A Fool's Wisdom » drupal

Drupal Camp Victoria next Weekend

Lloyd — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:27:17 +0000

Drupal Camp Victoria is happening all day Friday and Saturday Sept 5th and 6th. It’s hosted by North Studio at their training center, 301-771 Vernon Ave (plaza just coming into Victoria, near Save-On-Foods, Walmart).

It’s a free event, and if your work is any way related to the web, you will be missing out if you don’t attend. Register now before the event is full.

Besides, we need to support the grass roots Victoria tech scene — stop the Vancouver tech drain

Dave Olson points out that it’s “strategically scheduled for the same weekend as The Great Canadian Beer Festival”. So it seems safe to expect a good turnout from Drucouver. I know Boris Mann will be in attendance, and participating.

I hope to at least make an appearance. I’ll be looking for opportunies for WordPress collaboration. But me making it there is based on the whim of my baby son — and I won’t have it any other way.

Congratulations to the Drupal 6 team!

Lloyd — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:24:03 +0000

Drupal 6.0 was released yesterday. DaveO of Raincity Studio writes, “I think these changes (while admittedly lacking in really exciting talking points for the non-geeks) reflect an increased focus on usability and offer ways to do more with less.”

Congratulations to the Drupal community!

Overwhelm their Fears with Open Source

Lloyd — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:55:02 +0000

When in conversations with people championing freedom causes using Google Blogger or Six Apart TypePad, I share that myself and many people find it upsetting that they do so using proprietary software.

The inconvenience and their frustrations with software usually leaves them too afraid to even consider switching to another publishing platform.

It is ok that it isn’t their issue. We all have a limited amount of energy, and relative to other causes open source isn’t urgent.

It is our opportunity, those that are passionate about open source, to provide a solution that is superior. We need to allow those people to see benefits that overwhelm their fears and helps them champion their own causes.

CMSWire: WordPress dominates the Technorati’s Top 100

Lloyd — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:40:45 +0000

John Conroy of CMSWire wrote “Results: Most Popular CMS in Technorati’s Top 100” which finds “WordPress dominates the list” and “[WordPress is used on] a whopping 34 percent of the 100 blogs on Technorati’s Top 100″.

Read the article, and check out the other great content lately on CMSWire. Recently, I particularly enjoyed the the interview with Drupal founder Dries Buytaert.

Back in November, I had an email discussion with CMSWire Publisher & Chief Editor Brice Dunwoodie where I accused CMSWire having a bias against WordPress including pointing out specific examples. His response reassured me:

We’re small and growing and always looking to improve quality. Time is always tight and we don’t always make the best decisions. But we do care about doing the right thing and with constructive feedback we are sure to move in the right direction.

The quality since then has greatly improved. So if you do have any WordPress or other CMS related news story tips, I recommend sharing it with them.

Anyway, back to “Results: Most Popular CMS in Technorati’s Top 100″.

Although, I agree with people that these lists get too much attention (and have their own problems), these tools are one valid dimension of popularity. WordPress being so well presented is great promotion! Who doesn’t choose the products that their friends and colleagues use.

I would be interested to know how many of the blogs on platforms other than WordPress predate a stable version of WordPress?

How does the Technorati 1000 look? The 10000? What about other top lists of bloggers?

I’m always engaging non-WordPressers about what we can do to make it worth while for them to migrate to WordPress. If you aren’t using WordPress what do we have to do to make WordPress the right tool for you?