Vancouver Tech Guy

Sorry about that folks. My posting schedule was hit hard by an exciting new project at Outcome3. Things should be back on track now. It's also my pleasure to announce a new addition Outcome3, Alexa Booth. She brings much needed design talent to our team - we're very excited about working with her.

A local venerable technology evangelist inspired me by actively trying out every contributed module in the Drupal project. While this task is probably out of the reach of any individual user, I'd like to make the attempt. At present, I count over 250 individual modules ready for the 5.x platform. I'm starting the month of Drupal module reviews tonight.

One of the tasks I've been given recently is in helping other technology companies give back to the open source communities we all take so much joy in. On the flip side of the token, I have a number of customers who express incredulity at the thought of basing their beloved web project on open source software.

Now that we've got all the files we need for a 5.0 module, it's time to get into the nitty gritty of changing code!

As a recap, our directory structure should look like:

...po (directory)
...README.txt
...mw_sanitizer.inc
...mw_parser.inc
...liquid_wikipage.module
...liquid_filters.module
...liquid.mysql
...liquid.module
...liquid.install
...liquid.info
...LICENSE.TXT

Now, go into Administer -> Modules (Under site building for those of you used to the old structure), and if everything has been setup properly, we see an option to install the wiki (you should see something like the following):

Background: LiquidWiki was a great attempt at getting wiki functionality into Drupal. Unfortunately, even in its native 4.7, users had problems installing it. I'm going to walk through the development process of converting LiquidWiki to 5.0. I hope this well help other developers (or even end users) in their quest for Drupal glory.

Our primary objective in this overhaul is to get Liquid working with 5.0, but we also want to make sure that we're using all of the nifty new features that help end users.

First, let's get LiquidWiki 4.7.x-1.x-dev from drupal.org (available here: liquidwiki)

The unpacked directory will look something like this:
...po (directory)
...README.txt

Fellow Vancouver Drupal users...

robertDouglass has thrown down the gauntlet for user groups the world over. As a hotbed of Drupal activity, can we be left behind?

With the impending Drupal User Group meetup coming around the corner, I'd like to organize a session for playing with the 5.0 release.

Not a coder? New to Drupal? You can still contribute! I will be around to help any users who need non-coding tasks (and believe me, these are both abundant and essential).

I will be sitting in #drupal-vancouver on irc.freenode.net. You can also contact me over jabber @ lyal.avery@gmail.com

If enough of us want to get together in meatspace, I'll find a venue - I'll even supply beer, pizza and wings.

I will be attending the Vancouver Bar Camp tonight - I'm quite excited!

A staple of blogging has been to pronounce something DOA. Be it a trend, be it a company, be it an idea. Most of the time, it's something flashy. At times, it seems like people are shaking the magic eight ball o' web terms and writing up 200 words about whatever lands. Let's give it a whirl. From here: community apps in flash. Seems reasonable. There's lots of ground here. "Community apps" have gone the way of the dodo. These days, we have linked-in networks. Do I need to go near flash? Clearly AJAX, a superior platform, has universally replaced it. A quick google for "is dead" is quite illuminating. Some samples: blogging is dead. trackback is dead. xhtml is dead. pauly shore is dead. the internet is dead.

Venture capitalists have started to salivate at the thought of another big build up - and surprise-surprise, Vancouver is at the core of this technology revolution. Companies like Flickr, eBusiness Apps, and SXIP are pioneers in their respective fields (incidentally, they were using AJAX and identify before either had a PR-firm's worth of spin).

What do these three companies have that a ton of other Web Two Oh start-ups don't? That little magical document that separates revenue earners from investor spenders: a viable business plan with a path to profitability. A lot of companies seem to be throwing up applications with a beta sticker, adding an API, and going out and seeking venture capital. While this approach might work in the short term, no amount of great coding can save a project doomed to toil in obscurity after it runs out of investor steam. In the technology community, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees; while my latest storable, dynamic AJAX widget for social networking may be a major accomplishment in terms of technology, will five million in venture capital make it a business success?

There are some amazing efforts springing up to engage people into the Vancouver technology scene. One great example is Workspace, from the brilliant mind of Robert Scales (perhaps you've heard of him from here?)

The concept itself is simple: If bohemian artists and writers can benefit from community, where creation is a solitary effort, can't technologists gain from interacting with one another? Truly no person is an island in technology, and creative workspace ideas like Robert's will change the way small businesses collaborate.