Blog

Advancing Your Drupal Skills

Submitted by dougvann on Thu, 2008-12-04 08:34

I spend a lot of time with people who have a desire to advance their Drupal skills. Whether its the good folks in #drupal-support IRC chatroom, the people in the forums and groups, or the members of my local Indy Drupal Users Group here in Indianapolis, they all have one thing in common. They find it challenging to navigate the tremendous wealth of resources available to Drupal users. I think you'll agree that this "problem" is a good one to have. It sure beats the other CMS communities who don't have anywhere near as many resources for their users. What to do?

Drupal Booth at the Indy Business & Arts Networking Get together.

Submitted by dougvann on Sun, 2008-11-30 01:56

The event was 7 days ago, but I finally got the pictures off of my camera.
http://dougvann.com/category/image-galleries/indybangorg
btw... that gallery was built using Acquia-Drupal and the image-gallery that accompanies it. I LOVE IT. Every picture is a node and thus can have 5star voting, comments, etc.
Anyway...

The Year of Linux: diving deep

Submitted by dougvann on Sat, 2008-11-29 23:50

2008 has been "The Year of Linux" for me.
I have spent more time on a command line in 2008 than in all years prior. I have had to rely on some excellent online resources such as http://www.ss64.com/bash/

Where have I been for a week? Backstage at the Opera

Submitted by dougvann on Fri, 2008-11-21 08:30

In the last 6 days I have put 45hrs in to building and rehearsing the Indianapolis Opera Company's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.indyopera.org/Pages/default.aspx Tonight is opening night! My job is to man the fly rail with 7 other stagehands. The setting of the show changes frequently. This is accomplished in 3 ways.

Blogging from my phone

Submitted by dougvann on Fri, 2008-11-14 07:56

Man!
It will be a long time before I ever blog from my phone again!!!!
Don't get me wrong. I love my HTC Sprint phone, but hey, its supposed to be used for talking to people.
OK. Now I can say I did it.
I blogged from my phone.
DV

www.DoItWithDrupal.com

Submitted by dougvann on Thu, 2008-11-13 01:15

Seriously folks! use the 10% coupon code of DOITWITHDOUGVANN and check this gig out!
I keep reading and rereading the list of speakers at the 1st ever www.DoItWithDrupal.com seminar. Dec. 10-12 in New Orleans.
This event is so much more than a Drupal, the whole Drupal, and nothing but the Drupal.

Hanging out in IRC Freenode #drupal-support and #drupal

Submitted by dougvann on Tue, 2008-11-11 00:14

If you're not hanging out in IRC chat then let me encourage you to do so.
Personally I use the <a href ="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16">ChatZilla</a> for FireFox. It gets the job done even though it has no bells or whistles.
Regardless of the IRC Client you use...
Access the Freenode.net
You can get to the Drupal channels by typing
/join #drupal
Once there you can also open up a tab for the support channel
/join #drupal-support

A Blog a Day... You Can Too, with Drupal.

Submitted by dougvann on Tue, 2008-11-11 00:14

A number of days ago I resolve to publish a blog a day. OK. Yesterday was a missfire. But hey, I published two on Sunday so my average is good!
Today I want to encourage you all to start your own blog!
Why?
#1... It gives your website purpose. If you have a website that you use as a playground for testing and goofing off... Take it and spruce it up and start blogging on it. If you're like me you have a couple different places where you can test modules and play around. So why not take one of your domains and start looking good on it?

You're never alone... With Drupal Part TWO

Submitted by dougvann on Sun, 2008-11-09 15:17

OK.
Perhaps part one never got to the reason for the title. After all, I never made a mention of WHY you're never alone... I'll get there this time.
So...
I had two companies building proof of concepts that their CMS was suitable for the task of building an enormous social networking site.

You're never alone... With Drupal

Submitted by dougvann on Sun, 2008-11-09 10:01

How I Became A Joomla Fan... and subsequently gave up on it...
In 2006 I was introduced to a system that I saw single-handedly change my employers ASP website into a manageable site that promised to have each department of the company maintaining there own section. I was amazed at how the new website looked just like the old one but had a much nicer back end and more possibilities. That is why I became a Joomla fan.