Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

• Some eCards – eCards for when you care enough to hit send. A fantastic collection of eCards that say it how it truly is.
• DZone – Fresh links for developers. It’s a “Digg” like website for coding and web development.
• 10 Things to Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS – A major task like choosing a CMS is often skewed by sales pitches and lopsided marketing tactics from CMS companies. This is a great rundown on the basic principles of choosing a CMS.
• Open Source CMS – Try before you install. A nice little website that allows you to test out some basic open source CMS’s.
• What is your Google Analytics IQ? – Whoo-hoo! Google Analytics now offers an online course. $50 to take the test.
• CNBC Gives Financial Advice – Gotta watch this! This is one of the most viral web videos jumping across the web over the last couple of weeks. Jon Stewart tells it how it is.
• Xinu Returns – A site that tells you how socially connected your website is.
• Post Rank – Measure Audience Engagement.
• Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design – Thanks from Smashing Magazine on this one.
• Realtime Twitter Search Results on Google – I usually don’t recommend GreaseMonkey downloads but this is a huge exception. This download embeds Twitter search results into your Google search. Since Twitter has been argued to have the most up-to-date search results, this is a fantastic add-on.
• Check User Names – Finally ready to dive into social media (cough – Chuck)? Well you’re going to want to make sure you have a unique alias that you can build your own personal brand. Find out here.
• Idiot’s Ultimate Guide to Building Your Own Computer – I am a firm believer in that if you are a tech enthusiast, you should try to build your own computer at least once. Here’s a great place to start.
• Forrester is Wrong About Paying Bloggers – Forrester got attacked from all angles after posting an article about the benefits of paid blogging. The point of the attack was because they highlighted the benefits of paid blogging while not emphasizing the risks involved – example: websites can get blacklisted by Google. Read on…

Building a small business website has never been so easy. Today, the options for low cost (or free) content management systems are practically endless. Leading the pack, I decided to check out Drupal – a popular open source content management system known for it’s robustness and endless amounts of add-on’s. In doing some research, I noticed the overall consensus around Drupal to be “you either love it or you hate it”. Some think it’s the Wave of the Future, while others say “Don’t Bother“. With that out of the way, it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in.

To begin, the installation couldn’t have been easier. I was able to get the basic out-of-box template up and running within about 20 minutes. While everything seemed to start off well, one thing that surprised me was that Drupal didn’t come configured with meta description and meta keyword tags. I needed to download an additional add-on called Nodewords. For a cutting edge CMS, this seemed a little sloppy to not include this as a default.

Moving on, I started to go through all the features and options of Drupal via the administrative section. They weren’t kidding when they said Drupal was feature rich. Sadly, it felt more cluttered and packed with features than what was needed. I was finding myself getting lost in the administrative section with the non-intuitive navigation. Setting up SEO friendly URLs was slightly painful, but doable. The documentation helped, but was limited. After a couple of hours of putzing around, I was able to configure a basic website along with some hassles along the way.

Overall, Drupal was fun to play with and implement. It’s strength resides in its robustness and feature rich modules but with that came a downside – complexity. Drupal certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re considering Drupal then prepare to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Implementing this CMS into a design was no easy feat. The complexity of Drupal gives way to relatively steep learning curve. With that said, make sure it is a good fit for the site you are installing it on. Prepare for future development and support. Drupal is definitely a powerful CMS, but bad judgment can be devastating if implemented improperly. My vote – keep it simple unless you plan on sticking it out for the long run.

Useful Links:

• Search Engines Love Drupal
• Drupal SEO Mistakes