Bryan Ruby

I'm sitting in a CMS Expo session on search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the descriptive term used by marketers to describe the process of luring traffic to your site by improving your position in search engine indexes.

I'm sitting on a session that is geared toward content users working with SilverStripe. John Gregg, SilverStripe Training and Quality Manager, is heading this session. There isn't much new for me in this session, but it has been awhile since I looked at the SilverStripe author user interface. At times, I have considered SilverStripe's UI better than WordPress and thought this session would be a good chance to take a fresh look at the interface/workflow.

This session explains how simple it is to create content for your SilverStripe site. Learn how easy it is for content authors to create various page types, add structure, and upload files or images.

I'm sitting here in the first session of CMS Expo. I've chosen the track that included the TYPO3 Overview session because TYPO3 is one of the few content management systems at the conference I know little about. Yes, I've heard the name TYPO3 but that is about the CMS. Benni Mack, Release Manager for TYPO3 version 4.4, is speaking. I don't know if you can consider this blogging "live" but I'll update the past as the session goes on.

TYPO3 is a mature, enterprise-level, open-source content management system that has been actively developed for ten years. There are currently over 500,000 installations of TYPO3 worldwide. TYPO3 has over 4000 freely available extensions, has been translated into over 30 languages, and is actively being developed in a community of over 100,000 users. The TYPO3 package has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from Sourceforge and is used by enterprise-level organizations worldwide.

Notable remarks presented in this session:

• TYPO3 is marketed as "THE enterprise CMS in Europe". Forty percent of municipalities in the Netherlands use TYPO3. This CMS is really big in Europe. I hope to ask why they are having a difficult time breaking into the United States market.
• Element-based CMS that sits on PHP and runs on mySQL (and other databases).. Effective Image Manipulation, Flexible Content Elements (Drupal and other CMS users may know this as CCK).
• TYPO3 is completely community driven with backing. TYPO3 released under GPLv2 in 2003 and TYPO3 Association in Switzerland in 2004.
• TYPO3 has a core...with an extension system. Benni has a sign on his slide with "Warning: It's real open source". However, core is definately stable and most extensions work. Extensions can also be installed by one click from typoe3.org. Something we're finally seeing more and more in other open source CMS.
• Media assets handled in some in core, but there is a host of extensions that can handle the variety of multimedia as well as manage it.
• TYPO3 is good in "complicated setups" found in the enterprise. TYPO3 is good for long life cycles found in the enterprise. 

I asked the question on there thought about the limited size of the TYPO3 community here in the United States. Both speaker and an audience member says TYPO3 has started to really push their presence in the US in the past couple years. This CMS is just waiting for its moment to be seen as the platform choice for a larger Web site.

It was five years ago that I posted in programmer tradition at CMS Report, "hello world". At the time, I expected CMSReport.com to be around for only a couple years which was more than enough time for it to fulfill my purpose. At the time, I had an academic interest in information systems and found that Web-based content management systems were a nice way to put theoretical ideas into practical know-how. This site focused on content management systems in hopes of meeting the few other people out there that shared my interests in CMS.

In that first post, I actually wrote more than "hello world". The full title of the article was "Hello World, New Version". The phrase "new version" was in reference to CMSReport.com not being the first site I created to focus on the CMS.  A couple years earlier, I had tried to start up a website called WebCMS Forum. The online forum was intended to be a "place for those with a passion for web-based applications such as portals, blogs, and forums". I spent a lot of time and money on that site, but in the end few visitors joined in as members to talk about content management systems with me. If Twitter had existed back then I would have easily tweeted "WebCMS Forum RIP #failed".

Looking back at it now, I'm convinced CMS Report is a success because of my experience from failing so miserably with WebCMS Forum. Previously, I had tried to build a site for others to express their passion and obsession for their favorite content management systems. Here at CMSReport.com, I took the opposite approach and built the site for the sole purpose to talk about my passion for content management systems. It was a crazy idea to put my opinions at the center of CMS discussions as even now I do not consider myself an expert in content management systems. It was only by circumstance that I later realized people are attracted to other passionate people that ask questions and are willing to go at great lengths to find the answers. If you're looking for the facts you go to Wikipedia but if you're also looking for great discussion from people asking the same questions as you are; it is the blogs you seek.

Everett Griffiths recently wrote a comparison between WordPress and MODx over at TipsFor.US. In the article he walks the reader through various CMS comparison factors such as installation, templating, menus, plugins, architecture, custom content, security, and support. This comparison specifically focuses on WordPress 3.1 and MODx Revolution.

Everett writes:

I received an email earlier today introducing me to Foswiki. This free and open source wiki is a fork that began in late 2008 of another wiki you may know by the name of TWiki. Foswiki is positioning itself as the ideal collaboration tool for your project , team or business.

The sender of the email also wanted me to bring attention on the fact that Foswiki 1.1.3 has been released recently. Foswiki 1.1.3 is a release that adds more than 150 bug fixes and improvements making it better than the already stable 1.1.2. Upgrade package is available for upgrading from any earlier 1.1.X version to 1.1.2.

Some of the improvements in this version of Foswiki include:

• Facelift of the history user interface
• Update to the Wysiwyg editor TinyMCE to 3.3.9.3 and further improvements of the Wysiwyg editor has been made
• Improvement of the UI for managing webs
• Default jQuery is now 1.4.3. JQueryPlugin’s form plugin form is upgraded to 2.49 and jquery-ui is upgraded to 1.8
• Fixes in the access controls for renaming attachments
  

Version 6.0.3 of ocPortal was released over the weekend. This version is a patch release that introduces a number of bug fixes since the last release. Although the focus of this release is to fix software bugs, there are some new feature included in this latest release.

New features included in ocPortal 6.0.3 are:

"The more I learn about Enterprise 2.0, the more inclined I am to encourage companies to throw caution to the wind: buy (or build) some well-designed lightweight tools that take advantage of emergence and game mechanics, find a few leaders willing to lead by example, and go live."

- Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0 the Indian Way,  AndrewMcAfee.org, April 7, 2011.

For the blogger, the most difficult day of the year has to be April Fools' Day. This is the day where jokes are played and stories are made  up. Computer geeks and CMS junkies easily get into the spirit of this celebrated day by pulling all kinds of online pranks. One of my fondest April Fools memories is from 2007 when the official Japanese and Russian Drupal sites migrated for a day from the Drupal CMS over to Joomla!. Good times, good times. The folks over at ocProducts have gotten into the 2011 April Fools spirit by announcing ocPortal 7 with HTML6.

I need your help! Please help me keep track of all the CMS related April Fools' stories that you find online.  Please feel free to add to my list by of content management pranks via a comment below or through Twitter. If you prefer to tweet the story instead I suggest we start using the Twitter hashtag: #aprilfoolscms.

List of Fake Content Management Stories on April Fools Day 2011

1. ocPortal - ocProducts announces ocPortal 7 with HTML6
2. Drupal - Announcing CertifiedToSUCK.com
3. TYPO3 - New paradigm for TYPO3 4.6 development
4. Drupal - Announcing the Drupal Retail Store
5. Joomla - Joomla Templates from YOOtheme
6. Real Story Group  - No more content management
7. Sharpened.net - The End of the Keyboard and Mouse
8. IBM developerWorks - Scrum Alliance 2.0
9. CMS Made Simple - Intuit Announces Acquisition of CMS Made Simple
10. Enano - Enano merges with Joomla!
11. EpiServer - EPiFAX 1.0 Released
12. Plone - Plone Announces New Release Naming Scheme Effective April 1

Mark Jaquith, a lead developer for Wordpress, recently posted on a WordPress developer's blog the plans for WordPress 3.2.  Below are some of the changes and features Jaquith says will be on this new version of WordPress that caught my eye. My personal comments gave been added to the side.