Drupal Developer Tip: 2 Modules to Help with 508 Compliance</h1> <article> <h1>Drupal Developer Tip: 2 Modules to Help with 508 Compliance</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:55:40 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A couple months ago we built a brand new website for the Rocky Mountain ADA. One of their major requirement for their website was to meet Section 508 and WCAG standards. Working on the website, we ended up using two different contributed modules from the Drupal community to help with this. The two modules that we used were <a href="http://drupal.org/project/pagestyle"><strong style="line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 0.03em;">Page Style</strong></a><span style="line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 0.03em;"> and </span><strong style="line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 0.03em;"><a href="http://drupal.org/project/textsize">Text Size</a>. </strong>As a bonus, both modules had a stable<strong style="line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 0.03em;"> </strong><span style="line-height: 1.6em; letter-spacing: 0.03em;">Drupal 7 version. </span></p> <p></p> <p>The <strong><a href="http://drupal.org/project/pagestyle">Page Style</a></strong> module overrides the CSS files, stripping the page layout down to a black and white version of the website. This feature allows the design team to be more creative when designing the look and feel of the site. <strong style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.6em;">Note:</strong><span style="letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.6em;"> You can also create custom color combination that are specific to your demographic.</span></p> <p>Example of Page Style Module:</p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>The<strong> <a href="http://drupal.org/project/textsize">Text Size</a></strong> module provides the user control over the size of the text on the page, which is great for users who who don't happen to be wearing their reading glasses. Check out the <a href="http://adainformation.org">ADAinformation.org</a> to see a demo of how this works. </p> <p>Here are some examples of the Text Size module.</p> <p>Default text size: </p> <p></p> <p>Increased the font size to 116%: </p> <p></p> <h3>Important note</h3> <p>These modules are not a substitute for good design principles, nor do they inherently give you Section 508 or WCAG compliance. They are great tools to give your designer just a bit more flexibility without compromising on the accessibility of your content. And they're also great tools to help your Drupal developers or site builders make any site more accessible.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-developer-tip" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Developer Tip</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal-development" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal development</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/508-compliance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">508 Compliance</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Custom CRM Savings Calculator</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:07:48 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Fill in your current numbers or those of the non-custom systems you're looking at to see if a custom system is right for you.</p> <p> </p><div id="block-cf_crm_graph-crm_chart" class="block block-cf-crm-graph block-odd block-count-1 clearfix"> <div class="block-inner"> <div class="content"> <div class="cf-crm-block"> <div id="cf_crm_graph" class="cf-graph" style="width:730px;height:250px"></div> <div id="cf-crm-savings"> <div class="right"> <div class="current-quarterly-spend"><span class="label">Current quarterly spend:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> <div class="custom-system-cost"><span class="label">Estimated custom system:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> <div class="breakeven-point"><span class="label">Breakeven point:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> </div> <div class="left"> <div class="one-year-savings"><span class="label">Estimated 1 year savings:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> <div class="two-year-savings"><span class="label">Estimated 2 year savings:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> <div class="three-year-savings"><span class="label">Estimated 3 year savings:</span> <span class="value"></span></div> </div> </div> <form action="/blog/feeds/clients" method="post" id="cf-crm-graph-form" accept-charset="UTF-8"> <div> <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-employees"> <label for="edit-employees">Number of employees: </label><br /><input type="text" id="edit-employees" name="employees" value="25" size="60" maxlength="6" class="form-text" /><div class="description">The number of employees using your current CRM system.</div> </div> <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-employee-increase"> <label for="edit-employee-increase">New hires per year: </label><br /><input type="text" id="edit-employee-increase" name="employee_increase" value="0" size="60" maxlength="6" class="form-text" /><div class="description">The average number of new users on your CRM each year.</div> </div> <div class="form-item form-type-select form-item-plan"> <label for="edit-plan">Select your Salesforce Plan: </label> <select id="edit-plan" name="plan" class="form-select"><option value="65" selected="selected">Professional ($65/mo)</option><option value="125">Enterprise ($125/mo)</option><option value="250">Unlimited ($250/mo)</option></select><div class="description">If you use Salesforce, select your current plan (amount per employee).</div> </div> <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-rate"> <label for="edit-rate">Or your rate per employee: </label><br /><input type="text" id="edit-rate" name="rate" value="" size="60" maxlength="6" class="form-text" /><div class="description">Enter the cost per employee for your current CRM.</div> </div> <p><input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" value="form-NeuXEGTEvHJx1hXkg2eJuoEEgENZwGO09Aw6hZENecI" /><br /><input type="hidden" name="form_id" value="cf_crm_graph_form" /></p></div> </form> </div> </div> </div> </div>  <p> </p> <div> <h3>So why use a custom CRM over a stock one?</h3> <ul><li> <p><strong>No recurring fees.</strong> Pay for the system and get it all. Add employees and contacts for free. No limits.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Pay only for the features you need.</strong> Get a system that is custom tailored to your organization's needs. Simplify your system by weeding out the items that clutter your workflow, and save money by doing it.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Better integration</strong> with your current system. We'll provide better integration with your current system or database than you can get with a non-custom CRM.</p> </li> <li> <p><b>Get more functionality. </b>Custom means you're not limited by what is offered by the stock functionality.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Extensible.</strong> Easily add or change functionality in the future, without paying more per user. Pay a once for the development cost.</p> </li> </ul><p>If you get a chance check out our NEW collaboration tool: <a href="http://clikcollab.com/">ClikCollab</a>. </p> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/112" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Custom CRM</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/107" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">business automation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/109" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">CRM</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/113" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">SalesForce</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Why You Must Take Creative Risks</h1> <p>Jesse Mutzebaugh — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:46:54 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Mounting evidence shows that we all possess an inherent bias against creativity. We all, at our core, dislike change. Type "A" leaders like the idea of change and casting vision, but often dread the workload it creates for the organization. Change requires a shift in momentum, and requires extra energy to maintain your pace. All true creativity requires we depart from status quo at some point. It is this departure that creates discomfort.</p> <h3 class="p1">Creative Safety</h3> <p class="p2">I was browsing the web looking for different Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services, and I was astounded by how "safe" all their websites were. Sure, the home pages look good, but they all look like their competitors websites. I often got confused as to which company was which. Take a look at a few of the home pages from different CRM companies.</p> <div style="margin: 20px 100px 20px 150px; "> <h4 class="p2"><em>"All true creativity requires we depart from status quo at some point. It is this departure that creates discomfort"</em></h4> </div> <p class="p2"></p> <p class="p2">These companies played it safe. They all do the same thing, offer the same services, have the same generic website. No company gives the potential customer any reason to pick them over their competitor. </p> <h3 class="p1">Three things these companies <em>fail</em> to communicate</h3> <p class="p1"><b>1. We do things differently than our competition.</b> You need to highlight why you are innovative. What do you offer than nobody else does? What do you have that nobody else has? Why do I choose you over everyone else? You and your team spent countless hours crafting your organizations vision, so don't let that become a poster on your office wall. Get creative and wear your vision. Eat, sleep, and breathe it. Your customers will feel it.</p> <p class="p1"><b>2. We do things better than our competition.</b> Most likely there are dozens of organizations similar to yours. Then how are you still in business? To your people, you are better. They know that. But the <span class="s1">only</span> way I would know why one of the above CRM companies are better is through word of mouth. Get creative and let your website, the face of the company, become it's own word of mouth advertising.</p> <p class="p1"><b>3. We tailored our services for you better than our competition.</b> Do you have a niché? Exploit that. If I were a pastor, ten times out of ten I would choose "ChurchCRM" over "GenericCRM". Are you in healthcare? Great, so are thousands. Target your market by telling them you focus on Asthma and Allergies in the Denver region, and tailor your designs to that.</p> <p class="p1"> </p> <h4 class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>What about you?</b></span></h4> <p class="p1">What creative risks have you taken that have paid off for you or your company? Leave a comment and let us know.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/108" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Creativity</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/design" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Design</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/109" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">CRM</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/110" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Business</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/111" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Leadership</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Emergo Groups First Mobile Site</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:44:07 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10" style="padding: 10px; width: 100%; "><thead><tr><th scope="col" style="width:18%;"> <h3>The Features:</h3> </th> <th scope="col"> <h3>The Challenge:</h3> </th> <th scope="col"> <h3>The Solution:</h3> </th> </tr></thead><tbody><tr style="border-bottom-style:solid; border-color: #cccccc"><td><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Simple Administration</strong></span></td> <td>Emergo maintains it's site in 6+ languages' it was important for the content editor to be able to manage the mobile in an intuitive manner.</td> <td>We repurposed the existing content to be display correctly in the mobile version of the site. Keeping the administration simple and only having to enter content 1 time on the site.</td> </tr><tr style="border-bottom-style:solid; border-color: #cccccc"><td><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Multi-lingual</strong></span></td> <td>As part of Emergo Groups main site, we needed to incorporate the same multi-lingual features on their mobile version.</td> <td>For the dropdown we were able to repurpose the original language select and reformat it into a size that worked in a mobile screen. </td> </tr><tr><td><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Mobile Layout Redesign</strong></span></td> <td>Originally the website was designed around a normal desktop screen size. This creates a challenge of redesigning the layout of the site in a format that looks brilliant on a mobile screen. <strong> </strong></td> <td>Reformatting the site, allowed for it to be styled for the mobile version. Pulling different CSS file that are specific to a mobile site.</td> </tr></tbody></table><div> </div> <h2 style="text-align: center; ">Screen Shots</h2> <div> </div> <div> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="10" style="width: 100%; "><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center; "> <h3 style="padding-top: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 10px;">Multi-Lingual</h3> </td> </tr><tr><td></td> </tr><tr><td style="text-align: center; "> <h3 style="padding-top: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 10px;">Auto Load Feature for Blog</h3> </td> </tr><tr><td style=""></td> </tr><tr><td> <h3 style="padding-top: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center;">Sales Force Integration</h3> </td> </tr><tr><td></td> </tr><tr><td> <h3 style="padding-top: 20px; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center; ">Home Page</h3> </td> </tr><tr><td></td> </tr></tbody></table></div> <p style="margin-left: 40px; "> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/mobile-site" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Mobile Site</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/emergo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Emergo</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-6" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal 6</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Another Great Pumpkin Idea From the Web Hosting World</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:25:21 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Being a left brain dominant computer engineer tends to make creativity a bit challenging. But the annual pumpkin carving party comes none the less. So I resorted to consulting the muse (Google) once again. Last year I had a wonderful depiction of the Drupal logo in jack-o-lantern form and I was eager to match the simplicity and originality of the carving. A few searches revealed my artistic finesse was no match for anything advertised on Google's top hits so I resorted to scrolling through my own sites only to stumble upon the perfect match. Thanks to <a href="http://github.com">Git Hub</a> I had a fun and simple carving that could once again steel the show. Happy Halloween.</p> <p>Special thanks to <a href="http://sarahaddy.com">Sarah Addy</a> for the picture.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/git-hub" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Git Hub</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>5 Tips on Finding a Great Web Developer</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:17:04 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I can recall several times when we were approached by clients as the second, third, or fourth developer to work on the project because the previous ones didn’t have the skill (or reliability) to finish a job. This wastes time and costs thousands of dollars for nothing. How do you identify the skills needed to complete your project, and how can you ensure that the developer you choose can handle your needs?</p> <div> <p dir="ltr">Web development is so unique in its makeup that it is difficult to create a detailed plan for implementing a new idea without a significant amount of experience already. Here is a basic outline to follow when going through the process of choosing a developer with the right skills to get your project with as little stress and waste as possible.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>1. Flesh out your idea</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Once you get an idea of the general features that you will include on your site, it’s a good idea to research your features online. See what similar sites have, and make sure that you cover at least the necessary features of your type of site (e.g., eCommerce sites should have a shopping cart, product pages, search).</p> <p dir="ltr">Learn what systems are good for creating your site, or even find websites that do some of your features the way you like as an example. You need to know if any of your features will require customization.</p> <p dir="ltr">The goal of the research is to identify the skills needed to complete your project. What level of customization will be needed to create the features you want?</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>2. Get your features on paper and decide what is important to you</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Create your list of features based on order of priority. Make your list with the features that are most important to you ranked higher, so you are sure to communicate what you want to developers.</p> <p dir="ltr">It is also valuable to separate this list into major and minor features. This will ensure that major features are included in initial development and given priority in your budget. In addition, if you can’t get all your features done at first, this list will represent what can and cannot wait for future development.</p> <p dir="ltr">Note that if the features beyond the initial development require other skills, you’ll need to make sure your developer can handle those as well.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>3. Talk to developers</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">When you post an ad, look at what developers are saying about your list of features. Look at the solutions they recommend, if they appear to be knowledgeable when discussing your features, and if they give worthwhile advice. In order to do this, you may go back to your web research and see what you find.</p> <p dir="ltr">Make sure they are knowledgeable with the components of your site that need to be custom. The goal of your research is to educate yourself on the skills needed to complete your project. Developers will be able to direct your search for the right skills.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>4. Research their responses online</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">After using the responses you get from potential developers, go back to the internet and research some more. Research any solutions developers recommend using for your project.</p> <p dir="ltr">You can gain a basic understanding of the options you have for your project, and then you can identify the skills your developer will need.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>5. Choose a developer that has those skills you need</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Finally, it’s time to choose a developer. The biggest advantage to your research is to be aware of the skills you will need in order to narrow the search for your developer. Once you’ve found somebody you feel meets your criteria of experience and skills, go with the developer that you are comfortable with and whose expertise you trust. After all, expertise is why you’re paying them to help you.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Web resources aren’t always good</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">One simple thing I want to warn you about. When researching online, blogs and forums can be deceiving. Anyone can post anything and it may not be factual. The other caution I would offer is to make sure your resources are current. There are a lot of old, inaccurate posts that appear helpful, but really stopped being so a while ago.</p> <p dir="ltr">To illustrate this point, I searched for “Drupal vs Joomla” on Google and the top result was <a href="http://www.alledia.com/blog/general-cms-issues/joomla-and-drupal-which-one-is-right-for-you/">a blog post comparing the two</a>. It’s informative and offers a great comparison. But it was written in 2006, and contains several inaccuracies just because things have changed so much in the past 3 years.</p> <p dir="ltr">There will probably be more than one developer that meets your criteria for skills; keep in mind that the key element that separates these developers is customization. If you don’t need much custom work, you can go with a developer that can handle more basic configuration (and probably charge less). If you know you will need any level of customization, you should be confident that the developer you choose can handle any custom work you might need.</p> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/hire-developer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Hire Developer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/choosing-developer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">choosing a developer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/development-skills" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">development skills</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: Getting on the List</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:20:15 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2010&addr=100322"> VIew Garfield Comic</a></div> <div>Every business wants their name on the list. No, I’m not referring to the VIP list, though I suppose that would be a nice list to be on. Of course I mean that ever-important list: Google search results. And on this list, where your name shows up matters a lot. <p> That’s what SEO is all about. The more times your search keywords show up on your site, the more often people navigate to your site from Google, the more sites with similar keywords that point to yours—the better your rankings. For a site that gets any substantial amount of its business online, showing up high on the search list is vital.</p> <p> Drupal was created by people who had this in mind. As soon as a site is created with Drupal core, there’s already a lot of SEO built into it. For one thing, it automatically drops in the correct metadata for the base stuff to work. And there are add-on modules available, too; one, for instance, provides the ability to customize metatags and keywords, so that each page has the precise keywords you want, including translated keywords if your site is multilingual. Google even has a related module available, an analysis tool called Google Analytics that tracks who is on your site, where they came from, how they got there, and more—just the kinds of information you need to optimize SEO.</p> <p> If it seems like finding just the right modules and using them just the right way to optimize SEO would be tricky, well, here’s the good news: we know how to do it. We at ClikFocus know SEO. We know how it works, how Google works, and how to optimize a system above and beyond what Drupal core gives you to get your site high up on those searches.</p> <p> In short: we can get you on the list.</p></div> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/seo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">seo</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: Managing the Spiders</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:29:12 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2009&addr=090925">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <div>Have you heard of spiders? <p> Ah, no, not the ones squished onto the wall. I mean robots.</p> <p> Oh, goodness, no, I wasn’t trying to give you nightmares about Terminators shaped like ten-foot-tall tarantulas. I’m not entirely sure how you even got to that image. Let me try again. Web crawlers? Sound familiar?</p> <p> If you have or plan to have a website, these things matter to you. And not because you need to find a better method than a newspaper if you expect to kill a Terminator spider. The spiders I’m talking about are a tool that search engines use.</p> <p> They are servers that surf the net and update any site they find. Once they find it, they catalogue the metadata, and that information is used for search engine rankings and such. These spiders are the kind you don’t so much mind having around, unlike that one that always shows up in the shower when you least expect it.</p> <p> But then, there are some pages that you don’t really want showing up in a Google search. Like, say, a private FTP client that is publically accessible with a password. Only the people with the password ought to even realize that page exists. Or, perhaps, for some (such as Drupal users), admin login pages. Those aren’t the kinds of pages anyone wants the average, recreational Google searcher stumbling across. And, of course, the fact that most of us—who really ought to just admit that we’ve googled our own names, because everybody already knows we have—have never come across one of these kinds of pages in our internet ramblings is proof enough that there’s a way to keep the spiders out. That spider-stopper is the robots.txt file.</p> <p> These files aren’t complicated and, of course, this being the internet and not your basement, work perfectly well. They’re simple text files that tell search engines not to index certain pages. And for single sites, that’s all anyone needs.</p> <p> Yes, of course it can get more complicated than that.</p> <p> Drupal allows multiple sites to be installed on the same core install—multi-site configuration. That means one code-base hosts multiple websites. They need not share a theme or even functionality; they simply share the same Drupal core install. Normally, with multiple sites on the same Drupal install, the robots.txt file goes into the root directory and applies to all the sites. But maybe you don’t want that the same set of rules to apply to both. Maybe you want closer control of each individual site. What then?</p> <p> Well, Drupal provides a module that enables you to modify the robots.txt file for each install—customize for each site. Then, it stores the file in the database. This is important for two reasons. First, this means that it’s backed up in database backups. When changes are made to the robots.txt file, those changes are recorded through regular database backups. So if something is messed up, you can simply revert to a previous version. Secondly, this means that the file can be edited online, without an FTP client, from within the admin page—in a matter of seconds.</p> <p> So if, say, you decided to host a developmental version of your site on the side, you could make sure that the search engines don’t index it. Or, if we’re on a job to transfer a site over from a single- to a multi-site install of Drupal, we can temporarily disable the new sites while we’re developing and working on them, then re-enable them once the’re finished. And remember that bit about how spiders are linked to search engine rankings? Making use of the robots.txt file this way keeps SEO intact.</p> <p> So, let the robots.txt keep the spiders out of your admin pages. I’ll be over here trying to figure out how to get a non-text robot to keep the regular spiders out of the house. Or how to train a cat to do it. Either one’s fine.</p></div> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/multi-site-configuration" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">multi site configuration</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/robotstxt" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">robots.txt</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: Drupal Seasons</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:39:29 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2009&addr=091116" id="internal-source-marker_0.17718157265335321">View the Garfield Comic</a></div> <div>Think about the seasons for a moment. Summers have lots of sunshine and warm weather, but they can also enable you to bake cookies on your dashboard, which only sounds like an upside. Winters are darker, colder, and in some places snowy, but they also enable you to bake cookies in your house without giving yourself heatstroke, instead of in your car, where you definitely would make yourself pass out. Both have their advantages, and often it seems like the world has almost acted like a cartoon and changed summer to winter with nary a pause in between for fall. And sometimes, technology is just like that.</div> <div> <p>Technology changes very quickly, as anyone with a five-year-old computer will tell you in a particularly whiny tone. This is especially true in the open source world, the world in which resides Drupal, which is now on version 7. But rather than the difference between a brand new computer and the one that’s been sitting in Grandma’s basement for the last ten years (but she doesn’t know how to use anyway), sometimes technological developments are a little bit more like summer and winter. Different versions simply work better for slightly different things.<br /> </p> <p>Progress is good, but function and efficiency are best. Drupal 7 is still changing; you need a developer who keeps up with that, who can utilize it to greatest effect for your site. That’s why we at ClikFocus stay up to date on changing technology and how it applies to different sites. If Drupal 6 would work better for your purposes, we’ll know, because we’ve built with both. You don’t have to wait half a year to enjoy the version that suits your needs best.</p> <p> Feel free to experiment with dashboard baking, though.</p> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal 7</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: Getting a New Look</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:49:03 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2008&addr=080525"><br /> View the Garfield Comic</a></div> <div>Ladies know that getting the perfect look is difficult, and what seems like the right combination one minute can seem completely wrong the next. When it comes to websites, that’s a rule that good developers know well too. When you want to change the look of your site, you don’t want it to take laborious weeks and buckets of money any more than you want to spend all day hunting through your closet for a clean shirt. But if your site’s functionality is hard-coded inside the theme, then every time you change the design, you might as well get yourself a whole new website—because that’s basically what you’re doing. <p> Of course, if redesigning the hard way were the only way, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. <strong>The efficient way to develop your site is to separate form from function</strong>, so that the one can be changed without disturbing the other. And, of course, Drupal can do that.</p> <p> Drupal sits the look of the site—the theme layer—atop the functionality, enabling it to operate independently. With a good developer, those two segments can be created apart from each other, so that any change to the site’s theme need not disturb all the code written for its function and vice versa. If the site is made well from the start, a future facelift will be relatively quick and painless. You could even use multiple themes, like, say, different themes for different users, without affecting the nuts and bolts of the site beneath. Without those layers, forget quick and painless—any changes desired in the theme would require drastic overhauls of the entire site, which in turn mean higher expenses and harsher headaches.</p> <p> The advantages of separating the theme layer don’t stop with faster redesigns, either. Done right, <strong>it can improve site performance</strong>. When the theme and the functionality are separated thus, they are also cached separately. This means that after the first time the theme is loaded, the entire site will load faster because the browser needs simply retrieve the theme layer, rather than regenerate it. Looking good does not have to mean sacrificing performance.</p> <p> Separating the functions of a site from its appearance gives you better performance and higher flexibility, and Drupal can do that. All you need is a developer who’ll build it right from the very beginning—and that’s where we come in.</p> <p> After all, who says getting a new look has to be hard?</p></div> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/new-look" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">New Look</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/theme" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Theme</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/theming" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Theming</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/design" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Design</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/performance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">performance</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Making Your Local Network Mobile</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:25:33 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="image-right"></div> <p>With Apple, Inc.'s recent release of<a href="http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/"> IOS 5</a>, the trend is moving all your data to the "cloud." This tech boom is going to create a new era for mobile business offices and remote branches across the world.</p> <p>Essentially, small businesses will be taking their local databases of clients, products, and services, and turning them into web-based solutions. This is significant in several different ways. It means:</p> <p>1.<strong> No more buying expensive, in-house proprietary software</strong> <strong>licenses</strong>. You can use open source software like Drupal's framework to manage your website and database, all with one free solution.</p> <p>2. <strong>Freedom from the office.</strong> With everything being managed in the cloud, your sales team can access any data it needs to close a sale—in turn increasing your profits.</p> <p>3. <strong>More work can be done</strong><strong> from home.</strong> The need for office space is greatly reduced; more and more employees can work from the comfort of their home offices.</p> <p>4. <strong>Improved s</strong><strong>ecurity.</strong> DOD has approved Drupal Framework for building their secure website. If it's good enough for the DOD, then it's more than good enough for the average business's security.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/dod" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">DOD</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/secuity" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Secuity</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/ios-5" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">IOS 5</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/mobile-database" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Mobile database</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/small-business" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Small business</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal-framework" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Framework</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: Social Networking</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:38:30 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#44c036"> </font><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2009&addr=090505" target="_blank">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>In order to keep from hearing about social networking these days, you would have to live under a rock, and that’s if you could keep the spiders from mentioning it to you. Millions upon millions of individuals use social networks to share their likes, their lives, their relationships, and more. You could call it a cultural phenomenon. And it has spread to more than just individuals; businesses are dipping into the social media pool, too.</p> <p>Anyone who has had to fight with a teenager for the computer anytime recently knows how powerful social networks are. They draw people in; they can take a few thousand scattered people of similar interests and group them into a powerful fan base; they can raise awareness or interest or even loyalty. All this may mean long evenings trying in vain to get a turn at the family computer, but it can also mean something very valuable: widespread, effective marketing.</p> <p>Social networking sites are simple, free tools that can help promote a business and create or sustain the enthusiasm of a loyal clientele. Which means that when creating or updating a website, it’s important to make sure those company Facebook pages or Twitter feeds are connected to it.</p> <p>Sometimes, connecting the site to a social network can be as simple as adding a link, but often you’ll find that you want some of that interactive feel of the social networks transferred to your site. Maybe you want Facebook’s “like” button on your page; perhaps you want to get the word out by making it easy for visitors to retweet from your business’s Twitter feed. We know how to attach the instrumentation necessary for your customers to visit it, like it, tweet it, digg it, or whatever else you need.</p> <p>Social networking as a marketing tool is free, and it’s powerful. And we can make sure it’s plugged into your site to full effect.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">social media</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/social-networking" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">social networking</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/social" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Social</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Saving Money with AJAX</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:21:47 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>To most people, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)">AJAX</a> is cool. They think of AJAX as something that will give their website a cool factor and add stickiness for customers. Some may see it as utility (say, the best way to do live chat on your website).</p> <div>None of those things are wrong, but I think many people fail to see how AJAX can serve as a cost-saving device. <p> So I decided to crunched some numbers.</p> <p> Let’s say that it takes 3 seconds per page reload on a particular back-end system for an eCommerce store on a shared host. That may not seem like much to a small business until you start to add up how that three seconds translates into dollars and cents over a period of time.</p> <p> Let’s create a scenario that better explains the value of AJAX:</p> <p> Suppose I have a small business with 5 employees, that spend an average of 20 hours per week on the system. Let’s say they will navigate to a new page every 20 seconds on average. If AJAX allow us to decrease the number of times my employees have to reload a page down to a third, that will save 104 page loads per hour. If it takes 3 seconds per reload, that’s 5 minutes and 12 seconds per hour wasted waiting for the system to load.</p> <p> At this rate, each employee would waste 1 hour and 44 minutes a week and an astronomical 83 hours and 29 minutes in a year, at 48 weeks in a year. (That's more than 2 weeks working full time!) At a rate of $10/hr, that's $835 per year for one employee. If I have all five employees doing the same thing, I end up with 417 hours a year and a total of $4,174 spent above what I would spend if I had AJAX saving page loads.</p> <p> When you look at this over the course of a year, it becomes clear that adding AJAX to your site can actually save you money, not just look cool. Even if you decide that a small amount of your budget should go towards AJAX, adding small amount of AJAX in the right parts of your system can offer big results.</p></div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/ajax" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">AJAX</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/saving-tips" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Saving Tips</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield: The Little Things</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:34:49 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2010&addr=101205" target="_blank"> View Garfield Comic</a></div> <div> <p>We’ve all been there. It just needs some small adjustments, just a little tweaking, just a few tiny things we didn’t think of earlier. Next thing we know, our arms are stuck to the tree, half the yeast we forgot to put into the bread dough earlier is decorating the wall next to the mixer, or the bill for that website is getting out of hand.</p> <p>We’ve had customers who approached their sites just like this, without a plan. What they wanted may have seemed simple to them, but without starting from a solid plan, those necessary little adjustments add up. When hiring a company to develop a site, it’s important to be as thorough as possible. It’s too easy to tell the developer something you want, yet completely overlook huge chunks of what the site does or could do.</p> <p>Say you want a blog. You could leave it at that, but developers need to know more—they need to know what you want that blog to be able to do. Do you want video posting capability? How about a WYSIWYG editor? Sure, it’s possible to add things in later, but every detail the developers aren’t given from the start is an extra, higher cost for you to eat later.</p> <p>If that seems overwhelming, well, sometimes it can be. For that reason, we always try to help our customers plan through their projects. We like to tell you about small things that could add up to big costs, or the uses you might have for different features, all before anything is set in stone. We don’t want you to be surprised by a lack of functionality or an unexpectedly high price tag.</p> <p>The better and more thorough the plan, and the sooner we can get it together, the quicker and better the end result will be. If we plan for the little things from the very beginning, we needn’t waste any time or money fixing or adding them after the fact.</p> <p>And less time and money spent tweaking your site’s features means more time and money for all the other important little things in business and life.</p> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/small-details" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Small Details</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/blog" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">blog</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/project-planning" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">project planning</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/planning" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">planning</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/planning-purpose" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Planning with Purpose</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>How to Hire the Best Developers</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 21:54:23 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelbuffer/" target="_blank"></a>It's true that you are looking for the best people in the business when you hire new employees. It's no different when it come to hiring your web development team. Just like when looking for any kind of good help, the best developers don't come cheap, and if you have worked with the cheap development companies before, you can see the difference in the quality of the product very quickly.</p> <p>To <strong>alleviate the expense</strong> of forming an in-house web development team, a lot of companies have started to look at outsourcing in the development process by hiring development companies that specialize in a specific niche, in our case Drupal. The initial development is handled externally, but in-house web content administrator or even administive assistant keeps the website up to date afterwards. The result is significantly lowering the development cost from a $50/hour for a technically trained employee to someone with trusted communication skills for $15-$20/hour.</p> <p>Some of the advantages:</p> <ol><li>One IT professional or developer should cost you anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000, depending on experience. So a project developing and adding to your site will take a regular staff member anywhere from 3 to 12 months to complete. Along with the high cost, productivity suffers. Compare that to outsourcing your techincal needs to niched development team, and in Clikfocus's case, that's outsourcing not to China or India, but to the beautiful city of Colorado Springs.</li> <li>We leverage a <strong>Drupals</strong> CMS framework to allow you to hire a great editor and copywriter to bring in the desired content for a lot less than would be required by a high-level technical team doing the same work. </li> <li>When you hire a development firm, <strong>you only pay for the features and functionality you want</strong>. So when you run out of ideas for the web development, you don't have to pay for a high-level techincal employee to do simple task. (Form our own in-house experience, they are much happy when they are coding than when they are writing blog posts.)</li> </ol></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/hire-best-developer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Hire the best developer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/hire-developer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Hire Developer</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/best-development" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Best Development</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/outsource" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Outsource</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield overviews Drupal security</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:42:26 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2010&addr=101214">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <div>When it comes to web security, some solutions are just inherently better than others. Everybody knows elves are only good at making toys beneath the ice of the North Pole or baking cookies in magically flame-retardant trees. So if you ever found a way to make elves work all year long for free, like Santa, you’d be better off putting them to work making snacks and copyright-breaking toy knock-offs rather than dumping them in an IT department. Websites need real security. Fortunately, Drupal has that covered.</div> <div> </div> <div>Drupal has an entire team dedicated solely to finding and fixing security issues. Now, if that team had to find every hole and issue alone, the scope would just be too broad to be manageable. But they don’t. That’s because of something Drupal has that’s a little more unusual: community. <p> Open source systems usually have a conglomerate of people contributing, but not collaborating. Drupal’s security team helps pull the community of users in to work together. As soon as someone finds an issue, the team is notified, and they fix it. Other open source systems usually don’t have that, so it takes longer for problems to be found and resolved. Completely custom systems never have that kind of support. Drupal has hundreds of thousands of users constantly testing it and an entire team focused on resolving issues—it’s bound to be more secure than anything an individual builds alone. There is strength in numbers.</p> <p> And if you’re starting to wonder if this method of fixing security holes might be a hole in and of itself, the Drupal security team has already thought of that. Only those using the module in question are notified when an update is required, so only they would know there was a hole until the problem was fixed. The team doesn’t carelessly tell the world that there’s a hole in security, and they don’t leave the hole there long.</p> <p> With Drupal, there’s always a support system, always an army of fellow-users making sure that the first person to find a problem isn’t the person who might exploit it. And that’s much better than an army of elves.</p> <p> Well, unless you’re craving cookies, anyway.</p></div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Security</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">security</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-community" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">drupal community</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/open-source" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">open source</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Measure Twice, Cut Once</h1> <p>Jeremy Kleier — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:22:20 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="image-left"></div> <p><strong>"Measure twice, cut once"</strong> isn't a new concept in construction by any means. The same idea applies to developing a brand new website. Getting all your ideas down on paper and exploring them with a seasoned developer or project architect at the start of a web project can be one of the most cost-saving solutions available.</p> <p>Consulting with a skilled developer will allow you to get the most mileage out of Drupal—in our case, to maximize your budget with the highest possible yield of features.</p> <p>Having your developer and design team work together can help cut down on the cost and time-consumption of theme implementation. It can also help maximize browser compatibility, to help you reach a larger audience.</p> <p>Ultimately, a little planning can go a long way toward preventing future headaches and saving your budget.</p> <div class="image-right"> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/consulting" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Consulting</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/new-website" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">new website</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/getting-started" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">getting started</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/measure-twice-cut-once" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">measure twice cut once</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield introduces Drupal’s internationalization module</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:59:38 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2007&addr=070423" target="_blank">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>Sometimes, the most readily available interpreter isn’t exactly what you need. In the last couple of posts, we looked briefly at the services provided by the locale and content translation modules. They’re powerful tools, but it’s easy to see that sometimes a little more power is needed to get the job done. Sometimes you need a different interpreter. That’s where the internationalization module steps in.</p> <div>Drupal’s core translation interface lacks three key items: taxonomy, custom menu, and CCK fields. Most of core has these items translated because they are system variables wrapped in the ‘t’ function. However, these three items are stored in the database, not in code, making them trickier to translate. The internationalization forms a bridge over this obstacle and provides a simple interface for translating all of the database items in the system. <p> So, when the locale and content translation modules can only get you from a meow to a squeak, take a look at Drupal’s internationalization module. It gives a simple solution for translating database items. We’ll look more at some more of its uses next time.</p></div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/translation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">translation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal-core" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Core</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/internationalization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Internationalization</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Drupal & Photography: how online communities are good for both</h1> <p>adrian@clikfocus.com — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:54:40 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="image-right"></div> <div>When I was 14, I was given my late Grandfather's camera - a <a href="http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/bodies/film_M/MX.html">Pentax MX</a>. This gift spurred an immediate interest in photography and after some time I was able to take some decent photographs. However, I had no understanding of the basic of photography. My "technique" consisted of fiddling with various knobs until the light meter lit up the green LED light. Without a basic understand of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture">aperture</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_speed">shutter speed</a>, and how the two work together to affect the various qualities of a photograph, I was basically shooting in the dark.</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div class="image-left"></div> <p>What does all that have to do with web development? (or the price of tea in China, for that matter!) I was first exposed to the open source philosophy/movement, call it what you will, in college when I started tinkering with operating systems such as <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux">Linux</a>. First for fun, and shortly thereafter to work my way through school. I quickly learned that rich online resources were freely available for my use. The barrier of access was drastically lowered when I discovered that an online search would usually turn up the answer to any given question within seconds. </p> <div> </div> <div>Fast forward quite a few years. In fall of 2009, after many years of using digital point & shoot cameras, I decided to get back into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-lens_reflex_camera" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(68, 192, 54); text-decoration: none; ">SLR</a> world, A short amount of research indicated that I could use my old Pentax lenses with a modern Pentax camera, and so I settled on a <a href="http://www.pentaximaging.com/slr/K-x_Black/">Pentax k-x</a>. I quickly got online to research how to marry the decades-old analog technology with my modern digital SLR. Within a few days, I had learned far more about photography than I had gleaned over many years of taking photographs. This easy access to a community of photography enthusiasts allowed me to significantly improve my grasp of the fundamentals of photography and their application. In my opinion, online communities make a fantastic <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/">feedback loop</a>, providing quick (usually constructive!) criticism of one's work. Although it never occurred to me to do so, I could have easily checked out a library book and joined a photography club. However, neither of these options would have afforded the immediacy and depth of the resources now available to me, literally at any moment I choose.</div> <div> </div> <p>In the same way, the huge community that has formed around Drupal drastically increases the power and productivity of any one Drupal developer. As it has <a href="http://trends.google.com/trends?q=drupal&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=all&sort=0">vastly gained in recognition</a> over the past few years, the newsgroups and mailing lists of yore have exploded into a gigantic, highly collaborative community. Drupal developers and users meet and collaborate in thousands of venues, from local meetup groups and <a href="http://drupal.org/node/247972">Drupal camps</a> all the way on up to the <a href="http://drupal.org">drupal.org</a> code repositories and <a href="http://denver2012.drupal.org/">DrupalCon</a>. Web developers in general, and specifically Drupal developers are always communicating about ways to improve the product. Indeed, it might appear that I'm idly browsing twitter, but in reality I'm learning techniques and exploring ideas that will make me more efficient, and improve the products I deliver. (I threw that last sentence in for my boss's benefit...!)</p> <div> </div> <div>So, what does this mean for someone who's thinking about going with Drupal for a web site? In short, the whole Drupal community is working for you. Almost any given piece of functionality you might want for your website has probably been produced and contributed. We use our knowledge of the contributed code base to put projects together as efficiently as possible, providing the "glue" and expertise needed to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.</div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/photography" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">photography</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-beginnings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Beginnings</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/linux" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Linux</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/pentax" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Pentax</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupalcon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">DrupalCon</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupalorg" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal.org</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal-camps" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Camps</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield introduces Drupal’s core content translation module</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:44:38 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2011&addr=110116" target="_blank">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>Having already established the importance of multi-lingual sites in my previous post, I would like to continue discussing Drupal’s multi-lingual system. Content Translation is the next important piece.</p> <p><u>Node Translation and SEO</u><br /> Like the Locale module, Content Translation comes with Drupal’s core install and adds the primary front end requirement to the system: the ability to translate nodes. Since nodes possess the majority of the system’s content and provide the basic metadata such as title, tags, and URL control, translating the content doesn’t just change the text, it creates a new site. When it comes to search engine optimization, the ability to translate the node instead of just the text will make the difference on how high the site is on Google’s list.</p> <p> <u>Content Translation</u><br /> After enabling the content translation module, the individual content types can then have translation enabled. If the site’s basic page type is intended to be translatable but the blog is not, this isn’t a problem, as the controls are specific to each node type.</p> <p> Once enabling the translations on the desired types, a convenient translate tab is visible to any user with translate permissions. The translators can just log in, visit the desired page, and click “translate” in the nodes header. The translate interface then displays all other languages available on the system and gives the translator the ability to see which languages have already been translated as well as links to edit or add new translations.</p> <p> Mixing the Locale and Content Translation modules, a core Drupal site is 90% translatable. We’ll take care of the rest of core and the add-ons in the next post.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/content-translation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">content translation</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/node-translation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Node Translation</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-core" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal Core</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/seo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">seo</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Drupal Performance Improvements: Low-hanging Fruit</h1> <p>adrian@clikfocus.com — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 04:17:37 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Recently, a client with a Drupal site built in-house contacted us looking to improve its performance. We did some initial testing, and the average load time for the login page was 3.04 seconds.* We also used the very helpful web page performance analysis tool <a href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/">YSlow</a>, which gave a grade of C. Doesn't sound <em>too</em> bad, right? Well, it turns out that in the web world, <a href="http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20.html">speed matters</a>. Delays that seem like they would be imperceptible create a real difference in user satisfaction and, in the case of ecommerce sites, conversion rates. In addition, slow page loads can and will <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html">negatively affect your search ranking</a>.</p> <p>Here's the good news: in about 20 minutes, we were able to double performance to an average of 1.52 seconds per page load and boost YSlow's grade to a solid A. We did this by:</p> <ol><li>re-tuning Drupal's stock configuration</li> <li>adding a couple of extra modules</li> <li>re-configuring the web server software</li> </ol><p> </p> <p>There are many additional strategies that we employ where appropriate high-traffic web sites, or those where the absolute maximum in performance is required. In this case, we were able to dramatically improve our client's site performance in a very budget-friendly manner.</p> <p><sub>* Page load times were measured from refresh to the on-load event as an average of 5 tests, with browser caching turned off.</sub></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/performance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">performance</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">budget</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/seo" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">seo</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/why-drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Why Drupal?</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield Introduces Drupal’s Core Locale Module</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:23:41 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2010&addr=101127" target="_blank"></a></div> <div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2010&addr=101127" target="_blank">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>With a world that is becoming more technologically advanced, it is important that your web presence appeals to the languages within your demographic. No country likes being forced into learning another language to obtain a product or service. And they shouldn’t have too. And thanks to Drupal they don’t need to.</p> <p>Drupal builds basic multi-lingual support into core. First, the API provides a string translation wrapper. This means that any text that is exported from code is fully translatable. Drupal also improved the translations on the front-end. Every piece of text in the administration pages is also translatable, allowing administrators and translators to see the back-end of the site in their own language. The best part is new languages can be added to Drupal through a simple select list. Once enabled, the locale module provides a "Languages Administration" page offering a selection of roughly 50 different languages, some of which come with Drupal’s core already translated. The interface also displays what percentage of the site has already been translated into each language so that the marketing team can plan specific language launches.</p> <p>One of ClikFocus’s primary clients is a multi-lingual site with 6 languages and offices in each of the corresponding countries. They were excited to be able to see both the front and back-end interface in the native languages of the countries each office is located in. After running the site for about a year, the client wanted an upgrade. Several new offices had opened up and some new languages were needed. The languages were added almost instantly using the locale module. A few hours of theme upgrades to support the new languages and the site was available for 9 translations.</p> <p>Multi-lingual sites open up new horizons for a company. Markets that may appear closed due to cultural or demographical differences will begin to open. Countries will also be proud to use your products and services knowing that, by the use of their language on your site, their culture is important to your company. ClikFocus knows the importance of languages for entering new markets and has the expertise to make Drupal’s multi-lingual interface work for you.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/i18n" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">i18n</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/internationalization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Internationalization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/locale" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">locale</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield Compares Drupal to WordPress</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:24:51 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2011&addr=110609">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>WordPress is a powerful tool and any good web developer would have to confess that. I think Garfield used the perfect word to describe it “cute”. WordPress looks good. It is easy to use and easily available. For simple blogs, and even simple informative sites it’s probably the best choice. But when it comes to raw power WordPress falls into second place. It just can’t compare to Drupal’s flexibility.</p> <p>While WordPress focuses on being a powerful user-friendly interface for blogging and displaying information Drupal has emphasized developer tools and API’s. The best example of this is the new Drupal 7 Fields API. Formerly known as CCK in Drupal 6 it gives Drupal the ability to add new content types and customize those types to represent anything. Pages, events, blog posts, documents, videos are all created quickly through configuration changes. But that’s just the front end. Most importantly the Fields API allows programmers to hook into the core of Drupal and create new and customized types and behaviors.</p> <p>Recently a customer desired a calendar to display upcoming events. Calendars are a common request for organizations that depend on speaking engagements and class schedules but each organization wants different information included in the events. Time, date, location, sponsors, food menu’s, and age requirements are examples of data that may be desired inside an event. It would be easy to place all of this information in one large text area with a WYSIWYG editor but separating the information into individual fields provides for SEO optimization, searching and filtering inside of the site, dynamic visibility of the content. A calendar page will sort added events by date automatically and only display events after the current date. A separate page could be listed with all events targeted at children under 13. In a more static setup these pages would have to be manually added to the separate lists for every new event and old events would have to be manually removed from the list instead of expiring automatically.</p> <p>WordPress contains similar abilities to display dynamic content but without the ease of creating custom fields and behaviors on the fly. When you get a calendar on WordPress you get what some developer needed for his site. Customizing the fields available requires altering or adding php code for each field. Creating new ways to filter and present the data requires similar PHP changes for each display.</p> <p>As a web developer I’ve chosen Drupal because my hands are not tied by the core functionality. Instead the core is an API that equips and enables me to create a site that meats my high standards and my customers expectations.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/wordpress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Wordpress</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/fields-api" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Fields API</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal 7</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/views" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Views</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-vs-wordpress" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal vs. Wordpress</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/why-drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Why Drupal?</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Garfield Teaches Drupal</h1> <p>Daniel Henry — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:11:50 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="garfield-link"><a href="http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=1978&addr=780619">View Garfield Comic</a></div> <p>It’s a reach I know but who doesn’t love an orange cartoon cat with a hatred for Mondays and general attitude towards life. What if this lovable creature knew Drupal and decided to impart his wisdom to us. That is what I would like to explore. I love building websites and I love the challenges presents. Most of all I love teaching those solutions. So with my friend, Garfield, we are going on an adventure to introduce this fantastic tool called Drupal.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/garfield" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Garfield</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-7" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal 7</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/2" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">clients</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-development" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal development</a></div></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>The advantages of Drupal</h1> <p>adrian@clikfocus.com — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:44:46 +0000</p> <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>People wonder why they should use Drupal instead of a completely custom solution. There are many more reasons to use Drupal than can be detailed in a short blog post, but here are a few.</p> <div> </div> <div>Drupal is:</div> <div> </div> <ul><li><strong>Social:</strong> When you choose Drupal, it's easy to add features such as commenting, forums and social networking integrations that would take large amounts of time to build from the ground up. This lets you provide a rich experience for your sites' users from day 1.</li> <li><strong>Search Engine Optimized:</strong> With features like search engine friendly URLs, standards compliant markup and built-in <a href="http://drupal.org/node/1089804">RDF support</a>, Drupal is great for Search Engine Optimization [SEO]. Here at ClikFocus, we take this to the next level by including features like automatically generated sitemaps, meta tag output and automatic path redirection, along with many other improvements. With these optimizations, search engines will find your content quickly, and site visitors will never see a 'page not found' error.</li> <li><strong>Secure:</strong> Because thousands of developers work on Drupal and test it for security flaws, vulnerabilities are quickly identified, fixed and disclosed. There is a dedicated Drupal <a href="http://drupal.org/security-team">Security team</a> that works to resolve security issues, review code, and advise developers. For more information, please see the comprehensive Security White Paper that is available at <a href="http://drupalsecurityreport.org/">drupalsecurityreport.org</a>.</li> <li><strong>Speedy:</strong> When custom software is being built, developers spend a lot of time (and money!) re-inventing the wheel. Need a custom user roles? Done. Caching for quick page loads? Check. Easy theme switch... Well, you get the idea! Using Drupal allows you to focus your resources on what makes your site truly unique and valuable.</li> <li><strong>Shared:</strong> The Drupal community is huge, and grows larger by the day. If you have a question about how to accomplish a task with Drupal, chances are someone has already answered it for you. If you need new functionality added to your site, it's more than likely that a plugin has already been created, saving you time and money instead of creating it from scratch.</li> </ul><div> </div> <div>I'm not saying that Drupal is perfect, but it may just be perfect for your needs!</div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/drupal-development" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Drupal development</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">security</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">social media</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/why-drupal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Why Drupal?</a></div></div></div> </article> </main></body></html>