Information Technology

Although Firefox is my choice for Internet browsers, I do use Microsoft's Internet Explorer from time to time.  Yesterday, I installed the release candidate of Internet Explorer 8.

I can't say I'm a big fan of their "Web slice" approach as it feels like I'm ramming Google Desktop via RSS feeds down the browser's favorites bar.  Who know though, perhaps the slice approach will grow on me.  However, I am a big fan of Microsoft creating a more compliant and less buggy browser and IE8 seems to fit the bill.  If IE7 was a good step in the right direction then IE8 gets Microsoft's users pretty close to the destination.

Meanwhile, my rant to all the IE6 users.  I can't believe that about a third of Microsoft Windows users are still using IE6.  Shame on you if you are still using that insecure, buggy, and non-compliant browser.  Microsoft doesn't even want you to use that browser...and yet you're still stuck in the stone ages.  I have a theory that IE6 is symbolic of the problems of complacency at Microsoft and those companies/users that are still on that browser.  IE8 arriving on a modern Windows desktop near you and you're still on IE6?  Give me a break!

Mary Jander of Internet Evolution takes a hard look at at what IT must do to survive the next few years of economic woes.  She has some sobering things to say, and while we might not like it, she is probably right.  For example, in her first step to IT surviving she says:

I seem to collect a number of books each year.  A few of the books I receive from publishers with intent to review or as appreciation for my involvement with events related to content management systems.  Other books just peak my interest so I can't help but buy them for my personal library.  The following are five books I plan to read in 2009 and are available in CMS Report's Amazon Store.

Drupal Multimedia by Aaron Windborn

Every year, there are some key information technology people that make mostly sound and trustworthy predictions for the coming year.  I'll be updating this page through the week with links to these visions of what we may expect in 2009.  My own thoughts and vision for 2009 and CMS Report will come later in another post (I am not worthy to place my own comments here).

Content Management and Social Publishing Predictions

Dries Buytaert (Drupal Project Lead) - Drupal, Acquia, and Mollom

Early Tuesday morning, Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP joined Windows Vista as available operating systems for the Dell Inspiron Mini 12.  By Tuesday evening, I found myself ordering the Ubuntu version of the Mini 12 with the 6-cell battery and 80GB hard drive.  Despite having installed Linux on countless systems, this will be the first time I've ordered Linux pre-installed for the client PC.  I'm eager to find out how well Dell supports their Linux systems.

While the Mini 12 tops the end of the scale for netbooks due to its 12.1 inch widescreen, I believe the Mini 12 will be a perfect Linux replacement for my aging Averatec notebook.  Although I wouldn't have minded a smaller netbook, the Mini 12 with its 1280x800 screen resolution and comfortable keyboard was just too enticing.  Plus the thought of constantly needing to use the browser's scroll bars with the lower resolution (1024x600) of the smaller netbooks was a concern of mine.

A recent blog post from Sarah Parez tries to answer some "want-to-know" questions on the upcoming Microsoft Office Web Applications.  With software as a service becoming more popular, Google has quickly become a competitor of Microsoft's Office Suite with its Google Docs. Microsoft is aggressively fighting back by making its Office software available via the Web browser.

The single reason enterprises with Windows networks prefer Internet Explorer over Firefox and other browsers: Group Policy.

For those of you who might be new to Group Policy, here is a quick background. Let’s first assume you use an Active Directory environment to administer the computers in your corporate network. If that is the case, Group Policy provides a wide set of policy settings to manage IE8 after you have deployed it to your users' computers. These settings are locked down and cannot be changed by users, as they are always written to a secure tree in the registry.

Complete Story

"Our prediction, though proved to be correct though in another sense, inasmuch as the push to sell SharePoint as a replacement to ECM systems has to a large degree stopped — a good thing for buyers, for in that direction lay serious disappointment.

The fact is that buyers typically do not replace systems, be they ECM or otherwise. The growth in the data mountain and the ever-changing demands to the business mean that IT adds to and attempts to enhance what is already there, rather than rip and replace."

Tim Wilson, the site editor for Dark Reading, recently posted an article about recent at the AARP.org website.  In the colorfully titled article, "Porn Operators Hijack Pages on AARP Website", Wilson interviews Jeremy Yoder of MX Logic about why AARP.org's site was vulnerable.  In brief, the explanation given is that the site deployed a number of Web 2.0 features including user profile submissions which the site didn't properly filter out JavaScript redirected code.  Yoder than

This Drupal site of mine has taken quite a bit of beating the past couple weeks.  While Mollom has been protecting this site well enough from the comment spammers, it isn't designed to prevent the bots from trying to ping me so much.  It has been an incredible experience to see the bots try to open every possible URL and directory here at CMSReport.com.  But probably the real stress on the site has been my testing of numerous contributed modules that are still under development.  Probably using a production server to test new modules isn't the smartest thing for anyone to do, but it does provide a nice adrenaline rush from time to time.

To make a long story short, I'm testing a number of ways I can use a Web content management system more efficiently to run this site.  I also want to do some restructuring of the site so that I have more flexibility in the look and feel of the site as well as how the content is delivered.  For the most part, I'll be using Pathauto, Views, Panels, and one of the aggregation modules.  I'm currently testing the FeedAPI module for aggregation, but none of the aggregation related modules really do what I want them to do.  I'll put up a site recipe in the next month or two on the modules I finally settle on to support this site.

Now it is time for me to go.  Evidently, one of the modules I've installed is causing some cron issues.  Am I having fun, yet?  Yes, I am.