Drupal

A simple cost effective idea for schools, surely this won't happen! A great article by John Spencer over at ComputerWorldUK highlights an area where schools could save billions by using Open Source software.

If you're not familiar with Open Source software then a quick description would be that it's free to download and use in many different forms.

There's plenty of software out there for the office such as Google Apps that not just schools can take advantage of but office workers too.

This opportunity would also open up areas for students to really get their teeth into software and programming for free, something I would have loved. I can still see those old machine probably as powerful as a couple of calculators put together, those were the days!

Great news from Drupal, they've released the latest version of their Content Management System. Drupal 6.0 is now available to download and use and it's a thing of beauty.

In the mean time you can find out Why I Chose Drupal and coming soon will be my take on the new release and what it brings to the table.

Here's some great resources for those who already use Drupal or are interested in what it can do. If you're not sure what a Content Management System is then please read on.

A Content Management System (CMS) does exactly what it says on the tin. It manages the content of a website. If your site has content that needs regularly updating then a CMS could be for you.

One of the main uses for a CMS is to take away the day-to-day control of the site from the developer and put it back in the hands of the site owner or site users.

This allows for site updates to take place as soon as possible. This could be crucial for an eCommerce site in need of price updates or recruitment site needing job or applicant updates.

Naturally this also reduces the site owners outgoings as the developer isn't involved.

Now you might be sitting there rubbing your hands together at the thought, careful Mr McTavish you might start a fire! (Apologies to my Scottish relatives :)

Open Source relates to the source code of a programme. If a piece of software is Open Source you are allowed to download, use it and edit it for free.

The term open source allows you to amend the code to get the desired result you want.

Due to it's growing popularity, Open Source software programmers are producing high end work to rival products of the big guns. Because of this companies such as Microsoft and Google are actively engaging in collaborations with Open Source software developers.

My Open Source software of choice is the Drupal CMS which is fast turning into a major force in the web community.

An interesting post by Rand over at SEOmoz on Choosing the Right CMS Platform for Your Website (from an SEO perspective) contains a really simple flow chart for those thinking about using a CMS.

Before you dive head first into trying out one of the many Open Source CMS available, such as Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, you should ask yourself, Do I really need a CMS?

You might be surprised once you've ridden the rapids on Rand's flow chart!

On the look out for an Open Source Content Management System I toyed with a few but in the end plumped for Drupal after a recommendation from my good friend in Usability Yuri who commented on its' SEO qualities.

The community base of Drupal is very strong which aids in sourcing answers to issues that occur. There are a multitude of modules already available and more appearing all the time. There are also some great resources for Drupal providing tutorials and tools.

The strength and quality of Drupal was also recognised by Google as they backed a number of projects from their Summer of Code last year.

The Open Source software Drupal has many followers and to give you some help in customising your site here's a list of 5 great resources for Drupal:

http://www.lullabot.com/

http://drupalschool.blip.tv/#293986

http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/tags/drupal

http://www.seoecom.com/cms

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/drupal-tutorial/index.htm