With the increasing of work in progress on our plate, we have to deal with more contractor to do part or the work. Usually the contractor work on completion task that already done by our team.

With the growing list of contractor, we have to deliver each new task without too much emailing and everyone can see those task for their reference. I want something robust, simple and easy to install in our web server.

We choose OpenAtrium, a Drupal based intranet application. OpenAtrium is not specifically for project management, but the OpenAtrium workflow can be adopted into a project management software. Here’s how I am using OpenAtrium as project management with the team.

Each team has it’s own group. This gives me a free control of each member within the groups.

In the groups we use the case tracker module to create project discussions, revisions and task. Each project has it’s own project description, project manager write the task and everyone job description in the projects. We are using case tracker for tracking revisions, additional request by clients and task reporting. With the notification system, everyone are aware of the project progress.

The other module that are important to Project Management is Document and Calendar module. We used Document module for write a how to or clients informations. Calendar module is to mark project deadlines.

The other modules, such as Blog and Shoutbox, is for sharing and communicating. It’s not a core module of project management, but it’s pretty useful for sharing contents between team members.

For us, OpenAtrium is a great web application for project management. More room can be improved to make it better. Currently there are no RSS feed for each group alternative notification system. The dashboard need user interaction improvement, sometimes I get lost track of conversation in tracker, because if I visit a link from dashboard it will displayed the single tracker not the whole conversation. As a Drupal based application, OpenAtrium doesn’t have rich text editor. For tech savvy users who is familiar with Markdown syntax is not a big problem, but for average user a rich text editor is a mandatory, although it can be additionally installed.

My favorite is when the guy ran “out of my way! FREAK!”. I think this is a very nice ads, it’s explain Cliq’s main features.

Ken Segall blog

Very interesting blog from the person who invented iMac word.

MockingBird, wireframe made easy

MockingBird is a clean and well done web app for wireframe creation. The app is load fast and the interface is very clean, nothing will distract you from creating wireframe mockup.

35 Adorable Monster and Creature Digital Arts and Walls

Collection of walls and digital arts with cute, bizarre, weird character design from various websites.

iClooly AlumniStand Animation

Wanna see big head Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, watch this! Preety funny animation and nice motion capture technique.

When the first time creating Textpattern template using template export/import plugins is a quick way to doit, but how about when you want to edit small portion of one of your template form? It’s sounds like importing everything isn’t a smart solution, and also you have to mangle with FTP to upload your templates after testing it in your localhost.

Editing inside unformated text area in any browser is PITA, these are a how to edit any textarea in Safari or Firefox with your favorite editor with Textpattern as case study.

The Easy Way for Safari

As you may know, in order to edit the template you have to deal with those horrible unformatted template tags. Those age are over, HogBay Software released a nifty little menu bar application called QuickCursor. Every time you are on a text area, just hit the shortcut of your favorite editor, mine is Textmate. And then your Texpattern tags will be transferred to your text editor. When you are done editing, save it, the changes will be applied to the text area in Safari. Then press the save button on Safari, and your new codes will be ready to test or see.

Another Easy way for Firefox

Safari is not everyones favorite, despite all its features. Most of us choose firefox because it’s fat with additional features. One of the additional fat, lets call it addons before someone get angry, has the same function as QuickCursor. The addon name is It’s All Text (IAT).

In order to use your favorite editor, you have to make a Shell Script for IAT to command. Here’s how.

Open up Textmate, insert this code into new document.

 #!/bin/sh
 # This is an example shell script for It's All Text!
 open -a /Applications/TextMate.app "$@"

Save the code as .iat.sh, note the “dot”. I want the files to be hidden, I don’t want my home get messy, and also if it’s not hidden it can be deleted accidentally.

Now open IAT preference in Firefox, input ~/.iat.sh in the Editor form.

That’s it, that’s how to configure Firefox in order to use your favorite editor to edit textarea or write you blog entry using this method, just like I am now.

I am happy to announce a release update of Lontar Icon Social Site Edition. This icons is part of the set of Lontar Icons Blog Edition. I hope you enjoy the free icons, feel free to use it for personal or commercial purpose.

Looking for more icons for you next project? Take a look at Lontar Icon Blog Edition, it contains substantial icons for blog or simple websites.

Textpattern is a very flexible CMS, but like any other CMS there’s always in the need of plugins. Texpattern has a large community, although not as large as Wordpress. There are severals Textpattern plugins that are really matters to me. Here are the list.

1. ajw_comment_feed

Provide RSS feed for comments for visitor. Your readers can subscribe to the post discussion, great plugin to increase page views.

2. ako_social

Display social sites icons for your site.

3. cbs_gravatar

Display gravatar avatar for commenter, nothing else nothing more.

<txp:cbs_gravatar size="48" alt="gravatar" class="gravatar" link="true"/>

4. hcg_templates

This is the most useful plugin. Textpattern default template system is using database and inline forms, thus makes creating templates a lot harder than actual files. With hcg_templates, you can export and import your templates. Imported templates will applied to your site template instantly.

This plugins seem to dead, the author website has beed suspended and couldn’t find it in Textpattern plugins site either. I have version 0.3, it’s still working in Textpattern 4.2. Send me email if you want hcg_template plugin.

mcw_templates is the new plugin for templates manegement, yet i haven’t tried it.

5. htn_feedstats

One of bloggers friends, the plugin only purpose is to display your feedburner subscriber stat. The plugin support caching, it will not overload your server request.

<txp:htn_ _feedstats name="feedburnerid" cachefile="http://www.yourdomain.com/files/feedcache.txt" />

The output will be ### readers (### subscribe stat). The plugin need feedcache.txt in your files/ directory and chmod it to 777.

6. mrw_spamkeywords_urlcount

Smart anti spam plugins, its records words and URL that used by spambot or spammers. With this plugins, 99% spams are terminated and I can sleep at night without worried to delete all those spams in the morning.

The plugin doesn’t need any tags, it just works after activation.

7. pvc_users_info

What Textpattern lacks is user information. With pvc_user_info you can display users information, such as bio, avatar, real name, personal sites in your blog or sites. See below the post for the example.

My txp tag is looks like this.

<div class="authorprofile">
        <txp:pvc_author_image class="avatar"/>
        <div class="name"><txp:pvc_author_firstname /></div>
        <div class="web"><txp:pvc_author_web /></div>
        <div class="bio"><txp:pvc_author_bio /></div>
    </div>

After activation you will see new sub menu in Admin > User Profiles.

8. rah_htmlile_bar

This is more for non techie writer, will help you write htmlile faster by clicking the toolbar on the write page.

9. rss_admin_db_manager

Backup is important task. With this plugins, you can backup your Textpattern database saved in your server, or import database. Really great plug-ins.

10. rss_admin_show_adv_opt

I am using custome field fan. Custom field are located in Advance panel, by default it’s hidden. With this plugin, the Advance panel will automatically displayed. Saves one click per post.

If you use Texpattern 4.0.2, this plugin is deprecated.

11. rss_live_search

This one is my favorite. Gives your Textpattern live search using Ajax. The looks of the search query customizable by CSS.

Here’s my txp tag.

<txp:rss_live_search max="10" inputsize="35" label=""/>

And, here’s CSS to skin the live search result.

.sidebarRow #livesearch {
    color: #fff;
    background-image: url(../siteimg/bg_input.png);
    border: 1px solid #231e10;
    height: 24px;
    -webkit-border-radius:6px;
    -moz-border-radius:6px;
    font: bold 10pt Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;
    width: 330px; 
}
#LSShadow {
    z-index: 2;
    position: absolute;
    color: #fff; width: 310px;
    font: bold 10pt Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;
    margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 5px;
    background: #352c27;
    padding: 5px 10px;
    border: 1px solid #231e10;
    border-top-style: solid;
    border-top-color: #231e10;
    opacity: 0.91;
    html-shadow: #000000 0px 1px 0px;
}
.LSRow, #LSHeader{
    line-height: 2em;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #493d3c;
}
.LSRow a {
    display: block;
    padding: 0px 10px;
}
.LSRow a:hover {
    background-color: #1b294d;
}

12. SimplePie Plugin

Aggregate other site RSS feed into your Textpattern site. I use this for @zeusbox twitter stream and our graphic river items.

<txp:feed items="1" showdesc="false" showtitle="false" error="Cannot Connect to Twitter" showdate="M.d g:h a">http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/635683.rss</txp:feed>

13. tru_tags

Tagging or keywords is available on Textpattern default installation, with tru_tags your used tags will displayed under keywords input. Very convenient if you rely on tag system in your blog or site.

14. zem_contact_reborn & zem_contact_lang

Every site need a contact form, and zem_contact_reborn is one of the most popular plugin for contact form. It’s because it packed with great features, such as customizable input, anty spam prevention system and also easy to use. The plugin need zem_contact_lang to work.

Here is the tags on our contact page.

          <txp:zem_contact to="email@address.com" label="Email us">
              <txp:zem_contact_html label="name" min=3/><br />
             <txp:zem_contact_email label="email"/><br />
             <txp:zem_contact_select label="Subject" list="Replacement icon request, Project inquiry, Questions, Supporting message, Other" /><br /><br />
             <txp:zem_contact_htmlarea label="Your Message" /><br />
             <txp:zem_contact_checkbox label="Check this box if you are a human" /><br />
             <txp:zem_contact_submit label="Send" />
         </txp:zem_contact>

What’s your the most essential Textpattern plugins?