These Things Matter to Me
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Preview screencast of Wordpress 2.5's gallery feature
Wordpress's Matt Mullenweg previews a very cool feature of the soon-to-be-released Wordpress, small photo galleries in a post without painful manual layout. (And yes, there are plenty of shots of the cool new dashboard.)
Labels: blogging, interface, ma.tt, preview, screencast, social software, video, wordpress, wordpress 2.5
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Help artists be artists. A defense of drupalmodules.com
The myth of centralization, the reality of distributed information.
If the Internet has taught us anything, it's that that:
This applies to all sorts of activities and information, but today I'm talking about software reference material, in specific, Drupal reference material.
Drupal is an incredibly popular content management system framework. You can call it other things. Drupal helps you make websites.
Drupal's fight to centralize
I'm relatively new to Drupal, quite like it, and recommend it frequently. That said, I have some issues with it, and among them what seems like peer pressure in the Drupal community to not create, or feel self-conscious about creating, Drupal resources outside of Drupal.org. There is a surprising lack of websites about Drupal given how popular it is. This is thoroughly confusing as everybody knows that with both proprietary and open source software, bands, artists, etc... having a breadth of resources/fan sites/ forums is a sign of a healthy, thriving community/market/mindshare. There's a time and a place for "many eyes" and joining large group efforts (like Drupal.org) and there's a time and a place for shirking mass-meetings, votes, digging in by yourself or a few collaborators, and making something totally fresh, especially for "proof of concept." Neither approach is better or worse, but they each have their time and place, and nobody should feel guilty or self-conscious for working hard on their own and making something.
Recently a non-Drupal.org resource was created, drupalmodules.com. This has been mildly controversial within the Drupal community. Drupalmodules.com is too new for me to honestly judge on utility alone, but without a doubt, it's purpose is undeniable: navigating the world of Drupal modules is very challenging, for many different reasons. While many within the Drupal community agree there needs to be a way to sift through modules by "quality" (there are wildly varying degrees of quality), the problem is bigger than just that. Quality aside, it's challenging just to know if you're picking the module that mostly closely scratches your itch... Anyway, Drupal modules: tough to navigate, agreed! Not agreed? That making drupalmodules.com was the right thing to do. Crazy, right?
Apparently there have been discussions for ages on a rating system for modules on Drupal.org, let alone a general redesign of the site, and its sub-sites. Maybe people think drupalmodules.com undermines those efforts?
Really people, there's no downside to having another Drupal resource. In bizarro-land, the downside is that people who believe in centralizing everything, think the cost of keeping track of things and managing quality is not worth the benefit of having constantly-created resources, failing-fast, iterating often, and innovating often. In that reality, people should stop creating things, unless it's a thing inside the heavily formalized, but tracked, "system."
But on my planet, planet Internet, we're enjoying the abundance! (and we have RSS readers) John, thanks so much for working on drupalmodules.com! I hope it doesn't cause you too much grief. I hope you get lots of donations, and don't feel self-conscious about putting ads up on your site (unless you don't like them :D ). Do not feel self-conscious about the success or failure of your site! I hope more Drupal websites get born. I highly dig Drupal, and think it will get better faster not just with an ever-growing gigantic body of Drupal.org community members, but with highly-motivated independent visionaries who use Drupal as a canvas to express their vision.
Don't control artists.
We all know the expression "design by committee," and how it's a derisive term used to describe the dynamic of when the lack of a cohesive vision dilutes quality. And it's no secret that user experience and design is one of the most common criticisms of Drupal. So it's extra discouraging when the very thing that will lead to improved experience and design in Drupal, escape from design by committee, is frowned upon. Big groups are great for fixing bugs, raising money, and lot of other stuff. I don't want the awesome Drupal.org community to go anywhere. I just want it to recognize and appreciate that lots of cool Drupal stuff might not come from Drupal.org, but can still help Drupal.org.
The myth of centralization, the reality of distributed information.
If the Internet has taught us anything, it's that that:
- authoritativeness is subjective
- information is distributed
- if anything ever seems centralized, it's only because giant pockets of activity are hidden, and once surfaced, we can see, "oh yeah, information is distributed!, better to have it available, than invisible!"
This applies to all sorts of activities and information, but today I'm talking about software reference material, in specific, Drupal reference material.
Drupal is an incredibly popular content management system framework. You can call it other things. Drupal helps you make websites.
Drupal's fight to centralize
I'm relatively new to Drupal, quite like it, and recommend it frequently. That said, I have some issues with it, and among them what seems like peer pressure in the Drupal community to not create, or feel self-conscious about creating, Drupal resources outside of Drupal.org. There is a surprising lack of websites about Drupal given how popular it is. This is thoroughly confusing as everybody knows that with both proprietary and open source software, bands, artists, etc... having a breadth of resources/fan sites/ forums is a sign of a healthy, thriving community/market/mindshare. There's a time and a place for "many eyes" and joining large group efforts (like Drupal.org) and there's a time and a place for shirking mass-meetings, votes, digging in by yourself or a few collaborators, and making something totally fresh, especially for "proof of concept." Neither approach is better or worse, but they each have their time and place, and nobody should feel guilty or self-conscious for working hard on their own and making something.
Recently a non-Drupal.org resource was created, drupalmodules.com. This has been mildly controversial within the Drupal community. Drupalmodules.com is too new for me to honestly judge on utility alone, but without a doubt, it's purpose is undeniable: navigating the world of Drupal modules is very challenging, for many different reasons. While many within the Drupal community agree there needs to be a way to sift through modules by "quality" (there are wildly varying degrees of quality), the problem is bigger than just that. Quality aside, it's challenging just to know if you're picking the module that mostly closely scratches your itch... Anyway, Drupal modules: tough to navigate, agreed! Not agreed? That making drupalmodules.com was the right thing to do. Crazy, right?
Apparently there have been discussions for ages on a rating system for modules on Drupal.org, let alone a general redesign of the site, and its sub-sites. Maybe people think drupalmodules.com undermines those efforts?
Really people, there's no downside to having another Drupal resource. In bizarro-land, the downside is that people who believe in centralizing everything, think the cost of keeping track of things and managing quality is not worth the benefit of having constantly-created resources, failing-fast, iterating often, and innovating often. In that reality, people should stop creating things, unless it's a thing inside the heavily formalized, but tracked, "system."
But on my planet, planet Internet, we're enjoying the abundance! (and we have RSS readers) John, thanks so much for working on drupalmodules.com! I hope it doesn't cause you too much grief. I hope you get lots of donations, and don't feel self-conscious about putting ads up on your site (unless you don't like them :D ). Do not feel self-conscious about the success or failure of your site! I hope more Drupal websites get born. I highly dig Drupal, and think it will get better faster not just with an ever-growing gigantic body of Drupal.org community members, but with highly-motivated independent visionaries who use Drupal as a canvas to express their vision.
Don't control artists.
We all know the expression "design by committee," and how it's a derisive term used to describe the dynamic of when the lack of a cohesive vision dilutes quality. And it's no secret that user experience and design is one of the most common criticisms of Drupal. So it's extra discouraging when the very thing that will lead to improved experience and design in Drupal, escape from design by committee, is frowned upon. Big groups are great for fixing bugs, raising money, and lot of other stuff. I don't want the awesome Drupal.org community to go anywhere. I just want it to recognize and appreciate that lots of cool Drupal stuff might not come from Drupal.org, but can still help Drupal.org.
Labels: artists, design by committee, drupal, drupalmodules.com, quality
Monday, March 17, 2008
VMWare Linux anti-patterns. How VMware is kind of neglecting the Linux experience
I like VMware stuff a lot, and write about them regularly, usually in a positive way, so I write this list of VMware Linux anti-patterns with only good intentions.
Lately I've been feeling a bit bummed by VMware's deprecated Linux experience, and Windows-centric mentality. If VMware gets too Windows-centric, it'll only be competing with Microsoft. I want VMware to do well against Microsoft! And I believe that to do so, it needs to deliver an experience that doesn't marginalaize Linux users.
Here's how VMWare can improve the Linux experience:
Lately I've been feeling a bit bummed by VMware's deprecated Linux experience, and Windows-centric mentality. If VMware gets too Windows-centric, it'll only be competing with Microsoft. I want VMware to do well against Microsoft! And I believe that to do so, it needs to deliver an experience that doesn't marginalaize Linux users.
Here's how VMWare can improve the Linux experience:
- Improve the vmware-tools install on Linux guests. (All VMware products, all host OS's)
On a Windows guest, you run a binary (by clicking it!), and you're done. On the Linux side, you run a binary (most likely via command-line), and then visually, you'd think you were done. but you're not. You installed it, now you configure it. Seriously, whenever I train or help users with this part, I feel guilty/embarrassed about how idiosyncratic it feels. The output of the rpm/install script never tells you "now you configure it." Sure the docs do. But on Windows you don't have to do all that. VMware, I won't hold you responsible for the command-line parts, that's (mostly) in Linux's hands. But you could longterm do away with the configure, and short-term, announce at the end of the install that, "Now it's time to configure." - Make a Virtual Infrastructure client for Linux.
You made one for Windows. I think you love Windows more than you love Linux. (And yes, I am aware of the web client. I'll pretend you didn't suggest that.) - VMware Converter is way more difficult with Linux than Windows.
- The VMware Converter program itself only runs on Windows
- Converting Linux physical-to-virtual VM's is a more burdensome process for Linux guests, with more rules and hoops than Windows guests have.
- I feel like you're slowly taking away ssh/ "service console"/ file system access to your ESX-based products. You've only done this to 3i so far. And there is a workaround. But the vibe I get (I hope I'm wrong) is that you're trying to wean us off of standards communications and file-system access to this stuff.
- Give VMWare Server 2.0 a Linux client.
I know you took away the non-web client from both Windows and Linux, but since Windows people can use the new VI client to access VMWare Server, I'm still counting this as a ding against Linux users.
Labels: linux, virtual infrastructure, virtualization, vmware, vmware converter, wishlist
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Drupal "on rails." One of the ways Acquia's commercial Drupal will work
One of the challenges of Drupal is there is always more than module to scratch any itch, including some included modules (especially easy to reach for). And more than once I've chosen a module or approach to solve a problem, only to find out later about a superior solution I wish I would have known about earlier.
So it's a great relief to hear that Acquia will help guide us down the road of module selection by including a bunch on their to-be-released Drupal distro, code-named Carbon.
Modules currently under consideration:
(via a friend, this could be changed later, go here for freshest info (login required))
So it's a great relief to hear that Acquia will help guide us down the road of module selection by including a bunch on their to-be-released Drupal distro, code-named Carbon.
Modules currently under consideration:
(via a friend, this could be changed later, go here for freshest info (login required))
What’s Included
Carbon will include the latest release of Drupal 6 core along with a carefully selected set of modules. We are selecting modules based on their relevance to common social publishing use cases for both public-facing web sites and intranet team collaboration sites. The module set is still under review. Currently, it includes:
Page layout: Panels 2
Custom content: CCK, Date, Imagefield, File
Views: Views 2
Lightweight markup: Marksmarty
WYSIWYG: Kupu
Scheduled publishing: Workflow, Actions
Image management: As fields - Imagefield, Imagecache; As nodes - Image, Image assist
Events: Calendar
Forums: Forum
Comment spam filter: Mollom
Social bookmarks: TBD
Content rating: Voting API, Fivestar
Search: in core, Solr
Categorization: in core
RSS: in core
Content aggregation: tbd
Workflow: Workflow
Content versioning: Core, Diff
Tag clouds: Tagadelic
SEO URLs: Path Auto
Utilities: Primary Tag, Custom pager, JS Tools, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Wiki freelinks
Import / migration: tbd
Authentication: Persistent login, Securesite, LDAP, OpenID
User Groups: Organic groups
Email gateway: tbd
Email notification: Subscriptions
