CMS
Ric's List of Incredibly Useful WordPress Plugins
Submitted by mariza on Wed, 2010-04-07 10:50:: Note: This article originally appeared on RicShreves.net and is reproduced here with permission. (Ric is one of the partners here at water&stone.)::
This post is one of my favorite kinds of articles: That is, those that arise from real world experiences. A good friend of mine recently moved his personal site over to WordPress. At about the same time I had reason to build a couple of promotional microsites on WordPress. As a result of these two projects I had time to refresh my knowledge of WordPress plugins - and in the process I found some really useful items I’d like to share with you all.
In addition to must-have classics like Akismet or the All-in-One SEO Pack, I discovered a number of newer extensions that address common real world problems. I took the best of the bunch, added it into the list of plugins that make up our standard WordPress deployment, and put together this short article.
The Lights Beyond LAMP
Submitted by mariza on Wed, 2009-10-28 11:09The 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report showed clearly the ongoing dominance of PHP-based content management systems. While the LAMP stack may be the leader in the arena of web content management, it is certainly not the only game in town. For the 2009 Open Source CMS Market Share Report we looked at not only the PHP-based systems, but also the Java and .NET-based systems.
Looking Beyond LAMP
The LAMP stack is populist in nature. Not only does the stack carry the cost advantages of open source, but there also exists a wide assortment of low-cost hosting and a ready (and growing) supply of developers. These characteristics create low barriers for entry and an attractive choice for individuals, hobbyists and small to medium sized enterprises.
While few would dispute that there are numerically more deployments of the common LAMP stack systems, it would be a mistake to assume that this is the only platform that matters. The web content management space is not homogenous. A hobbyist building a personal site, a small company building an online marketing presence, and a medium sized enterprise building a portal for customer relationship management are just three examples of widely disparate, yet common, uses. And while it is possible that all three of those groups might be looking at the same systems, it is more likely that those who require higher level functionality will look beyond the most common PHP-based systems. The argument becomes even more persuasive when you look at enterprise level clients.
Open Source CMS Social Resources
Submitted by Ric Shreves on Thu, 2009-04-09 14:19We received a request the other day from someone interested in finding social networking-type resources focused on open source content management systems. We did a bit of looking around at the larger social networks and found a number of different groups and resources focused on the open source CMS.
Large networks, like Facebook, actually host a fairly large number of special interest groups. Some are broadly concerned with software or web design, but there are also quite a few that are focused on specific CMS platforms. While the majority of the groups are concerned with major systems like Joomla! or Drupal, you can also find a surprising number of other systems represented. Channels like Twitter, offer even more variety.
We've put together a list of what we found -- at least for the larger networks and the larger groups. This list is not intended to be comprehensive, but you should give you a good idea of what it out there and how to contact them.