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Likemind.orl and Drupal June 19, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Drupal, Events, Coffee, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, Teaching, open source , 2 comments

In about 10 hours a group of likeminded folks will get together for good coffee and conversations with friends and strangers. We do this once a month at the Lake Eola Panera Bread.

Likemind.orl Likemind Orlando is part of a larger group of events which started in New York with two guys who were having good conversations online, and decided to move them to the coffee shop. Their friends in other cities liked the idea, and now, Likemind groups meet in more than 50 cities around the world on the same day every month.

Chris Scott will now be officiating over Likemind with me, since Alex left and got himself a house and a life on the East Coast (of Florida). Congrats and best of luck to Alex and Kathryn.

***********

Also coming up in the next few days is the 3rd installment of he Florida Drupal User’s Group. Myself and Mike Anello will be teaching classes on CCK and Views, respectively. You are all certainly invited to check out this event and ask tons of questions - we have left ourselves 4 hours to cover these topics, as each of them is kind of a big deal on its own.

You can get information and directions about how to get to the MindComet offices on groups.drupal.org/florida - the office is in Maitland.

Florida Drupal Group
Saturday, June 21st
1pm - 4pm
MindComet - Maitland

New Drupal Tutorials June 17, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Site News, HowTo, Drupal, Teaching, open source, Programming , add a comment

Yes, I have yet another blog: this one is all about Drupal. Right now there are exactly 4 posts, but two of them came this week, so there may be an upturn in the posting over there. If anybody out there wants to write some tutorials, I’d be open to that.

The first howto was sort of “scratching an itch”. I got really tired of manually downloading, unzipping, uploading and activating modules when it was time to install a new Drupal site or update an existing one, so I came up with a workflow that gets it all done in record time: Using AWK to Download and Unpack Drupal Modules

The second one was a question delivered to me via chat: How to create a “related pages” block in Drupal 6, but we can’t find any useful modules and my personal recommendation, Panels, is not ported to version 6 yet. Therefore, with some Arguments magic, I bring you (now, new and improved, with 15 screenshots!): Using Views 2 and Drupal 6 to Create a Related Pages Block

In other Drupal news, the Florida Drupal User’s Group is having our 3rd meeting this weekend, June 21st, at the behest of MindComet in Maitland. I’ll be giving a talk about CCK (the Content Construction Kit), specifically using it with Drupal 6, and Mr. Mike Anello will be giving a talk on Views. The whole thing lasts about 4 hours - from 1 to 5 PM. The first two meetings were absolutely worth it, so I highly recommend coming down to check it out, if only for a shorter portion of the marathon.

The next stage for this Drupal Easy project is to build out some wiki pages that outline key Drupal concepts and relate them to each other, wiki-style. It’s something folks have been asking me for ever since the move to Bonnier and the “Drupal Expert” label, so I’m going to see if I can deliver. If that all goes well, there just might be a print version up for sale at LuLu.com as well. No promises, but that’s the plan.

P.S. Not that I want to brag, but Angie and Nate from Lullabot are coming to Orlando this week to train the staff at Bonnier in the use of Drupal. This is the only public mention I’ve made in quite some time, but I’m pretty damn excited to meet the gurus.

Orlando PHP Tonight: Drupal May 27, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Orlando, Drupal, Events, floridacreatives, Teaching, Programming , 1 comment so far

At DeVry University near the Mall of Millenia, tonight at 7PM, I will be presenting at the 2nd ever Orlando PHP user group meeting. David and Derek asked me to come talk about Drupal after my peanut-gallery comments during last month’s framework shootout event.

Topics for discussion:

I will also be showing off some of the features we used to construct the OrlandoFringe.org, FloridaCreatives.com and Petentials.com websites.

For those curious to learn more Drupal, we have a whole slew of lectures planned into the fall through the Florida Drupal group on groups.drupal.org - our meetings are second? Saturdays of the month at the MindComet offices in Maitland, just off of 434.

In other PHP UG news, the Meetup.com PHP group, hosted first Thursday of the month at the Bonnier Corporate HQ in Winter Park Village (above Brio) will be coming up June 5th. 4 programmers representing Zend Framework, CodeIgniter, CakePHP and Symfony will be building a blog in 10 hours using the same database tables, then taking another 10 hours to extend the blog platform. Hopefully this will serve as a fun and informative hands-on introduction to the strengths and weaknesses of these 4 popular PHP frameworks.

P.S. See Eric’s Blog for a description of the Shootout rules.

3 UI Design Books for Your College Class May 7, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Reviews, Books, Design, Web Sites, Graphics, interface, Teaching , 1 comment so far

My friend Jake called me a few days ago to tell me he will be teaching a User Interface Design class at Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, MI next Fall. After my congratulations, he asked me to help him pick out a textbook for his students. Here were my suggestions:

Universal Principles of Design - William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler

I loved this book from the moment I picked it up and learned why the iPod makes us happy - it’s the Golden Proportion, or the Golden Rectangle, as some might say. Then, at the bottom of that page, you get “links” to some other design topics you may find helpful when discussing the Golden Proportion, like The Rule of Thirds. Anyone who designs anything, from software to hardware and anything between, needs a copy of this book.

I told Jake to have a copy of this book around for the class to reference, but I wasn’t sure if they all needed one.

Beautiful Evidence - Edward R. Tufte

This is the one book out of these three that I don’t own… yet. I saw this in the book store while searching for a book about Processing, so you can also find it near the graphics books. Information Design is the name of the game, and Mr. Tufte has some of the most beautiful and useful designs you will ever see. He even goes in to how they displayed and photographed some of his sculpture outdoors. Absolutely breathtaking.

This book would be a great resource for a Level II UI Design class, but I think it is perhaps too detailed for beginners.

Design Whys: Designing Web Site Interface Elements - Eric Eaton

I’ve heard a lot of folks tout Don’t Make Me Think as the bible to user-interface design for the web. Honestly, the title and presentation of this book drew me in a little deeper when I was buying it a few years ago.

Since my friend was looking for a book about UI Design, I found this on my shelf and made my final recommendation to use Eric Eaton’s book for his class.

Design Whys starts out by telling you what this Interface Design stuff is all about, and walks you through specifying and planning a project. Then you get an introduction to the common UI elements: links, buttons, form elements; what makes a link clickable, colors, designing for different browsers and devices, why use a link vs. a button, basic typography. The section on Advanced Interface Elements breaks us out of what’s normally possible on the web to cover things that would now be considered AJAX-y forms, applications, metaphorical interfaces, and custom or experimental UI elements, like those created with DHTML, Flash or 3D.

After the first 200 pages of the book, he launches us into a case study of some useful websites (at least as they were in 2003). The sites in the book are no less useful, beautiful, or innaovative than they were 5 years ago, though. It’s interesting to take a look at what folks were doing back then that the world still hasn’t caught up with. We seem to be constantly wanting to homogenize the experience (maybe I’m guilty of that as well). There’s room to be daring on the web, and I don’t mean large fonts, pastels, and rounded corners.

I hope Jake takes my suggestions to heart and picks the best candidate. If you have a UI design book you swear by, or you have a comment or question about one of these books, I’d love to hear it.

Giving the client what they need, not what they ask for April 10, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, Cervo, Reviews, Trends, Books, Design, Restaurants, Web Sites, Teaching, Storytelling, Programming, Freelance , 2 comments

Just now I was buying a new domain name because of a misprint in my AXIS interview - it’s probably a common mistake, so it was worth the $7.

Anyway, there was an ad for some wannabe-posh restaurant on I-Drive - “Bola”. link

OK, seriously, who has a flash website that plays music? With late-90’s slideshows?

I also love that when I link to the “blog” - check out the design they chose for that. All of the posts on said blog have this huge text right below the title and right next to the very stale and infrequent date of the posts - “No Responses”.
No Responses

Way to go on the authenticity, D*****bags! It’s not the designer’s fault, there was a breakdown in communications. Somebody has also dropped the ball on doing a follow-up with the client once the dist settled.

If you really want to create a compelling experience on a website these days, I think the only option is to use video. If your restaurant is so “high-end”, hire a damn video crew to come out once in a while and throw THAT on your site - or maybe even your non-blog.

Check out some of the stuff MindComet is doing, for example. They don’t mess around. I can’t say I always love every site they put out, but they know their strengths. I definitely appreciate the need for experienced marketing folks working along side talented designers and developers. I don’t slight the person who created this project, they just had too many things to think about all at once.

I’ve recently been re-reading a book by one of my role models - Hillman Curtis. It’s called MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer.

I actually had “New Media Developer” printed on my business cards for a while, and people would ask “What does that mean?” I’m sad to say I didn’t have a story for them at the time, but now I think I’d have a thing or two to say about it.

In MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible), Hillman, who is a world-renowned designer with clients like Adobe and bestselling bands on his client list, tells you how he gets his work done. In fact, all of his books are like that - he goes through his creative process. He’s got some steps, he identifies the goals at each step, and he gives lots of anecdotal support. He’s clearly been working at a very high level for a long time.

People who have read this book and really understand it would have never designed that site for BOLA - at least not in the last 18 months or so.

MTIV Here’s lesson 1 (implied) from the book for me: separate the technical requirements of the project from telling the story. As a team of one, when I go into the job, I always know I am going to have to turn around and implement these ideas once I get back to my text editor, so most times when I’m in a meeting with a client, my brain is already downloading Drupal modules and clicking checkboxes. At my new job, this isn’t so much of a problem, because my role during those meetings is to translate what the editorial folks or the PMs are asking of me into technical requirements, identify sticky points, and give them an estimate of how long this new awesome feature will take.

However, even at a job I had for a couple of weeks managing an online store for a print shop, I not only had to put my propeller hat on, but my marketing/customer/business hat on, and normally the propeller hat gets priority. That means I’m donating 40% at best to thinking “is this even a good idea, does this communicate the message, will visitors understand the story?”

Then a few weeks later, I’ve started writing code, laying out the homepage, or what have you, and it hits me - THIS SUCKS! Did I design this? Then I remind myself I’m “not a designer” (which is bollocks because I’m always calling myself a “front end guy”), and I come to terms with the reality of the situation. We’re not communicating effectively here, we’re masturbating and pretending the result was a web page.

How do we fix it? Drive back to Sanford, tell the client “I’m sorry Mike, I had my head up my ass when I designed this… will you pay me to fix my own mistakes?” Nobody is going to go for that! Sure, you can give them a spiel about ROI and conversions, and maybe wrapped in the warm fuzzy blanket of “SEO”, which might as well be voodoo and divination to most clients, you might even be able to convince them to spend 30% of the original budget doing what you really should have done in the first place, in 15% of the time, without your trusty subcontractors, in your spare time, just so you feel good about work that you’d already written off as “finished”.

No, you can’t fix it. Clients don’t go for maintenance contracts any longer. Most of them don’t even want to pay you for hosting, let alone support.

The ONLY solution is to do it right the first time. That means making checklists, getting your freelancer buddy support system to consult and make sure you’re not leaving any huge gaps (oh, you do have some sort of a peer support system, right?), and above all, making sure you understand what the client needs.

I’m only feeling the slightest bit hippocritical right now, and if you’ve worked with me in the past, and you’re quietly thinking I’m full of shit as you read this, consider this my formal apology for underdelivering. In most situations during my “freelance” (”slacker”) career, I didn’t put 110% to anything work-related, and it wasn’t until my “Tabula Rasa” day (Jan 17th, 2006), that I had even decided to push myself to improve, and it looks like it’s taken about 2 years and 3 months.

So, FullSail grads, budding New Media Designers and Developers, and folks that have been doing this “since the early days”, and are planning on making a concerted effort to create stunning work, every single time, even if it’s for half of your rent money, here are a couple of tips:

What every small town local bookstore should do April 1, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Markteting, HowTo, Video, Film, Shopping, Trends, Books, Travel, Contributors, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, Branding, Storytelling, Love , 2 comments

I jsut finished reading Rent Girl by Michelle Tea. It’s a neat little book - half novella and half graphic novel. There are some beautiful illustrations by Laurenn McCubbin in there that were a big reason for my picking up the book in the first place - it just drew you right in, you wanted to know what was up with this young girl from Boston and why she was into being a hooker in the first place - and the back of the book says something about her quitting, but still needing to pay the bills? I’m there.

However Michelle Tea and this book are not the subject of this blog. At least, not directly.

I picked up this indy book at an indy book shop - I was on vacation, visiting Tempe, Arizona, walking to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, hiking the Grand Canyon, getting yummy sandwiches from the co-op and drinking local beer. And next to the Trader Joe’s in the adobe-colored shopping center (really, they all were) was this little book store, Changing Hands.

Wait YUMMY!

Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe Arizona, corner of McClintock and Guadalupe. There was a café, I think, and there was a section up front with fun games - the kinds of stuff you’d see on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble next year once they hit critical mass. Like all indy book shops, there was a table near the customer service desk with eye-catching books, new arrivals, and the ever-present signed-or-to-be-signed books. And here was Rent Girl. I had spent my time there checking out art books - graphic novels, collections of illustrations, and a couple of re-printed sketchbooks. I always love looking at stuff like that, but I don’t ever know what I would do with it. Then there was this illustrated storybook, but with naked girls and lesbianism and drug dealing.

I only read a few pages on the plane, it was too naughty. I actually couldn’t wrap my head around this book until recently, somehow I feel that by absorbing some women’s media I can try to understand the industry a bit better - things aimed at guys are too easy to understand, low hanging fruit - women’s music, film and books are another beast.

But I digress. I want to plant a seed at Changing Hands in Tempe and Urban Think in Orlando and the Bookmine in Jacksonville, and all the other places where you feel proud buying a naughty graphic novel. This advice isn’t exactly ground-shaking, but I think it makes sense:

Every small town book shop should:

  1. Print their own books.
  2. Teach classes about how to print your own books.
  3. Sell said hand-made and self-published books.
  4. Sell books by local authors on the internet.
  5. Show and sell art on the walls.
  6. Have free and open wi-fi.
  7. Record video/audio podcasts with visiting authors.
  8. Have a space in-store and online for customers to have a conversation, either about books or what happened on last night’s LOST.
  9. Be a place where you want to come to read a book.
  10. Be a place where you would hang out with your friends.
  11. Be the first place you want to visit when you get off of work.
  12. Have space for local groups to hold meetings.

In London I saw a store that only sells Chess and Bridge supplies. They’ve got the largest selection of that stuff you’ve ever seen - no big box store could compete. And on the same block is a store that only sells Flutes. I’m told there’s a store on the other side of the river that only sells French Horns. Granted, in a big city there is a need for places that specialized, but I think even a small town book store can take some tips from these places.

All Flutes Plus Villandry

I saw another place that was a grocery, bookstore, gift shop and restaurant all in one. They wouldn’t let me take pictures in there, it was so unique. They press their own olive oil.

In a certain way, Stardust Video & Coffee here in Orlando has achieved so much of what’s on my list, but the utility of the store, renting movies, was not lucrative enough for them, so they opened up to being more cafe-and-performance-space than video rental space. They’ve recently added a second stage with a strict “no dry-humping” policy, and they also sell hard liquor in addition to their amazing selection of beers, decent wine, tea, coffee, baked goods and original food.

I suppose if there was a local printer, they could achieve something similar without needing to do the actual printing themselves, but I guess that’s part of the point of the bookstore, yes?

As a “video and coffee” establishment, I don’t see where Stardust is the last word on video other than the selection, but I always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to rent there, that the right to rent a film was reserved for someone with a more cultured taste than I. However, the Thursday night Broken Speech Poetry Slam or the local rock shows they have are completely accessible, and I’ve played drums on stage at Stardust many times. Maybe that’s just partly attributed to my training as a musician, but why do I feel I’m below the film?

I guess I’m trying to encourage these book shops to become the Third Place that we are all craving here in Orlando right now. In the land of corporate coffee, the local coffee shop has evolved, mostly in order to survive. I think the local bookstore has a few more steps to take before they’re all grown up.

Which bookstores have you noticed fitting into their niche?

…continued…

This is an old meme I found via Tara Hunt and Pinko Marketing. I’ve been trying to describe local media (or at least the goals of the media I’ve been trying to produce) and what’s supposed to be for sale at Petentials and similar sites. The point isn’t to sell 24,000 of an item priced $1 but 1,000 of an item priced $24, let’s say.

Boutique (from my mac dictionary): French, literally ‘small shop,’ via Latin from Greek apothēkē ‘storehouse.’ Compare with bodega .

Some people are getting my reference to boutique mixed up with luxury brands. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead with Louis Vuitton bag and I’m sure most Boutiquers wouldn’t be either. The difference, as the diagram suggests (and there are many more differences than I quickly plotted in this image) is the motivations for buying. I said, “Bought for connection” because, as Sanford commented in the previous posts comment section:

“People go out of their way to purchase certain goods - like moleskine notebooks - or buy cheese from specific vendors because it broadcasts something about who they are. This statement can be personal/internal, shared with a small audience…”

The “small shop” concept is the feeling I got at Villandry in London - it was right in the heart of downtown, near the international embassy district, but instead of being generic, they were hyper-specialized. It was the kind of place you’d bring your aunts and uncles who were visiting town, to show off the awesome places that can grown up in your backyard, and they’d sit back and go “I would never buy anything in here, but I’m in awe of the place.” That’s how I feel at Stardust, that’s likely how some folks feel in the front room at Dandelion Communitea, or the co-op area at Infusion Tea in College Park. What does it all mean? How did these people come to create this art, or this custom stationery, or eco-friendly teacups, or press their own olive oil? Why are there hundreds of movies I’ve never heard of, and how in the hell can they organize them by country and director instead of genre? Who does that?

Boutiques do that. The perfect local bookstore would do that.

Villandry Villandry

Take a look at people who use open source software, you’ll find the same aesthetic. Hand-made, personalized, specific, and powerful in the hands of a well-informed user, but you don’t need to be the guy who wrote it to use it or change it. You think there should be a French translation? That’s up to you. A sixth checkbox? Hack it in, contribute it to the repository. Make this the best tool for you, and therefore the best tool for folks who know where to look.

I could go on all night. Maybe I’ll go on this weekend at BarCamp. But I don’t title it “indy bookstore”. What is it?

BarCampOrlando Downtown April 5th and 6th, 10AM - 6PM

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Orlando, SEO, Music, Links, Events, Video, Coworking, Trends, Standards, floridacreatives, mashups, Graphics, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, BarCamp, PodCamp, Storytelling, phone, Web Services, Social Media Events, Social Networking, Programming , add a comment

BarCamp Orlando is a weekend for all types of creative folks to come together and share with each other. The event is dubbed an “unconference”, a format which derives power from the people instead of the event organizers or the presenters. Everyone has an equal opportunity to get on stage and speak, teach or lead a discussion, playing off of the idea that at any given conference, the people in the audience have more knowledge collectively than the presenter(s) on stage.

This second installment of BarCamp will be held over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, April 5th and 6th, in downtown Orlando at the Wall Street complex, from 10AM - 6PM each day. Registration is free, and a registration promises a shirt and lunch on the sponsors of BarCamp, businesses who are passionate about the technology and media communities of Central Florida.

Saturday is the designated “Dev Day”, playing host to everything from web programming to robot building and video game development and everything in between. iPhone hackers, guys with soldering irons, the latest technologies, and plenty that haven’t been realized yet. Every 30 minutes, both venues will have a different talk going on, so if you’re feeling lost in the jargon, apply the “rule of 2 feet” and check out what’s happening in the other room!

Sunday is dubbed “Media Day”, and is the place for storytellers, journalists, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, 2D and 3D artists, podcasters, bloggers and social networkers to show off their work, share their tricks or talk about the state of the industry. From 12 to 1 we will be talking about the “Past, Present and Future of Media in Central Florida”, hoping to give our community a sense of our story, and where we’re headed.

Registration is free, and the event runs from 10AM - 6PM both days with a lunch break at 1PM. The event will be housed in Slingapour’s and One-Eyed-Jack’s, with Wall St Cantina acting as our “hallway”. There will be projectors and microphones, chairs and a space to speak. All you have to do is write your name on the whiteboard and you get 20-25 minutes to share your passions with a group of energetic, engaged geeks and creatives. I would not use the words “captive audience” to describe the BarCamp crowd, because they all want to get involved.

Visit www.barcamporlando.org today and register for Dev Day, Media Day or both days. Wall Street Plaza is at 18 Wall Street Plaza, Orlando, FL 32801 - barcamporlando.org/where has a map to the venue and information about parking.

BarCampMiami Audio: Podcasting is not about Tools March 3, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Events, Trends, floridacreatives, Teaching, BarCamp, Storytelling, miami, Social Media Events , add a comment

BarCampMiami

Download BarCampMiami Audio: Podcasting is not about Tools

Had a great talk of about 35 minutes. I will link to folks’ blogs and stuff in a few minutes, but I just realised I hadn’t posted this yet. Flash player coming soon too.

Some talking points:

  1. What’s your interest in this podcast session? I’ve been podcasting for two years.
  2. Can we make podcasting more accessible? Understand how your audience consumes media.
  3. How did you get into creating podcasts? I wanted to record conversations.
  4. Why can’t everyone be famous? Sometimes being a celebrity helps, you need an audience.
  5. The subject matter of your podcast is intrinsically bonded to your audience. You can’t force it on them.
  6. What happens if you do something outside your niche? Don’t create any more channels.
  7. Podcasts are personal. For audiences and producers. Producers and hosts are members of the community.
  8. Syndication to larger sites as well as smaller sites can help you grow your audience.
  9. Doing an “informal” podcast is the same as a formal one - “once you start, you can’t stop!”
  10. Can we use podcasts to bridge the barriers of language and culture? Visuals, video with subtitles.
  11. Why video gets more play and advertising than audio - because of engagement.
  12. How people consume media in suburban vs. urban areas.
  13. How do I make money? Monetization must be in the plan from day 1.
  14. Using services like Revver to reward the sharer, creator and host.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

  1. My Podcast Network
  2. Lady Raptastic
  3. Sex and the Beach
  4. My post about adding subtitles to videos
  6. Piers Fawkes’ Blog about the 50/50 Corporation
  7. My video on Rocketboom

    8. Orlando Geeks + Charity = My Suggestion January 31, 2008

    Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Orlando, Events, Trends, Charity, Teaching, BarCamp , 1 comment so far

    At BarCamp in September there was a food drive, and I think for what it was the project was considered a success. I like the idea, and I would gladly give food to local needy families.

    Another way our event could have an impact on the world is by participating in the One Laptop Per Child Project. $200 is a lot of money for one geek to give on her own, but if a group of 200-500 geeks donated $10+ each, we could buy 10 to 25 laptops.

    Simply Give

    The XO laptop was designed by some folks from the MIT Media Lab (and I’m sure lots of collaborators) to stimulate kids’ minds and get them thinking at a higher level. Take a look at the literature on the OLPC site. There is a definite desire to cross the barriers of language with this project. It’s not just about Africa, but that is a part of the world where this project has focused lots of attention.

    One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a low-cost, connected laptop for the world’s children’s education

    That’s my thought. I think it fits the mission of BarCamp to encourage the passion for technology. From the BarCamp Wiki: “BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.”

    Updates:
    The dialog is over on the BarCampOrlando Google Group, as of 2/1/08 there are 27 messages in the thread, several people have given positive or negative comments. Some folks explain why, others don’t. There is also some inside baseball happening here, and for now I won’t reveal it.

    Needless to say, we are no longer planning a BarCamp, because there is nothing “ad-hoc” about it. Everything is getting discussed in committee, and we’re planning the thing like 6 months in advance. This is not Agile Programming.

    Drupal Easy January 23, 2008

    Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Site News, Career, Podcasts, HowTo, Drupal, Video, Liberatr, Web Sites, Facebook, Teaching, open source, Branding , add a comment

    A while ago, Charlie and I were talking about how we could share our love of Drupal with the rest of the world. Our natural desires to create original content and extend the reach Cervo Systems helped us develop the idea for a website, a podcast and a community around making Drupal accessible to people with no knowledge of programming.

    Welcome Drupal Easy to our family.

    Today, I answered the first question on the site, about pathauto aliases and XML Sitemaps. I hope we keep getting some mid-level questions like this, but also some much simpler questions.

    I have a screencast planned for the near future that compares Drupal against industry standards for security. This will hopefully be the sort of thing PHP haters and team leads will be able to use to understand that Drupal is awesome.

    One day in the future, I’d also like to come up with a coherent set of lessons we can sell in a video book format.

    I also have a Facebook page which currently has 8 random fans attached, and that’s actually how I got the first question.

    I think this is going to be lots of fun, and maybe help us make a little cash once we get that part of it going. Who knows?