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Drupal 6 Themes, by Ric Shreves (book review)

I have recently read Drupal 6 Themes and thought I would post a few wrapup thoughts about it. It is written by Ric Shreves and published by Packt Publishing.

https://www.packtpub.com/drupal-6-themes/book

The title describes the book well. It is a valuable overview of the architecture of themes and how to get started building your own themes. This book would be good for people who are familiar with HTML & CSS, and new to Drupal and PHP.

Taxonomy Notes, Drupal Camp Dallas, August 2009

On August 1, 2009, I was privileged to give a talk on Taxonomy at Drupal Camp Dallas. Here are some minimalistic notes of what I presented, as well as a list of important taxonomy related modules.

Ready Sites, the beginning

For years, I have watched small churches, struggling non-profits, and small businesses make do with home-made looking web sites that have only minimal features. A couple of years ago I discovered the powerful and flexible content management system called Drupal. It has so many things that most of these organizations need, but have not been able to afford, or have not known where to look.

So I decided to put together a package that includes the most commonly needed features (image gallery, online store, blog, etc.) and make this available at a fraction of the price of custom developing each site. Now, your organization can get a powerful web site that you can control, with a nice professional look, for a very affordable price.

I'm calling them "Ready Sites." The details are over here, so have a look, and let me know what you think about it. I'll be adding more detail in the coming weeks. I'm always happy to talk about the available features and your needs.

Douglas Adams, on the Internet and Inventions

Love this quote from Douglas Adams:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Source: http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html

Notes from "Our Rewired Brains"

I recently read an article in Energy Times. Here are the highlights that I thought were especially noteworthy.

"If you repeat a stimulus, the neurocircuits that control that will strengthen; other areas will weaken."

"... in a state of continuous partical attention. ... a state in which our minds constantly search for any type of contact, to which we never fully pay attention. ... feeds egos and enhances our sense of self-worth. ...

Notes & Links posted from March Drupal Meetup

Over at groups.drupal.org I've posted some links from the most recent Drupal meetup, including bits about Drupalcon, Analytics, and Education.

Back from DrupalCon DC

Wow. I had a great time this past week at DrupalCon DC.

I have a lot of emails, voicemails and planning to catch up on, so today I will be primarily getting work plans back in order. But first, a little update...

Heading to DrupalCon

Very very early Monday morning (March 2) I will be heading to Washington DC to witness the amassing of 1300 other Drupal enthusiasts and professionals. The event is the annual North American DrupalCon. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to meet so many quality people, and learn more about my favorite CMS. I will be checking email and voicemail occasionally, but not as frequently as normal. I will resume normal business next week, beginning March 9.

drpl.us - a drupal specific url shortening service

Today I registered drpl.us, with the intention of creating a url shortening service for the drupal community. I would like to gather suggestions and feedback here. So please take a moment to review my initial thoughts, and leave a comment with your thoughts, wishes, and warnings.

Web Development Portfolio

drupal sites

non-drupal sites

Drupal Meetup Notes

Just posted some notes at groups.drupal.org from our latest Amarillo Drupal meetup.

http://groups.drupal.org/node/17387#comment-59712

Cron and launchctl on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

I was searching for a way to set up a cron job on my Mac, and couldn't find anything that spelled it out exactly how I needed it. http://arunxjacob.wordpress.com/ got me really really close though. I did finally get it working, so I thought I'd explain the crucial parts of my setup.

My goal is to port this cron command to my Mac:
*/5 * * * *   wget -O - -q -t 1 http://drupaldev1/cron.php

Drupal Wins Two Open Source CMS awards

In the category of "why I choose Drupal"...

Drupal wins 2 out of 4 awards from Packt Publishing. Best Open Source PHP CMS, AND Best Overall Open Source CMS.
http://www.packtpub.com/article/2008-open-source-cms-award-winner-announced

Drupal is becoming increasingly recognized as a top opensource CMS.

How to get started with Drupal

  • A brief intro video by Ping Vision
  • Community
  • The System
  • Core Concepts and Words
  • Directories
  • Theming
  • Contributed Modules
  • More References
  • read all about it...

basic upgrade from drupal 5 to drupal 6

Outlining the basic process I'm taking to upgrade this site to Drupal 6.

(8:45 pm)

Installed Modules

  • node_clone
  • codefilter
  • these are available for Drupal 6.

Minimal Drupal 6 Theme Creation

How to get started creating a new custom theme for Drupal, using only minimal code. This is basically a combination of css-only theming, and basic intro theming.

  1. Create a new theme folder in /sites/all/themes/. Let's call it "minimal". So you should now have this folder: /sites/all/themes/minimal/.

  2. Create a new empty text file in that folder called "minimal.info"

  3. Put this essential information in it:
    name = Minimal
    description = Minimal theme.
    core = 6.x
    engine = phptemplate

4.