Nickbits.co.uk

I noted in a previous post about getting regular posts going again. Well, you may have noticed that did not happen although I am now starting to post more often. I do plan to pick up the old series of posts, the "What If", "Useful", etc. I thought I should explain why I have not been posting a lot.

This year has been chaotic and you will have noticed I have not posted a "What If" or "Review" post for a while. The "Review" posts will start back later this month but the "What If" posts will not return until later in the year. I have been busy updating themes ready for the release of Drupal 7. Also I have been working on several major projects including the "Peter Allen Memorial Lectures" (see paml.info) as well as several website redesigns, more to come on that later. I will be redesigning this website, nickbits.co.uk and thatchamhistoricalsociety.org.uk later in the year.

Not sure why I have not noted before, the open source Drupal Content Management System (CMS). This is a full CMS that allows you to add and customise all elements. Themes can easily be created as well as add-ins, known as modules. It can be difficult to get used to, however it is getting better with each new version and there is help and tutorials available on the Drupal.org website. There is a mature API in place and is well documented. This is, as far as I am concerned, the best CMS out there.

I was recently sent a review copy of "Drupal 6 JavaScript and jQuery" by Matt Butcher. Having recently started to use JQuery with Drupal it was a shame I had not discovered it earlier.

Anyone who knows me knows I love to use the Drupal Content Management System (CMS). In my opinion Drupal is relatively easy to use, although it can be daunting knowing how to configure the system to accomplish the desired working website. For example, setting up a blog with Drupal is easy, but how do you add a gallery? What if you would like to pull RSS feeds from another source or even run an e-commerce website?