CMS and why its Awesome

I don’t care which CMS you claim is the best. I’ve played with Joomla, then Modx, Wordpress, and my latest crush Expression Engine. They all have their pro’s and con’s. Some still more favoriable over another, but they are all great. Why? Because with the right support and setup there is no need to know anything technical. I was recently meeting with a friend, and client, going over his website design. He finally asked me how is he going to be able to update and add content. Thats when his “a ha!” moment happend. He doesn’t need to know any HTML, CSS, JQuery, PHP, or anything. All he needs is the content.

A good CMS allows the designer and developer to create a foundation and a frame so that the client, content provider, can fill it with what they want. I showed him a demo backend of how easy it was going to be to make a new entry, create a poll, and to even add testimonials to his site. All he needed to do was fill out a form and the CMS setup by me will format and do everything for him. Sure I could have made him a static page and been done already, but neither him nor I would want to deal with each other every time he wanted to add anything.

I may not be the most experienced in web design but I’ve played with enough of these systems to know their strengths and weaknesses. now a quick run down:

  • Joomla: I don’t like joomla.
  • Modx: great for PHP developers, very open but not the most intuitive or best for non techie clients, trust me.
  • Wordpress: great for blogging out of the box, but tends to get over complicated when doing dynamic complex content.
  • Expression Engine: overkill for a plain blog (IMHO) great for the more complex site that has dynamic content. One that requires blog updates, news updates along with the ability to pull content that meet certain criteria to a page.

In the future I’ll be sure to give a better run down of technical details for Expression Engine and Wordpress. As you may notice this site is driven by Wordpress while my more recent clients that want a more complex site get Expression Engine.

Amazon Kindle the new iPod?

People still read. No really, people still read books. Where do you think so many movie scripts come from? Either way, the new wave right now is about ebooks. Just like how MP3s had their epic battle over the player and the store, ebooks are beginning the same battle.  There are the free books from google which, lets be honest, have some good classic books but is really full of books you’ll never be interested in reading.  There are also several free programs and mobile programs for reading these book, but once again the experience of using an e-ink screen is so much better. Having used Sony’s reader, Amazon’s Kindle 1 and Kindle 2, trust me on this, sitting and reading is so much nicer with a REALLY long battery life and no extra eye strain. So lets take a look at the contestants: Read more

Keyboard Cat T-shirt

Whats that you say? never heard of keyboard cat? go here to see an example of keyboard cat. Wasn’t that funny. Well, lets say you take keyboard cat, and combine it with Wolf Shirt, you get the greatest shirt ever. I will be purchasing this shirt and I suggest you buy one too. If thats not your style, then you can find many other awesome t-shirts from Threadless.com.

Kindle on the iPhone

Released last night on the iTunes app store is the Kindle app for the iPhone. This software is free and allows you to read Amazon purchased books on your iPhone. The interesting part is that if you already have a Kindle, both original and new, it claims to sync with them and allow you to purchase from your phone. I decided to download this app and give it a try. I mean why not? Its free, I have a Kindle, I have an iPhone. If you don’t have a Kindle though it still might be worth checking out if you are interested in reading books on your iPhone. Its free, read my post and see what you think. Read more

Why Open Source is taking so long to be mainstream

Its a tough fact to face that Open Source as we know it will never be mainstream. I know this is heresy for me to say. I mean I’m the Linux loving, BSD supporter, subscriber to linux journal and more. As I have stated, and will state again, the most expensive part of software cost is support. Whats support have to do with it? Everything. It does not matter what you think of Microsoft, they have built a great infrastructure. They make the software, training, certification, and are the de facto of commercial software. The key is the certification. When HR is notified to hire a system admin or any other technical role they begin the search. They will look at their system and decide to hire someone that is certified in their software because the little certificate informs them they have been properly trained. Read more

Cost of software

Software technically cost nothing to produce. The true cost of software is the development and support side. The cost to actually sell it would be be only the bandwidth. Sure it cost money to make a pretty box and then press the disc and ship it all around, but really, isn’t that just out dated? When they decide the price to sell at it usually takes into account the time and money it cost to develop the software to begin with. Now when you price this would you want to see what the most expensive you can make it? or would you want to price it a point where as many people possible could buy it and maximize your revenue? I for one would try and maximize my profits so why would you price photoshop at $699? Read more

Social Media and Customer Support

Fail Whale is no more, get your company on here

Fail Whale is no more, get your company on here

I’ll be writing a longer post about twitter specifically in the future. Every company that has a customer support department, and even those that don’t, need to be on a social network. Twitter allows people to rant and if you are wise tracking or searching for your company name you can find out who is complaining or needs help instantly. Using Twitter, facebook, or whatever your choice is, is a grass roots marketing and customer satisfaction. Comcast was one of the first to Twitter, and much props to Frank Eliasson for having the vision. I for one can speak praise of Comcast on Twitter. Read more

Groceries on Amazon.com

I’m sure you’ve bought books, movies, and maybe some other gadget off Amazon.com, but have you ever thought about groceries? I’ll admit that yes I do like grocery shopping, but thats because I like to cook. I still like to get a good deal and not pay too much. Thats why I use Amazon for some of my shopping. Sure it seems a little silly at first but follow me on this. How does automatically receiving your items, no sales tax, free shipping, and 15% off sound? Read more

Boxee and You

When people talk about a media center they are refering to something that can take all their media (music, videos, pictures) and have one central location for them all. Boxee is the ultimate, and free! Boxee goes one step further and not only will work with media you have locally but will stream from online sources such as Hulu.com and ABC networks.  You no longer have to rely on torrenting your favorite shows. Now if you want to, I suggest running TED (Torrent Episode Downloader) and Boxee together. Read more

iPhone Twitter Client Showdown

Those of you who have an iPhone and are on twitter know that being able to post tweets on the go and read them is very important. Using the mobile twitter site, m.twitter.com, is fine for some people but I prefer using a native app for the iPhone. The first one available for download was twitterific so of course it was the first I tried. This post will compare and review the ones I’ve tried both free and pay. Twitterific, Twinkle, Tweetie, and Twitterlator Pro. Read more

Tweet!

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter
    Web Analytics