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Content in the CMS Category

What's in a Super Simple Post

As I shared yesterday, I wanted to create something that would allow me to post very short posts to my personal blog, but many more options that twitter. Twitter is great, but for this instance it just wouldn't fit the bill.

So I embarked on yet another journey down the path of creating something that I think will change the way I interact with my website ( I do this fairly often). Once I committed my thoughts to making this change, I had to think what a post really consisted of.

Posted: Wednesday, March 31, 2010

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Super Simple Posting

By now we've all probably seen, read, or use Tumblr. The people that designed that app put a lot of great thought into the usability of their site and bringing design and functionality together. I like the quickness and ease of use, which is why I wanted my "Super Simple CMS" to model those same attributes.

Basically I wanted to start with the simple stuff. That's right I would like my own CMS to be as simple at Tumblr and Twitter. Actually what I want to do is make it easy enough where I could tell someone to post an entry in less than five steps. But in order to do that I need to start slow, and add features as they come along.

Posted: Tuesday, March 30, 2010

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Newsroom CMS

As you may recall from a previous post (I'm In The News), I have a client that has asked for a fairly simple CMS to publish their daily news. Currently, they have no CMS and more importantly, they have no archiving and the website is built by hand two times a day. In addition to there not being a CMS, there is also no way to publish the next days edition unless someone is sitting at the controls and does it manually.

In a day and age of many open source CMSs, it baffled my mind to no end why a very large company didn't have a system in place that would provide this functionality. After working with the developers and content editors for a while, it dawned on me why there has never been a good solution. The products on the market today simply aren't customizable enough.

Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009

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I feel like a bad host

It feels like it's been forever that I've been here and communicated with you about the projects I'm working on. I even got an email asking "Have you Quit?". No No, quite the opposite actually. I've been so busy that it's hard to find any free time outside of projects and family to dedicate to writing. However, tonight I was able to find that time and jot a few notes down.

So here's an update on how a few of my latest projects are going.

Posted: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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Out With The Old and Into the New

Things are starting to really heat up around here and lot of clients are trying to get ready for the big Christmas rush. Everyone wants their website to be ready for when the masses start shopping online this year. Well you are shopping online this year aren't you?

Whether you are or you aren't, I have two clients that need their websites updated with a new design and feel before the big rush comes on. It just so happens that in this case the websites in question are sites I put up a while ago for some colleagues that decided to go it on their own and see what online retailing was all about. In one case, online sales never got going, but their contact information caught on like wildfire. The site has become outdated, and now it's time for a refresh.

Posted: Saturday, September 26, 2009

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It's All About the To-Do List

I'm sure you've heard the expression before "So much to do, so little time"? Well this week that is true for me. It already feels like the week is half over and we've only had a one day vacation. The big deal this week is that school starts again, which means the kids go back to school and it's FREEDOM FOR ME. That's right, I get the peace and quite of home again, which means more work is going to get done.

One of the key elements to owning your own business, especially in a tough economy, is that one must be very organized and on top of things. One of the ways I stay organized is through the use of To-Do lists. Yes I know it sounds corny, but I actually still use half a piece of blank paper every day and write down the things I need to.

Posted: Monday, September 07, 2009

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Small Update

For those that are following along at home, I've updated the blog so that there is a an ever present listing of links that I find important/inspiring/useful/fun/etc. On the Sidebar you will find "Links" which is my way of managing those urls that I find ...

Posted: Sunday, August 30, 2009

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Changing the Django Admin

Yesterday I was giving a demo of Django and I got a question that I normally don't get. The question was simple enough, "How did you get the admin to look like that?". Pretty simple question, and one I never really thought to much about. I just kinda do it for each client, meaning that I brand the admin specifically to the clients needs. So what I've decided to do today is explain how I do the most simple branding of all. Change the log in screen and the website name at the top of the admin. In addition to that I'm going to change the color of the admin as well. The nice green and yellow is nice, but I've yet to be at a client where those were the chosen colors.

Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009

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I'm in the News

Ok, I might not "actually" be in the news, but I have been commissioned to build a news site with all the bells and whistles that one might expect from a major online publication. This particular project has some really interesting and unique aspects to it that immediately got my creative mind working. Like anyone when you decide to become a freelancer, you're painfully aware that you're only as good as the last paying project. So if this puppy fails, I probably wont see any additional revenue from them, nor will I have the chance to explore exciting new projects. But, the current project is something that I think i can turn into something very cool and hit every one of their requirements on the head. In addition to that there are some bonuses that I can throw in to make sure they are setup for enhancements in the future.

Posted: Thursday, August 20, 2009

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Enough With The Good, Show Me Some Bad

Today was one of those interesting days that seemed to never end. Some clients are just more difficult that others. Most clients hire you based on your expertise in a field, while some clients hire you just to get some work done that they don't have time to do. My current client, for the most part is easy to work with and values what I say, but there are always members of the team that "think" they know it all.

With that said, after giving demo's of various opensource solutions, I was tasked with yet another last minute task that needed to be answered sooner rather than later. The question this time was: "You've told me what's good about them, now tell me what's bad".

So here is my evaluation of misgivings in the OpenSource solutions I detailed yesterday.

Posted: Wednesday, July 01, 2009

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Choosing a Good OpenSource CMS

Recently I began working on a project that took me back to where I started many years ago. Content Management Selection and this time the focus isn't on Enterprise packages, its focused on Open Source technologies and this time they must use PHP. So I'm looking at PHP CMSs for a company and putting together some demos for them to view.

One thing that I found out right away, is that many of these products have demos in full form on their website. So what follows is the research I did and how I went about giving demos of the Open Source CMS systems and what my final decision turned out to be.

Posted: Monday, June 29, 2009

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