I was a huge fan of Amy Stephen's Open Source Community.  The site's mission was built on a desire to be a "place for those of us interested in open source solutions and community issues".  OSC shared a similar goal of mine in which I have a strong desire to bring people together from competing Web CMS projects, products, and organizations and compare perspectives (though I have interest in propriety systems as well as open source).  Unfortunately OSC went offline last April with only a promise to be back up sometime in the future.

I will be taking the site down sometime tomorrow evening and will likely be down for awhile. It could be a week - maybe two, but one day, it'll be back! Thanks!

Recent discussion here at CMSReport.com brought the whereabouts of OSC back into question.  I personally don't know when OSC will ever be back online.  However, I think perhaps the better question might be, if you liked OSC.org what other sites should be considered?  That is a very hard question to answer.

Building Dynamic Web 2.0 Websites with Ruby on Rails is a new book from Packt which helps users to design, develop, and deploy a fully featured website using Ruby on Rails. Written by A. P. Rajshekhar, this book is a tutorial to create a complete Web 2.0 website with Ruby on Rails.

Ruby on Rails is an open-source web application framework ideally suited to building business applications; accelerating and simplifying the creation of database-driven websites. Often shortened to Rails or RoR, it provides a stack of tools to rapidly build web applications based on the Model-View-Controller design pattern.

Each chapter in this book adds a new feature to the site, adding new knowledge, skills, and techniques. This book is for anyone who has basic concepts of object-oriented programming as well as relational databases and wants to develop online applications using Ruby on Rails. Prior knowledge of Ruby or Rails is not expected.

For more details on the book, please visit http://www.packtpub.com/building-dynamic-websites-with-ruby-on-rails/book.

 

Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5 is a new book from Packt which is written as a practical step-by-step guide to building a website from scratch. Written by Hagen Graf, this book takes the reader through the tasks essential to create a Joomla! website as rapidly as possible.

Joomla! started as a fork from Mambo in 2005, when many of the original developers of the Mambo CMS moved to working on Joomla! It has rapidly grown in popularity and is a cutting Edge Content Management System and one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management systems in the world. It is used world-wide for anything from simple homepages to complicated corporate websites. It is easy to install, easy to manage and very reliable.

"I was looking at some library Web sites recently when I spied one with a badge stating that the page was created for viewing in Netscape. Once a geeky emblem of honor, the badge today is simply a relic of days gone by."

Complete Story at School Library Journal

A
new book that teaches users how to create themes for Drupal websites has been
announced today by Packt Publishing. Written by prominent open source and Content
Management expert Ric Shreves, ‘Drupal 5 Themes’ helps
readers create striking new looks for their Drupal websites.

Drupal is an award winning open source Content
Management System, finishing as the overall winner in the 2007
Open Source Content Management System Award. Based on PHP/MySQL, its power
and flexibility combined with exceptional design, means it is already on the
way to becoming the de facto standard for CMS websites. Drupal’s modular design
and structured source code make it both highly flexible and easily extended and
modified. Drupal is extremely scalable, making it ideal for both a simple
personal website as well as an industrial strength commercial or institutional
web presence.

Joomla! Accessibility is a new book from Packt that helps readers create accessible websites with Joomla! Written by Joshue O Connor, Senior Accessibility Consultant with CFIT, this book is designed to help readers gain a deeper understanding of Joomla! and accessibility.

Understanding how to create accessible websites is an essential skill these days. Website developers may even be obliged by law to create sites that are usable by the widest audience, including people with a range of disabilities. It is very difficult to successfully design interfaces that cover the needs of people with disabilities. This book will show users how to understand some of the various needs of people with disabilities and the technology they use to interact with computers and the Web.

Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development is a new book from Packt that helps readers to build a complete Ruby on Rails Business Application from start to finish. Written by Elliott Smith and Rob Nichols, this book concentrates on application development as a whole process and is intended to complement existing Rails tutorials. Each chapter deals with a key feature or functional area of a complex, full-scale Rails application.

All businesses have processes that can be automated via computer applications, thereby reducing costs and simplifying everyday operations. This book demonstrates that a modern web application framework makes an ideal platform for such applications. It shows how the attributes that make the Rails framework so successful for Internet applications also provide great benefit within a business intranet. These attributes include easy roll-out and update of applications, centralized processing and data handling, simple maintenance, straightforward code development, and scalability.

I just can't believe the year Drupal is having.  There has been an explosion of Drupal sites almost everywhere you turn.  Drupal is very popular with the masses in 2007.  So popular in fact, that I wonder as with all things popular if we'll be seeing 2008 as the backlash year against Drupal as it has quickly evolves as a litmus test for open source CMS (one of my predictions for 2008).


The latest Drupal-based site to flash on the screen of my browser is the portal (currently in beta) for the European Commission sponsored Science, Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF ) project.  The site aims to be a community-driven platform for the production and distribution of educational materials. Its sustainability depends on the building of a strong community of users and participants of the platform.  The site may actually be live by the time you read this post.