Introduction to Web Content Management Systems: Part One

Content Management System (CMS) software tools give even the smallest business the chance to have a first-rate, interactive web presence. Packed with powerful features, and easily extended with add-on modules, CMS tools reduce web site development time and costs while providing interactivity, distributed responsibility, security, convenience and significant cost savings.

Kephart, Tom. New Tech Heroes (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Looking for Open Source CMS and Portal Software Options

I find choosing a CMS incredibly difficult, and evaluating them is very time consuming and often frustrating. There are hundreds of options, one worse than the other. To date I have never come across a CMS that doesn’t have serious flaws. Even if a CMS looks good at a glance, once you start digging deeper you will always encounter problems with usability, accessibility, and front-end code.

Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Open Source Practices and Technical Communication Programs  

Structural differences among different resource formats impede efforts to develop a learning community. With OSS, education issues/critique include media, medium, and message. OSS complicates framework issues.

Faber, Brent and Johndan Johnson-Eilola. Clarkson University (2002). Presentations>TC>Open Source

Eight Arguments for Open Source

Is Open Source better? It's not a black and white question; the answer will depend on your needs and circumstances. Still, there are some very good things to be said for supporting Open Source and Open Standards. Here's a list of the top reasons why we prefer Open Standards and Open Source development.

Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2004). Articles>Software>Open Source>Business Case

Changing the Way We Work

The CMS market really took wing with the liftoff of the LAMP stack and the growth of a supportive development community. Suddenly it seemed everyone was producing LAMP-based CMSes under Open Source licenses.

Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2006). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Ready for the Enterprise?

A quick look at ten Open Source Content Management Systems which are beginning to find their way inside Enterprise IT Departments.

Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2006). Articles>Content Management>Open Source>Workplace

Microsoft Word: An Unnecessary Evil?

First and foremost, Microsoft Word is a solid piece of software, and the 2007 version is untouchable at present. It pretty much sets the standard. It's also in no way evil in and of itself. That said, it's unfortunately not free, so here are some alternatives that are.

MattBarton.net (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Open Source

Introduction to Django: Helping Perfectionists With Deadlines

Django is an open-source Web framework, written in Python, that allows you to easily and rapidly develop interactive, data-centric web applications. It came into being when two Web developers—Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison—in Kansas, after moving their newspaper’s website from PHP to Python, found themselves repeatedly solving similar problems. They decided to extract the common functionality and released the resulting framework in 2005.

Ellis, Dan. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Software>Open Source

Creating Quality Content with Open Source Tools  

The detailed notes for the presentation on creating quality content with Open Source tools that was given at DocTrain East 2008 (Oct. 31, 2008).

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2008). Presentations>Technology>Open Source>Technical Writing

Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone

Open source content management systems (CMS) are particularly attractive to the nonprofit community because of their cost-efficiency, but what do these systems actually do? And what are the differences between the most common CMSs? We’ll compare Joomla, Drupal, and Plone for typical nonprofit needs.

Quinn, Laura S., Ryan Ozimek, David Geilhufe and Patrick Shaw. NTEN (2007). Presentations>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Six Strategies for Low-Cost Content Management

Although Gartner says software licensing for basic content services can cost less than US$100 per user for large volume deals, requirements for extra functions will increase the initial software costs if content management components are not included. How do you set aside enough money to solve the initial ECM pain points and create a strategy for the future? We asked the experts for some ideas.

Schick, Shane. IT World Canada (2008). Articles>Content Management>Open Source

It's Possible to Ditch Microsoft Office

Is today's OpenOffice good enough for the enterprise? For most jobs—word processing, presentations or spreadsheets—the answer is yes. Compatibility with Microsoft Office isn't a problem unless sophisticated macros are involved. Interoperability, the greatest hurdle to conquer on the way to adoption, is almost a nonissue. OpenOffice even offers features missing in Microsoft Office, like PDF or Flash data exports.

Ciurana, Eugene. ComputerWorld (2004). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Open Source

Making A Better CMS

This whole category of software desperately needs to be redesigned with writers, editors, designers, and site owners in mind. Here are my recommendations to the folks writing open source content management systems.

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

The Content Management Dilemna: Good Time to Revisit the Open Source CMS

Open source delivers on the basics. The move to Plone delivered on the basic value proposition of open source: we got a very sturdy platform that worked well for our editors and didn't have to pay a dime in license fees.

Donahue, Henry. Folio (2008). Articles>Content Management>Open Source>Plone

Eclipse: Don't Get Left in the Dark    

Offers a detailed look at Eclipse—an open-source integrated development environment—and also discusses why it is becoming increasingly important to technical communicators in the software industry.

Lorente, Fei Min. Intercom (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Open Source

The Emergence of Intelligent Content: The Evolution of Open Content Technologies and Their Significance  

This paper traces the history of open content technologies in an effort to understand the nature and significance of intelligent content. What is illustrated is that a common thread runs through SGML, HTML, XML, Web 2.0, the Semantic Web, DITA, and OOXML and that the evolution of open content technologies has enabled the emergence of intelligent content and with it a new form of organizational agility. This whitepaper has been prepared as a corollary to the presentation “Content Fusion: There’s a Piece of Data Lodged in my Document” at Intelligent Content 2009, Palm Springs CA, January 29-30, 2009.

Gollner, Joe. Rockley Group, The (2009). Articles>Publishing>Online>Open Source

Getting Tech Writers Involved in FLOSS

I commented that many tech writers aren't interested in doing more tech writing in their spare time, but might be interested if doing so can help them professionally. In particular, folks coming into the field, either out of school or as career changers, need writing samples for their portfolio to show to prospective employers.

Swisher, Janet. Techie Tech Writer Blog, A (2009). Articles>Documentation>Professionalism>Open Source

FLOSS Manuals Sprints to Build Quality Free Documentation

Documentation is one area in which free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) is weakest. A project called FLOSS Manuals is trying to remedy this situation. The idea behind project is to create quality, free documentation for free software.

Nesbitt, Scott. Linux.com (2008). Articles>Documentation>Open Source>Writing

On Collaboration

Openness is a faster route to better work. There are lots of ways of doing it, but I do think that as much as they pretend pure openness, successful OS projects all have hierarchy.

Mandiberg, Michael. Mandiberg.com (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Technical Writing>Open Source

Top 3 Open Source Software You Can Use to Write and Design Technical Documents

Although I love using the proprietary software that I’ve mentioned in the first sentence, I enjoy using open source software as well since some of them are actually better than the paid software in some respects.

Akinci, Ugur. Technical Communication Center (2009). Articles>Software>Technical Writing>Open Source

Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone  

In this report, we take a look at four different open source Content Management Systems—WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone—and rate them on a variety of criteria, including system flexibility, features, ease of use and the availability of support. We chose these systems because they’re the most popular four in the nonprofit sector today, according to our analysis (see Appendix C for more details on our market analysis). We also dig a little deeper into what open source is all about, and how a CMS can help streamline processes. We even take a look at some vendor-provided systems, along with a few other open source ones, in case you don’t find what you’re looking for among the four original choices.

Murrain, Michelle, Laura Quinn and Maggie Starvish. Idealware (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Open Source

Open Source Alternatives To Tech Pubs Tools

Given how hard it is for students (and their programs) to afford the expensive tools in our profession, I thought it might help to pass along these alternatives to commercial products. I think anyone breaking into the field (or a new type of tool) would do very well to train up on these open source tools and create portfolio pieces with them.

STC Austin (2009). Articles>Document Design>Software>Open Source

Alfresco Is Not A Picnic: The Problem With Metaphors and Content Management Systems

In the content management system I currently use, I’ve noticed no less than nine metaphors, which are meant serve as organizing principles, but they don’t. Granted, the particular tool I use isn’t really meant for gobs and gobs of editorial work, but nonetheless its organization and structure were likely created by a developer within arm’s reach of a bottle of tequila.

Bochman, Felice. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>Open Source>Alfresco

OSCOM: Open Source Content Management

OSCOM is the international association connecting users and developers of Open Source Content Management solutions. OSCOM organizes events, promotes standards and undertakes projects to further the state of the art of Open Source Content Management. OSCOM promotes Open Source Content Management solutions as powerful, affordable and flexible replacements for proprietary products.

OSCOM. Organizations>Content Management>Open Source

Open Source: It's Just a License

There's only one thing you can generalize: open source is a specific kind of license. And discussions about which license is better are rather academic. What you'd want to decide on is what your software should do, if and how you want to customize it, and how easy it is to get support when you need it. That means doing your homework, and finding out the real story: you'll certainly want to know what's behind the facade. And that's something that applies to software under any license.

Bloem, Adriaan. CMSwatch (2009). Articles>Software>Open Source