With the help of a handy-dandy view I created, I've managed to weed out the duplicate syndicated blog posts at long last. I'm also working on rearranging the existing forum posts into group-specific forums (any that don't have existing groups have been dumped in Welcome for now), and the former TeaParty Guts topics will be converted into casetracker cases - after my headache goes away :( For now I really need a nap.
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I'm not really one for titles...
Random predictions for the future!
I've been having quite a bit of fun researching silly little things lately. Like Real Estate prices in different parts of North America and using ex-shipping containers in housing projects. Also, how wealth is created and destroyed in general. I find it fascinating how many areas there are that once were economically prosperous but now have huge amounts of abandoned housing, such as large parts of Michigan. There are even places in Florida and New York that are incredibly cheap due to the bad influences that abandoned housing tends to create. I wonder how long it will be until all of the urban land... yes, I mean all of it, is used. Urban sprawl can't spread on forever.
I find it fascinating just how valuable land in urban Alberta has become. Most sites I checked state two major factors. Firstly, $70 a barrel Oil, secondly Alberta is the only province without PST. Alberta still has lots of open land, it doesn't make a ton of sense in my mind that Oil extraction should boost housing prices in Fort McMurray as substantially as it has. Also, why are housing prices in Edmonton being strongly affected? Are there really that many people interested in a five hour commute to work?
Anyway, there are two underlying factors that affect the price of houses... and everything else for that matter. The cost of the labour involved and the cost of the materials.
I'm not really one for titles...
Random predictions for the future!
I've been having quite a bit of fun researching silly little things lately. Like Real Estate prices in different parts of North America and using ex-shipping containers in housing projects. Also, how wealth is created and destroyed in general. I find it fascinating how many areas there are that once were economically prosperous but now have huge amounts of abandoned housing, such as large parts of Michigan. There are even places in Florida and New York that are incredibly cheap due to the bad influences that abandoned housing tends to create. I wonder how long it will be until all of the urban land... yes, I mean all of it, is used. Urban sprawl can't spread on forever.
I find it fascinating just how valuable land in urban Alberta has become. Most sites I checked state two major factors. Firstly, $70 a barrel Oil, secondly Alberta is the only province without PST. Alberta still has lots of open land, it doesn't make a ton of sense in my mind that Oil extraction should boost housing prices in Fort McMurray as substantially as it has. Also, why are housing prices in Edmonton being strongly affected? Are there really that many people interested in a five hour commute to work?
Anyway, there are two underlying factors that affect the price of houses... and everything else for that matter. The cost of the labour involved and the cost of the materials.
New York Observer - a newspaper site
The New York Observer, a prominent New York City newspaper, has relaunched its web site using Drupal. The site features a gorgeous theme which pays careful attention to typography and whitespace. The Drupal craftsmen, Moshe Weitzman and Barry Jaspan, want to share a few of their innovative techniques with the Drupal community.
Home Page and Channel Pages
The Observer site centers around its Home page and Channel pages. Each Channel page covers a major topic: Politics, Media, The City, etc., while the Home page of course covers the most important articles from all Channels. Just as with their print newspaper, the Observer has a team of professional editors that choose very carefully just how they want the Home and Channel pages to look. They decide exactly which articles go in each slot on the page, they custom-crop the article's lead image for aspect ratio employed in that location, and so forth.
Furthermore, the editors need to be able to create these precisely defined Home and Channel pages in advance, preview how they will look when published, and schedule them to be published in the future. For example, each Tuesday, they gather their new content, make editorial decisions about what to publish, and prepare the new version of the site all to be published simultaneously early Wenesday morning. They also release weekend editions which the editors create on Friday.
FrOSCon 2007 Sankt Augustin, Germany
August 25-26, 2007, Sankt Augustin, Germany FrOSCon is a two-day conference that focuses on open source software of all stripes. This year there will be a dedicated Drupal track with one lecture room and one hacker room for the duration of the conference. Located in the quiet town of Sankt Augustin outside of Bonn, Germany, this will be the largest Drupal conference to be held in Germany so far. The call for speakers is now open, and people interested in presenting can apply at http://cfp.froscon.org (you must register, log in, and then create an event in the Drupal track). Presentations can be in English or German. For people wishing to attend, there will be a 5 Euro entrance fee. Pre-registration will be possible shortly. More further announcements and discussion will be found in the FrOSCon Germany 2007 group.
FrOSCon 2007 Sankt Augustin, Germany
August 25-26, 2007, Sankt Augustin, Germany FrOSCon is a two-day conference that focuses on open source software of all stripes. This year there will be a dedicated Drupal track with one lecture room and one hacker room for the duration of the conference. Located in the quiet town of Sankt Augustin outside of Bonn, Germany, this will be the largest Drupal conference to be held in Germany so far. The call for speakers is now open, and people interested in presenting can apply at http://cfp.froscon.org (you must register, log in, and then create an event in the Drupal track). Presentations can be in English or German. For people wishing to attend, there will be a 5 Euro entrance fee. Pre-registration will be possible shortly. More further announcements and discussion will be found in the FrOSCon Germany 2007 group.
Drupal 6 usability suggestions?
The Drupal 6 status update has spawned a very long thread with suggestions on how to improve the usability of Drupal. I figured I'd open up the discussion and let people post their favorite suggestions for usability improvements and aggregate them in a new thread. (Crazy strategy, I know.)
Personally, I'm mostly interested in the kind of suggestions that can still make it into Drupal 6 with the help of an aspiring developer. Many of our expert developers are already super-busy working on other improvements so let's try to come up with "simple" improvements that might inspire new developers to get their hands dirty and contribute to core.
So let's focus on smaller improvements rather than legendary tasks such as improved image handling or a full-blown WYSIWYG editor. Yes, we've heard you but it might not be the best strategy to focus on these big tasks now. Let's involve more people, and coach them to become experts that can help take on bigger tasks in future. And at the same time, let's aim to get some additional usability improvements into Drupal 6. (That doesn't imply that the bigger improvements can't make it into Drupal 6.)
And me? I'll promise to review and test your patches!
Drupal 6 usability suggestions?
The Drupal 6 status update has spawned a very long thread with suggestions on how to improve the usability of Drupal. I figured I'd open up the discussion and let people post their favorite suggestions for usability improvements and aggregate them in a new thread. (Crazy strategy, I know.)
Personally, I'm mostly interested in the kind of suggestions that can still make it into Drupal 6 with the help of an aspiring developer. Many of our expert developers are already super-busy working on other improvements so let's try to come up with "simple" improvements that might inspire new developers to get their hands dirty and contribute to core.
So let's focus on smaller improvements rather than legendary tasks such as improved image handling or a full-blown WYSIWYG editor. Yes, we've heard you but it might not be the best strategy to focus on these big tasks now. Let's involve more people, and coach them to become experts that can help take on bigger tasks in future. And at the same time, let's aim to get some additional usability improvements into Drupal 6. (That doesn't imply that the bigger improvements can't make it into Drupal 6.)
And me? I'll promise to review and test your patches!
Drupal 6: status update
It's been a while since we provided a status update. And because not all of you are subscribed to the development mailing list or keep track of the issue queue, I figured a quick status update would be in order. Here is a list of some of the key features that already made it into the development version of Drupal and that will be part of the final Drupal 6 release:
Drupal 6: status update
It's been a while since we provided a status update. And because not all of you are subscribed to the development mailing list or keep track of the issue queue, I figured a quick status update would be in order. Here is a list of some of the key features that already made it into the development version of Drupal and that will be part of the final Drupal 6 release: