drupal http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/taxonomy/term/9/atom/feed 2007-04-13T09:12:52+00:00 Barcamp 2008 First Impressions http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/barcamp-2008-first-impressions 2008-09-27T16:33:54+00:00 2008-09-27T16:35:59+00:00 admin It's been way too long since I've posted, but another Barcamp is upon us. Big props to all the organizers! The preparty at WorkSpace went off without a hitch! Fantastic beers, conversations, and downright geekery were had by all. Met some really interesting folks in the mobile space. I think Vancouver's going to produce some revolutionary stuff in that department, despite the airline-level customer service and pricing Canadians get in the space.

]]> It's been way too long since I've posted, but another Barcamp is upon us. Big props to all the organizers! The preparty at WorkSpace went off without a hitch! Fantastic beers, conversations, and downright geekery were had by all. Met some really interesting folks in the mobile space. I think Vancouver's going to produce some revolutionary stuff in that department, despite the airline-level customer service and pricing Canadians get in the space. I babbled quite a bit about our new adventures in search engine optimization. If I talked your ear off, my apologies!

The proper event ended around 11, but we kept the party alive - thanks to Duane Story and Steven Wittens for sponsoring some after party libations.

]]> Free Willy, The Internet http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/free-willy-the-internet 2007-09-14T22:54:23+00:00 2007-09-15T19:24:48+00:00 admin NowPublic's coverage of the Boxing Day tsunami as an example of grassroots citizen journalism), it's fairly obvious that newsprint isn't going to keep up with the pace of our world. ]]> NowPublic's coverage of the Boxing Day tsunami as an example of grassroots citizen journalism), it's fairly obvious that newsprint isn't going to keep up with the pace of our world. How do we address this problem? Enter the geek-cool minds around the Bryght space, and we have affordable (for businesses) mesh networking being made publicly available all over Gastown for consumers (for free). The magical devices powering this overnight transformation are from a company called Meraki. The secret sauce is in how easy they are to deploy; plug them in (or run powered ethernet), and they deploy. It took literally a minute for Outcome3 to get setup. This means that coffee shops, bars, and convienence stores now have a way of deploying low cost wifi without requiring an IT department. Score! As an aside, they have a really cool pay-as-you go option that lets businesses charge for wifi access. It's great to see a packaged service-on-device that gets the needs of small business. Afterwards, the devices all ping home with usage stats, maps, and other cool tools that make observing this new network being formed fun. The implications extend beyond free net access for all. While Tor is one solution to anonymous surfing, by leveraging cloud-connectivity we can bring anonymity back to the online space. Glad we can be a part of this little experiment. Special thanks to Boris Mann and Kris Krug for publicizing all of this. HUGE thanks to Mike West for importing a bunch of the devices. ]]> Vancouver Barcamp 2007 Wrap-up http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/vancouver-barcamp-2007-wrapup 2007-08-21T07:45:58+00:00 2007-08-21T07:49:09+00:00 admin Fun with Blip.tv and Drupal http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/fun_blip_tv_and_drupal 2007-05-23T00:29:48+00:00 2007-05-23T00:29:48+00:00 admin blip.tv with the embedded CCK video module. There's already a submitted patch for a basic version of the modules' output and blip.tv, but it ignores some of the best functionality that blip.tv has to offer (thumbnail generation and original file hosting). I've been conspiring with Roland and the rest of the folks on Bryght on the best way to make this happen. One of the distinct advantages that blip.tv offers over its competitors is that they host your original media file, as well as generating a flash file for you to host on your page. Having access to the original file has some really awesome advantages - original filesize + enclosures in rss = itunes feed. Want to push to feedburner? Include a link to the original file, and get an automatic videocast listing. ]]> blip.tv with the embedded CCK video module. There's already a submitted patch for a basic version of the modules' output and blip.tv, but it ignores some of the best functionality that blip.tv has to offer (thumbnail generation and original file hosting). I've been conspiring with Roland and the rest of the folks on Bryght on the best way to make this happen. One of the distinct advantages that blip.tv offers over its competitors is that they host your original media file, as well as generating a flash file for you to host on your page. Having access to the original file has some really awesome advantages - original filesize + enclosures in rss = itunes feed. Want to push to feedburner? Include a link to the original file, and get an automatic videocast listing. The big problem is getting this data out. Enter the blip.tv API.. a fantastic tool, but only fully defined in their wiki (the other references on the main site refer to a buggy import feature). They offer a wide variety of data formats for export (off the top of my head: RSS, OPML, Atom, JSON, and probably some others). Now we hit the gotcha - out of the box, their RSS feed has enclosure, thumbnail, flash and original file info; their JSON format only has thumbnail and flash version. JSON is a lot more fun to play with within Drupal, so my biggest gripe is that they don't send the same information out in all the formats. I'm just about done a hackish version of bliptv.inc, but it would be great to get a fully featured version (meaning I either have to restart with the RSS feed, resort to having the original file url/information entered by the user, or wait for them to upgrade). I'll post the file as soon as we're done QA, and we've settled on using a custom solution for our particular client, but I hope that bliptv accepts my feedback and we can expand the base functionality. ]]> Drupal Search - New Firefox Extension http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/drupal-firefox-extension 2007-04-29T11:11:50+00:00 2007-04-29T11:13:09+00:00 admin The biggest gripe my team has about the drupal APIs is that once you're inside a tree, you can't search easily. I've always wanted to try making my own Firefox extension - this seemed like an ideal starter project.
Initial specs were much larger; I built a section to let you add new Drupal sites to search on. We really wanted to get this out, so I removed those bits.
The result?
]]> The biggest gripe my team has about the drupal APIs is that once you're inside a tree, you can't search easily. I've always wanted to try making my own Firefox extension - this seemed like an ideal starter project.
Initial specs were much larger; I built a section to let you add new Drupal sites to search on. We really wanted to get this out, so I removed those bits.
The result? You can quite easily search drupal.org, and all the trees of api.drupal.org . Not the most robust module, but it sure was fun to figure out how it all works. Most of the code was based on the Search Bar tutorial from borngeek.com.
Our next extension for release is much more ambitious. We've designed a UI for phptemplating theming xhtml/css pages within Firefox. Let me know if there are any features you think would be killer.
]]> Drupal Module Review #6 - Panels http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/drupal_module_review_6_panels 2007-04-29T04:49:02+00:00 2007-04-29T04:49:02+00:00 admin Project Name:
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I was inspired by a client (Lee LeFever of CommonCraft) to give this module a shot.
]]> Project Name:
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I was inspired by a client (Lee LeFever of CommonCraft) to give this module a shot. As a developer, the temptation is often to create something from scratch - Lee has done a great job in showing the power and flexibility that Drupal offers from administration alone. Commoncraft has a zeitgeist based on the Panels module that aggregates a bunch of web account feeds in one place (you can see it in action here). To familarize myself with this module, I'm going to try to copy what Lee has done (sorry Lee!)
The module installation is straight forward. Panels does not create a new content type, instead opting to add a new section under Site Building. Internet Explorer can have problems with the CSS styling of Panels pages. If your theme is having trouble in IE, a helpful fix is included in the README.TXT file for making sure that panels stack properly.
Because Panels are added and configured through their own handler, creating Panels pages could be confusing to end users. After selecting a layout, we're taken to a page that allows you to add content to the resulting page. On my installation, blocks, nodes, and views are all available for addition.
For demonstration purposes, I've created a panel "zeitgeist" for myself (available here: Vancouver Tech Guy's Zeitgeist). I inserted the "About Me" node to put all the streaming data in context. I added a tag cloud block to show which types of content I'm currently writing about. To round things out, I added a block containing code from wholinked.com. Total time was 4 minutes (most of which was finding the snippet from wholinked.com). Speedy.
A great module, Panels lets those without coding experience create very interesting pages. You can combine multiple nodes, show a bunch of views, or create a "zeitgeist" page filled with your favorite javascript snippets.
]]> Drupal Module Review #5 - Scheduler http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/drupal_module_review_5_scheduler 2007-04-26T07:36:12+00:00 2007-04-27T17:30:13+00:00 admin Project Name:
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AjK
Module Description:
This is a fantastic module. Very lightweight, easy to install.
]]> Project Name:
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AjK
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This is a fantastic module. Very lightweight, easy to install. After a normal install procedure, enable scheduling for the role types you want, and then simply go to every content type that you want to enable scheduling for. Have a promotional piece that you want up for 2 weeks and then unpublished? Want to be an uber blogger who posts regularly? This'll do 'er.

Woops! Added the proper URL

]]> Drupal Module Review #4 - Technorati http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/drupal_module_review_4_technorati 2007-04-26T07:07:15+00:00 2007-04-29T22:26:39+00:00 admin Project Name:
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This is a really simple module that works pretty well. Technorati, a well known blog aggregator, can easily drive traffic to a modest size blog. This module integrates the Drupal tagging system with Technorati's tagging system, ensuring that posts get added to the right categories on technorati.com. The only confusing aspect of the configuration of the module is the options for tagging. The settings page lets you define which content types to turn Technorati tagging on, with two options: Drupal default or manual entry. Manual entry adds another form to the node creation page to set in custom tags (different than your internal posting taxonomy).
]]> Project Name:
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This is a really simple module that works pretty well. Technorati, a well known blog aggregator, can easily drive traffic to a modest size blog. This module integrates the Drupal tagging system with Technorati's tagging system, ensuring that posts get added to the right categories on technorati.com. The only confusing aspect of the configuration of the module is the options for tagging. The settings page lets you define which content types to turn Technorati tagging on, with two options: Drupal default or manual entry. Manual entry adds another form to the node creation page to set in custom tags (different than your internal posting taxonomy). This is useful if you have internal tags that you are posting to that might not make sense on an external site like Technorati (for instance, "About Me").
Once you've tagged your content, Technorati needs to be informed that it actually exists. This is accomplished through the cron hook - if you've turned on this module, and discover that you're not getting updated, make sure your site is running cron!
I think this is a great module - the vast number of services for blog promotion can be daunting, but this module makes it really easy to ensure that at least one service is finding your site correctly.
]]> Drupal Module Review #3 - Digg This http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/drupal_module_review_3_digg 2007-04-13T09:14:47+00:00 2007-04-16T00:00:23+00:00 admin Project Name:
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I'm the first to admit that I don't have a lot of geek cred. My flickr account is empty. I updated twitter... once.
]]> Project Name:
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I'm the first to admit that I don't have a lot of geek cred. My flickr account is empty. I updated twitter... once. So it's with great reservation that I bring VTG right up to 2005. That's right: a digg count icon on every page. This is another simple, useful module. Load it up, check the admin settings, and enjoy a digg counter of your very own. Now if only I could remember my login so I could dig this page....
]]> Drupal Module Review #2 - Clone Node Module http://www.vancouvertechguy.com/blog/drupal_module_review_2_clone_node_module 2007-04-11T09:05:44+00:00 2007-04-13T09:12:52+00:00 admin Project Name:
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Now, I could create a new module (or use CCK) to create a template for these reviews.
]]> Project Name:
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Now, I could create a new module (or use CCK) to create a template for these reviews. Instead, I can clone the original node, allowing me to keep all of the same publishing options (taxonomy tags, etc). Pretty nifty. Install is very straightforward, as is the configuration. The only possible changes are overriding the publishing options on node types, and in removing confirmation for cloning a node. Once the module is installed, on every created node you now have a tab marked "Clone". Cool!
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