article puts some perspective on blogging for small business.
Using a blogging tool as opposed to just posting content on a web site takes advantage of the way the data gets propagated on the web. Blog posts have a way of reaching far more people than static web pages and draw a wide audience to your site. How this works may be subject for another day.
Basically, there are two routes to go:
1) Using a hosted solution
2) Installing blogging software on your own domain
Each has its own advantages/disadvantages.
The two biggest advantages of using a hosted solution is that you can get your blog up and running in 5-10 minutes. Software is all managed by the hosting company so when it’s updated you don’t have to do anything, and if you use blogger.com (a Google company) or WordPress.com it’s free.
The disadvantages of this solution is that you have limited control over features and how it looks. You are restricted by using the available templates and plugins (chunks of code that you can install to extend the functionality of your blog). I am not familiar with blogger features as I have never used it. But I know many, many people do. I’m not sure how flexible its system is for changing the look and adding features, but I assume, with a little knowledge of HTML and CSS some things can be changed. Also, Wordrpess.com does have a commercial version where you pay a minimal amount and get more features/flexibility.
The other disadvantage of this approach is that it’s not on your domain. All you can do is link to it. So, a link to your blog takes your site visitors away from your main site.
Solution #2 solves all the disadvantages of solution #1, but of course, introduces other issues. There are lots of free and commercial applications that can be installed on your own account. I don’t intend to review them all here. A good place to find options and reviews of free software is OpenSourceCMS.com. I’ve used the free WordPress software for years and really like the wide range of tools and the easy of modifying the look and feel.
By installing your own software you can make it do a lot more because you can control how it looks, what plugins you use, etc. You can even integrate it directly in to your site in a nice, dynamic way. For example, we built a site for Adventure’s Edge that uses WordPress for its blogging software. The back end is exactly like a standard WordPress installation. But the front end is completely integrated in to their site. Although they aren’t using it fully yet, (a new team just took over the store), the latest 3 headlines from all posts will appear on the home page with links to the full blog post. Also, if they assign a post to a category that corresponds to a department, the post’s headline will show up on the specific department’s page as well. They intend to use the blog to keep their customers up to date on new products, sales, and events at the store.
The disadvantages are that this all has to be set up by a developer so there are costs involved. And if something goes wrong you or your developer needs to fix it. Upgrades have to be done as security patches and new versions are released. However, there is now a plugin for WordPress that makes this very simple – just a few clicks and you’re done.
If the blog is intended to draw traffic to your main site, it can be better to have it integrated with your site rather than just having a link to your main site from a hosted blog at blogger.com or wordpress.com.
Another alternative is to use WordPress or something like Drupal (a very popular Content Mangement System which includes a blogging module) for building your entire site. Again, though, unless you have experience with this software, these options are going to require a web developer to get them set up. Both packages are relatively easy to get up and running in minutes. But customizing the design and functionality can be complicated and requires a good deal of planning, configuration and often some programming.
While ultimately, I believe installing blogging software on your own site is the way to go, if you are thinking about blogging and just want to try it out, the best option would be go to blogger or wordpress, sign up for an account and give it a try.
by Bob | Feb 10, 2008 | Local Tech Notes, Open Source Web Development
After about a year and a half of struggle we finally unveiled the third version of the Prosperity! Network’s new web site. The saga of this project is a good example of design by committee that is the death of many projects and results in cost overruns on many others. In spite of some valiant efforts to define the goals and features of the site from the beginning, the project kept morphing. There literally was a committee behind the effort, but the make-up of the committee changed from meeting to meeting. Eventually, the county hired someone (Angie Schwab) dedicated to get the project done and that is what she did.
Our role has been to try and advise the Prosperity folks on what can and can’t be done within the project’s budget and to find the best technology to implement what they finally decided on for the site. Early on we chose to build the site 
using the Drupal platform. At one point, though, during the murkiest time in the development process we suggested abandoning Drupal for something simpler. But the decision was made to go forward with Drupal and for now, that seems to have worked out.
Sometimes working with Drupal is like trying to solve a Rubick’s cube puzzle. One move affects all the other squares and their relationships. So, you might start down a path thinking you are making all the right moves. But then a new feature request comes in, you install a new module and that module doesn’t play nice with something else you’ve installed. Fun. Still, Drupal is the most feature rich, flexible platform we have found in the open source world. I think Drupal will serve them for some time.
by Bob | Jan 25, 2008 | Local Tech Notes
There are a lot of open source projects that are starting to attract big dollars. Drupal has recently pulled in $7 million and MySQL was just purchased by Sun for $1 billion. And now WordPress has attracted $29.5 million.
This is an exciting transition for these entities that have produced tremendous software that we have been using for years. This blog is powered by WordPress, we have developed several sites using Drupal and all of our database driven projects have used MySQL. This open source stuff has enabled us and millions of others to produce powerful sites at a fraction of the cost that would be required if we had used proprietary software or built everything from scratch.
It will be interesting to see how this influx of money will transform these projects.
