Drupal developer's tools

Smashing Magazine is one of my favorite sites when it comes to design. The site is always insightful, and has an abundance of tips, links and ideas that you can be inspired by.

A few days ago they published a Drupal Developer's Toolbox. It has a lot of tips, tools and ideas, from novice and basic to the expert and customized.

I think that any drupal developer can find useful information and ideas in the article itself and the links attached to it.

Drupla or Joomla?

Some of you may remember that I've been trying to decide on a new CMS for the website I was running, as described in my previous post.

Since then several things changed, some of them more major than others. But, the overall influence of the time that's passed forced me into a harsh decision I was not willing to make - I have to choose the best CMS for the website.

I am not the sole webmaster on the project, and lately I've had less time to contribute to it. That changes the preferences for the decision.

If it were up to me I would choose to try out Drupal. Reasons include a wide range of users from around the net, that is mainstream sites that I surf to that use Drupal (i.e. www.twit.tv), a growing community of users and the international multi-language support it started to offer (translations are in good shape only since the last version).

However, since it is not, the decision was made to go with Joomla. I am not disappointed, and actually I am a bit relieved. Choosing Joomla allows me to let the other webmasters push forward with their ideas and advance the website, as some of them know Joomla. Those that don't know any CMS will learn Joomla, and maybe some day take on Drupal.

I will return to Drupal when I'll have a bit more time and perhaps use it for a personal website or project.

Roadmap into Linux

IBM published a roadmap for developers making the transition to Linux. This overview of the process will help people (developers, students) make the transition a lot smoother, from a Windows OS to the Linux OS.

Over the past several years I've come across several surprises from the people at IBM. I wonder if they are still worthy of the notorious nickname they've had for years, "Big Blue".

By adopting Drupal, supporting Open Source contributing to many open initiatives, I think that my personal view of IBM is changing.

At the bottom of the page you'll find lots of helpful links they've collected.

Drupal 5 Benchmarked

Dries Buytaert benchmarks the Drupal 5 in comparison with the Drupal 4.7 on cache and no-cache settings. Worth a look!.

Drupal - IBM's choice of Open Source CMS

IBM has decided to choose the Drupal CMS as their Open Source CMS. Drupal was prefered over Ruby on Rails and other Open Source CMS, such as Mambo (and Joomla) and Typo3. To be honest I do not know the latter, but I do know Joomla and I find the simplicity of it reassuring.

I have already wrote about my dillema, to Drupal or not to Drupal?. I am currently considering a variety of Open Source CMSs, including PHP-Nuke, Joomla, and Drupal.

The last couple of weeks were dedicated to getting to know the Joomla interface better. During the next several weeks I will look into the Drupal craze that the wave seems to have caught.

This is the link to the article at the IBM website that entails in great length the reasoning for this choice. I think you'll find it to be a good read.

To Drupal or not to Drupal?

One of the things I'm currently considering is a new CMS system. I have to pick one out for a site I have to work on and finish with a deadline of about three months from today. The obvious ones that come to mind are Joomla or Drupal. Both are free CMS's, customizable and efficient. The finer details are what set them apart, at least to my knowledge.

I am on the lookout for a good Drupal tutorial for the beginners in Drupal, or something of the sort. If you know any good ones, drop me a link in the comments.

Drupal 5.0.0 is almost ready...

Awaiting the release of the new version, it was nice to hear it's almost ready. Head over to Drupal.