Build, Buy, or Rent?

A triple-barreled question facing many enterprises today is whether to use an application-building tool or 'framework' to build a content management system (CMS); to buy one of the many out-of-the-box finished products in use by major Web sites; or to simply rent a CMS from an application service provider (ASP) and avoid the headache of running an application server in the enterprise's data center.

Doyle, Bob. EContent (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software

Buyer's Guide to Content-Management Tools

As your sites become more critical and complex, you need tools to automate management--and you need them now. Enter the new generation of Web site content-management products--a seasoned batch of tools and systems ready to help you meet the challenges of the brave new Web world. There's a wide range of products out there, and while they overlap somewhat in functionality, the phrase Web site content management means different things to different people. For some, content management is really asset management--that is, a system to keep track of media assets, such as graphic elements, text and video. More commonly, however, Web site content management refers to a set of integrated tools that helps manage some portion of the whole range of site development and deployment tasks. Although no single product can do everything, many offer deployment/publishing, versioning and rollback, site design and page authoring tools, link checking, access control, change routing and notification, and site-visualization tools among their features.

Hoffman, Richard. Network Computing (2000). Articles>Content Management>Software

Comparing Apples and Oranges to CMS Software

As ridiculous as that may sound many are getting away with doing it. There are many comparisons of open source CMS software that are popping up that are total garbage. The reviewers are comparing CMS systems that are in 5 to 8 different categories and have 4 different sets of requirements. No wonder they are confused and can't make a choice.

Hiveminds (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software

Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal and Plone

Open source content management systems can make creating and managing your website a lot easier - and there's no licensing fee involved. But which should you use? We look carefully at Joomla, Drupal, and Plone to compare their strengths and weaknesses.

Bonfield, Brett and Laura Quinn. IdealWare (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software

Content Management Market Year in Review 2006

The Rockley Group takes a look back at the year 2006 in review. What happened in the CMS market? How is globalization changing the content management landscape? And, what about new communication vehicles like blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS feeds?

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software

Poor Database Design of Drupal Equals Low Performance

Drupal's database design is stupid! it sucks! it is crap! To things clearer I am talking about design errors. Yes, they do exist. Some say that design errors are the basic cause of bugs in a system. They are right. Rather than go through a bunch of queries or rather hundreds of queries, I will just say that the database design has no relational qualities that would optimize and speed up the system what so ever. This a glaring whole in the knowledge of the Development team so if you are a joiner and want to contribute to the project then think about helping them out with the database design first.

Drupal (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal

Drupal Has Terrible Access Control

After a week of fighting with it I have come to the conclusion that Drupal access control modules are all inadequate and are based on some weak database design. Taxonomy access and node access are flawed from the start. This type of access control where the assets are assigning their own internal security is not scalable and suffers from very high database overhead.

Hiveminds (2005). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal

A Few Good RSVP Tools: Online Registration Options for Free Events

When you're planning a free event, it's hard to justify paying a lot of money for online registration software--but email or Evite can be frustrating. Happily, other choices exist. We talked to seven nonprofit technology experts about useful and affordable (or free!) options for collecting RSVPs for free events.

IdealWare (2006). Articles>Project Management>Software

Getting Started with Blogging Software

We reviewed and compared the seven tools most frequently used to create a blog. Which are easiest to get up and running, or to tailor to match your site? Which has the best comment moderation features? Reporting functionality? We'll give you all the details and recommend a tool for you.

IdealWare (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software>Blogging

Is it Time to Upgrade?

How many times has a vendor’s help desk operator told you that the solution to a problem is either an upgrade or a patch? Those of us in the IT industry are familiar with this reply because that’s the advice our own helpdesk operators tell our customers. If corporate profits depend on improving product design, and selling upgrades, there is no profit in supporting old software and creating patches. The profit is in selling new and improved products. Some questions you need to consider before buying a software upgrade.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Management>Software

Knowledge Discovery: New Ground, New Challenges

Before taking the challenge of handling information efficiently head on, automated programs for Knowlege Discovery and data analysis have to prove their worth by providing easy-to-use tools for everyday use.

Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Knowledge Management>Assessment>Software

No Small Task: Migrating Content to a New CMS

Content migrations are often the dirty little secret that folks in the CMS world like to avoid. It’s hard, it’s messy and very few organizations do it well. Truth be told, the content migration can often be the hardest part of implementing a new CMS.

Short, Kyle. CMSwire (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software

The Ockham's Razor Principle of Content Management Systems

Unless we manage to make Drupal more accessible to new users and to get back to the basics, we'll find the ground shifting beneath our feet.

Buytaert, Dries. Poynter Online (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software>Drupal

Open-Source Content Management Systems

Open-source CMS has now matured to the point where it should be considered alongside commercial products, but is not without its weaknesses and issues.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

The Right and Wrong of Quark and Adobe Strategies

What distinguishes the underlying strategies of Adobe InDesign from QuarkXPress is the absence or presence of a content management system (CMS). And each company asserts that it’s following the less-traveled road. The problem is they’re both taking roads most traveled because of their respective stances towards integrated content management systems, and I’ll show you how after looking at their respective strategies.

Kuhnen, Eric. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Document Design>Software>Content Management

Running with "KEDS": Document Control in Lotus Notes  

Many companies have faced the challenge of putting their policy and procedure documents online, usually in a network or Intranet. KEMET Electronics Corporation had the extra hurdle of achieving complete document control online, The solution is a program cal!ed 'KEDS' (KEMET Electronic Document System).

Ries, Ken. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Content Management>Software

Software for Building a Full-Featured Discipline-Based Web Portal

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Internet Scout Project [1] received funding in the fall of 2000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation [2] to build an open source software package that would allow collection developers to share their collection's metadata via the web. The resulting software, the Scout Portal Toolkit (SPT), is virtually turnkey, very inexpensive to maintain and operate, and easy for non-technical staff to download, set up and populate with metadata. Conforming to international standards for metadata, data harvesting, and Web technology makes SPT useful for and usable by a wide variety of projects and organizations, allowing and encouraging collaboration and record sharing among projects. Over the SPT project's two-year period, beta testers and in-house quality assurance testing provided valuable feedback, helping to ensure that the software was robust, easy to use, and well-suited to the needs of the intended audience.

Almasy, Edward, David Sleasman and Rachael Bower. D-Lib Magazine (2002). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Software

Tools for Authoring Knowledge Products

Authoring tools are used to create and integrate the components of knowledge products. They include tools used by designers, writers, editors, artists, animators, photographers, videographers, and others involved in producing knowledge products.

Horton, William K. III and Katherine W. Horton. Indus (2002). Articles>Knowledge Management>Software

Using WordPress to Build Websites Instead of Blogs

One of the things I like about WordPress is its versatility. WordPress isn’t just blogging software. With the right theme, you can build a website that doesn’t resemble a blog at all. Essentially, writers who become familiar with WordPress become empowered as web designers as well.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software

WebWorks Publisher: Jumping into the Details  

Desprez illuminates some of the advanced features of Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher, a software package that allows single-sourcing from Adobe FrameMaker to online documents. For a discussion of WebWorks tailored to beginners, see Wendy G. Beren's article 'WebWorks Publisher: Can It Convert You?'

Desprez, Robert R. Intercom (2001). Articles>Content Management>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Developers as Users of SharePoint

In SharePoint, we are likely to think of developers as people who work to customise SharePoint, but there are a lot of developers out there who are simply end users of SharePoint. How do they like the system?

Technical Writer (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software>Microsoft SharePoint

Joomla: Another Simple Content Management System

Joomla is more complex than WordPress but it has more power. Because it’s a real content management system—unlike WordPress which is a blog with content management capabilities—you don’t have to customise it to make it look like one. Other people have also created templates you can use.

Technical Writer (2007). Articles>Content Management>Software