Mashup of Gmap into your Drupal website
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...Recently I had to setup a Drupal website (Drupal 5.7) that needed to display pages with a location and a Google map. I could achieve that by editing node.tpl.php but I wanted to use Views and Panels instead.. Here are the instructions on how to get your Gmap view to work with the Views module and the Panels module.
Before we start I assume that you have installed the Views, Panels2, Gmap, and the Location modules.
What is a Knowledge Base?
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...For those of you who work in the professional IT arena, you may run into a project that requires developing a Knowledge Base system. I compiled this document to include all the features found in commercial solutions marketed as Knowledge Bases and am donating it here to be published on Useful Talk dot com.
It is worth mentioning that in many instances Knowledge Base solutions are also marketed as: Help Desk, Customer Support, Company Intranet, Employee Training, Document Management, CMS, and Team Collaboration tools.
This document is by no means the guide to Knowledge Bases, it is what I believe to be an accurate representation of a KB system. Feel free to reuse this document but you must always give credit to me and link back to Useful Talk or to this article.
The main features of a Knowledge Base system are:
The Ultimate Super Web Tool, is it Drupal?
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...If you’ve read my previous posts you’d know by now that I’ve been sifting through Open Source solutions for many years. In a way, I was looking for that Ultimate Super Solution to my every web need.
My Ultimate Super Solution (USS) would have been able to act as a Web Portal, a Blog, a Forum, a Knowledge Base, be Wiki-like, a Document Authoring tool, a Content Management tool, a Project Management System, and an eCommerce system. Additionally, it has to come with all the latest Social Networking tools, and be FREE.
Many stand-alone applications exist today that are excellent at what they were designed for. For instance, take Word Press, it is arguably the best Blogging solution today that is Open Source and free of charge. Additionally, phpBB and vBulletin were designed to be a discussion forums and they are arguably the best Forum solution out there today. Similarly, osCommerce and its cousin ZenCart are the best eCommerce solutions. For wiki’s I’d say that WikiMedia is the best Wiki engine.
Wordpress as a Knowledge Base Repository or CMS
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Over the past couple years I tested more Open Source solutions than I can remember. I was looking for an Ultimate Super Open Source tool that could do everything I imagined (Blog, Forum, Page Collaboration, Content Management, Wiki, etc..) While I couldn’t find such a perfect tool, I came across wonderful Open Source solutions that I became a fan of, such as phpBB, WordPress, MediaWiki, Moodle, and Drupal.
Right now, I have a couple projects I’ve been researching, one of these is a Knowledge Base that we urgently need at my workplace, the other is a personal project that would serve as a community website where collaboration on authoring documents is crucial. In essence I am looking for something similar to: Knowledge Base, a Wiki, a Content Management tool, a Discussion platform and a Blog.
As I searched literally hundreds of wikis, content management systems (CMS) and other solutions in quest for the best, I neglected to notice how powerful WordPress was. Could WordPress be The solution I’ve been looking for that’s been staring me in the face for years?
Today, I had an idea that blossomed into an exciting question. What if I used WordPress (WP) as a Knowledge Base (KB) and as my Community Document Collaborative Authoring tool?
Comparing Drupal vs. Joomla vs. Typo3 and Others
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading ...As stated in a previous post, selecting the right CMS for you isn’t easy given all the choices out there. Since my last CMS post, I’ve spent countless hours researching and narrowing down the CMS options. I now have narrowed my choices down to Four CMS engines.
It’s time to start installing an testing each of these. I have already installed and tested phpNuke and dotNetNuke; to tell you the truth, I was not impressed. I attempted to install TYPO3 but it was a pain and after a couple hours I quit; but I’ll give it another shot this week. SilverStripe is off the list now since it’s not a 100% free of charge. I also found a CMS called BitWeaver that impressed me so I added it to my finalists list.
Before delving into these, it’s worth reading comparisons and opinions that others have written to compare these Four CMS options. The following is a list of comparisons between Drupal, Joomla, SilverStripe and Typo3 that other’s have wrote:
Comparisons Between Joomla, Drupal, LifeRay, SilverStripe, TYPO3, XOOPS and more
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) Loading ...Below you will see a comprehensive comparison between bitWeaver, Drupal, Joomla, Liferay, Midgard, TYPO3, WebGUI, Xaraya, and XOOPS:
The Definition of Content Management, Content Management System, Web Content Management System, Enterprise Content Management, Records Management and Document Management
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...The Definitions of CMS, WCMS, ECM, RM and DMS are very similar and can be easily confused. Below you will find clear definitions of these terms that you could use as a quick reference:
Content management (CM) is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital information. This digital information is often referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content. Digital content may take the form of text, such as documents, multimedia files, such as audio or video files, or any other file type which follows a content lifecycle which requires management.
A Content Management System (CMS) is a system used to organize and facilitate collaborative content creation. Recently, the term has been used specifically to refer to programs on WWW servers, but it can also refer to hardware devices that manage documents on a large network.
The Top Wiki Engines
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Here’s a list of the top 6 wiki software, in my humble opinion:
- MediaWiki: Used by the WikiPedia project, which is one of the most popular wikis (PHP and MySql).
- PhpWiki: A very popular PHP Wiki based on UseModWiki (PHP).
- TWiki: A powerful, skinnable, extensive Perl wiki, aimed at large corporate Intranets (Perl).
- TikiWiki: more than a wiki, has everything content management with a powerful Wiki (PHP).
- PmWiki: A popular Wiki, easy installation, simple design, nice feature list (PHP).
- MoinMoin: A Python wiki engine, features flexibility and modular design (Python).
Choosing a Content Management System (CMS)
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...It is undeniable that choosing a content management system depends on a variety of criteria that depends on the scope of your project. Choosing a CMS can be a long and difficult process, especially since there is a large number of content management systems available. In Europe alone, you have around 500 systems to choose from. Some of these CMS solutions are very similar and comparing them will require taking hundreds of variables into consideration.
The good news is, whether you are looking to manage content in a large corporation, university, non-profit organization, a small business or even a government agency, there is likely a well suited Open Source CMS solution for you.
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Just Give Me a WYSIWYG Wiki!
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...As explained in an earlier post, as of today, no fully functional and bug free WYSIWYG editor exists for MediaWiki and all the other wikis that support a WYSIWYG are not developed with PHP or do not utilize the MySQL database.
In my opinion, if you are looking for a PHP wiki that utilizes a database like MySQL, Mediawiki is your most feature-rich and mature wiki from the bunch and I’d go with that.
Development to integrate MediaWiki with a visual editor has started using both FCKeditor and TinyMCE. The FCKeditor solution is less developed for MediaWiki than the TinyMCE solution which functions better but remains buggy.
All the Wikis, 99 Wikis
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Choosing one wiki engine for your encyclopedia or CMS project can be really difficult. I know. In my search, I had to look for and try so many wikis that it was all overwhelming. in this post I’ve complied a list of all the wikis out there. Yeas all of them; at least as of today ;) and there are Ninety Nine wikis.
Handy Wikipedia Cheatsheet
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...Everyone can contribute to the free encylopedia Wikipedia. This is possible because Wikipedia is a wiki: Simply click on the link “Edit this page“ on top of an article and start writing.
This cheatsheet shows the basic formatting tricks and is very handy.
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My Wiki Quandry
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...I’ve owned a wiki website that ran the WikiMedia engine (as does WikiPedia.org) for over a year. Over that year, I modified the wiki skin (i.e. theme) and added Google Adsense ad units. I also added some JavaScript code and invested time in learning the wiki syntax. I created many regular plain wiki pages and other colorful pages with tables and templates. I also wrote help documents explaining the wiki syntax and went further by creating a page that users could use to easily create new page/articles by simply typing in a text box and clicking a button.
I have recently decided to abandon using a wiki and instead to use a CMS solution.
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