I began running this website on Drupal 6 shortly after the official release.  Before then, I periodically installed development versions of Drupal 6 on the production server during the weekends so others could judge the progress that was being made.  During this period, I made the claim that I didn't really need any contributed modules to run my site on Drupal 6.

As I said last week, it's amazing how many people overlook the power of Drupal...even without its contributed modules. Yes, I'll be glad when the Views, Panels, and even the TinyMCE contributed modules are ready to use with Drupal 6. But I've always looked at contributed modules as modules of convenience and not necessity.

It could have been a bold statement that I made at the beginning of the year.  Although Drupal 6 interest has finally overtaken Drupal 5, there still are a number of popular modules still under the designation of release candidate, beta, and even alpha.  My site has shown that you don't have to always wait for contributed modules to upgrade a site to the latest version of Drupal.  However, my statement was a lie. By the time Earl Miles released Views 2.0 Beta 1, I found I didn't want to live without my essential modules for very long.

The following are a list of contributed Drupal modules that I wouldn't want to do without here at CMSReport.com.  I am neither the first word nor the last word of which modules you should be running for your Drupal site.  In fact, by coincidence, Kathleen Murtagh has just written a similar list of contributed modules that should be considered.  Some of the modules on my list are still going through their development phase and you'll have to assess the risk of using the modules on your own sites.  Personally, I like to take the risk for my hobby sites such as these, but I am more cautious when using development code for sites managed at my day job.  Whichever modules you choose, be sure to thank the developers that have made your site possible. 

Contributed modules used at CMSReport.com

Sends e-mail to notify both registered and anonymous users about new comments on pages where they have commented. The goal is to drive one-time users that comment back to you site to convert them to real registered users. This conversion step is an essential one in building a blog comment community.

Oateck.com: "Overview: Its fitting I should start with Graffiti CMS since this site was built with it. What better way to review a product then actually using it to review it. For those who love and hate Community Server(CS) where you love it because of its powerful features, and hate it cause of it powerful features, Telligent(www.teligent.com) has created a CMS for the mid to small size projects that require the publishing features of CS with out all the horsepower."

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Zimplit is the easiest Content Management System (CMS) ever made. It is extremely lightweight, simple and customizable. Zimplit consists of only one core engine file. No database needed. With Zimplit you don’t need special templates - you can edit any html/css page. You don´t need to install it, just upload and it works. Most importantly Zimplit is an "on-site" editor - everything happens on site, not in admin area. The results are right there, on the page. And you can edit absolutely everything on your website.

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Bitrix Site Manager may seem unassuming, but underneath this CMS lays a fantastic algorithm that drives this CMS' performance over almost all other existing CMS applications out there. It's most definitely the most cost effective Content Management system today.

Introduction:

Having worked extensively with open source CMS applications like Joomla, Mambo and Drupal, we've come to realize one universal fact. Microsoft does not like them. Ergo - Internet Explorer does not like them. Which eventually means that a majority of browser users find it difficult to work with user controlled content over the web, if the CMS installed happens to be a Joomla or a Drupal.

So for any online business, what is the true value of dollars spent on a CMS? Is a Free CMS really FREE? Should you ‘just go for whatever is available free or ‘Buy what makes sense'?

As owners of online businesses turn to using CMS applications for their needs, Bitrix's Revolutionary Site Manager revokes the age old theory that only content based businesses need to invest in a CMS. Now anyone can enhance the efficiency and usability of your website. And it's as simple as a 1, 2 and 3.

Linux.com has a review of DocuWiki.  I've used/seen DocuWiki in the past, but for some reason or another I've never mentioned it here at CMS Report.  DocuWiki runs on a flat file system (no database required) and I've known people to choose it over others due to its easy to use ACL (access control list).

Created as a simple solution for managing documentation, DokuWiki has evolved into a powerful and flexible wiki suitable for most tasks involving collaborative editing. DokuWiki doesn't use a database back end (all pages are stored as plain text files), which makes it easy to install and maintain. Its access control list feature offers a user-friendly and flexible mechanism for restricting access to certain pages and namespaces. You can also extend DokuWiki's default functionality using plugins, and there are hundreds of plugins to choose from.

If MediaWiki isn't your choice for a Wiki-only application, DocuWiki would be a worthy alternative.

I spent some of my break time today reviewing the reviews of the Web Content 2008 conference in Chicago.  I didn't attend the conference but I have found some of the reviews inspiring enough in themselves.  You can find Seth Gottlieb's review here as well as Deane Barker's reviews here and there.

The Web Content 2008 - Chicago site is currently listing the various conference reviews on their own site.  Just check for the links under the "What People Are Saying About Web Content 2008" heading.

Mozzila released the final version of Firefox 3.0 today and you can download it at Mozilla.com.

Available today in approximately 50 languages, Firefox 3 is two to three times faster than its predecessor and offers more than 15,000 improvements, including the revolutionary smart location bar, malware protection, and extensive under the hood work to improve the speed and performance of the browser.

While I've been talking about Firefox 3 since late 2006, I have to admit that I haven't been into Firefox 3's development as much as I did with Firefox 2.  While there were some bumps on the way with the alphas and betas, Firefox 3.0 is definately a well polished product (I'm using it as I write in this post).  My first two impressions of Firefox 3 is that it is fast and that I don't quite get the awesome bar .

Linux.com: "As the popularity of blogs continues to rise, blogging software
platforms continue to evolve. With the recent release of version 4.1,
the popular Movable Type application offers improvements that allow bloggers to expand their control over the publishing process."

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