The Zero Room

If you are planning a non-trivial website, this twenty-five minute presentation by Paul Albert, Digital Services Librarian at Weill Cornell Medical Library which compares Drupal, a free Web Content Management System and Application Framework, to FatWire, a proprietary Web CMS, should be required viewing.

It's a shade off a hundred minutes in length, but Lullabot Drupal podcast no. 38 is the most fun I've had since the last LugRadio podcast.

Just got my copy of Pro Drupal Development in the post. Very exciting. The first chapter has just been published as an article on Dr Dobbs. I hope nobody minds if I quote at length from the forward by Dries Buytaert, because I think it says everything:

"... on January 15, 2001, I made Drupal available as Free Software.

Haven't blogged here for a while, so I thought I should mention for the record that I think this is a development of world-shaking importance, in order to in future gloat about how precient I am.

Earl Miles (aka. merlinofchaos on drupal.org), posted this demonstration of some JavaScript magic intended for the Drupal panels module.

We make a point of providing our customers with the tools to easily update their own websites, and encourage them to do so on a regular basis.  Web developers' magazine "A List Apart" has an article titled "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web", which is a goldmine of useful advice for anyone who publishes online.

Truckloads of gratitude, of the falling to one's knees and weeping kind, are due to Andrew Clover for his excellent JavaScript patch for Internet Eexplorer's buggy background image behaviour. I can't tell you how often this is going to save what's left of my sanity.

According to web designer Amber Simmons, keeping your readers' attention is a matter of earning their trust. Her tips for becoming a "faithful writer" are:

Do you know your web site has become dated and unmanageable, but are scared of a major overhaul? Perhaps you are right to be; even changes unquestionably for the better can alienate and anger some of your users.

In "the Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch" usability consultant Jared M. Spool explains how even major web sites with millions of users can make radical changes over time that hardly anybody notices.

Looks like Microsoft is set to disappoint again on web standards. Sigh.

From the article: