Drupal blog in BrowSweat

I decided for my site BrowSweat.com to use the Drupal blog along with the Blog API. This allows me to publish to my blog with an external editor if I choose, and then upload it.
The blog works great and is something I plan on continuing to use.

The reason I started using it was to publish announcement or notifications to users regarding minor things. Major announcements will still be made through the Newsletter. For two reasons: 1) Half or more of the users signing up for an account, opted out of the newsletter; therefore, how could they get notifications. 2) It seemed like overkill to send out a newsletter for minor things, such as changes in the image layout or readability, but I want users to know the site is actively being worked on and it is growing.

The only issue I have had so far is the uploading of images through an external blog writer (using the blog API). The image is uploaded to an odd folder and then doesn't show up in the blog entry. I also seem to have a problem with tagging the entry externally. I plan on investigating these issues and seeing what it comes of it.

Next on the road...for BrowSweat.com subscription services using Ubercart.

For Sugar-Pine.com, banner block or rotating banner images.

Me Aliases

http://drupal.org/project/me
Awesome module and exactly what I was looking for to create a Quick Link in a block for the user to edit their profile.  Now editing the profile is 1 click and not 3.

Drupal User Group Meeting in Ames, IA

I FINALLY went to my first user group meeting!!! Of course I was late…I’m almost always late. The construction I ran into didn’t help with the 2 hour drive, but I’m glad I got there and back in one piece.

Tonight we discussed SEO and some of the various techniques and tools that you can use for your Drupal site. Some modules include:

Module	About
SEO Checklist	Not a module that adds anything which your users can see; it’s for Administrative purposes only because it’s a checklist of actions for SEO. Also holds the date of when the action is done.
XML Sitemap	Generates a sitemap.xml based on your content; Can submit sitemap to search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
Content Optimizer	Not sure on this one. Still at Release Candidate, but may be good to keep an eye on. This one looks at the content and suggests actions to take to optimize content based on a suggested search term.
Meta Tags (nodewords)	Displays form elements to add meta content (description, keywords) for a node.
Page Title	Allows changing of Page Title
???	Am I forgetting something? Let me think.

Also, check out the AdWords keywords tools. Cool to help you generate keywords for your site.

Nice to meet everyone at the Ames, IA Drupal User Group Meeting. Hope to see you all again soon!

Sites Updated with Themes

So I FINALLY did something that has been a long time coming.  I update my Drupal sites MyActivityPals.com and BrowSweat.com with better themes. 
MyActivityPals is still using a Zen subtheme, but I’ve learned enough about themes to update it so blocks are more distinct and the block title is a different color.

BrowSweat is using Picture Reloaded.  I like this theme and I will probably use it again.  It’s very easy to setup. :)

Launch of new site BrowSweat.com

I’ve launched BrowSweat.com and it is ready to start using.

Modules that I used in developing this include:

• CAPTCHA
  • reCAPTCHA – web service to use advanced CAPTCHA
• CCK
• Mailing/Contact Modules
  • Contact User Anon – (CAPTCHA enabled) Allows Anonymous users to contact registered users (as long as they provide an e-mail)
  • Mime Mail
  • SimpleNews – For newsletters
  • Tell A Friend
  • User Register Notify – Admin gets emailed when a new user registers
• Content Profile – profiles using CCK so users can add images to their “Portfolio”
• Imaging Modules
  • FileField
  • ImageCache
  • ImageField – combined with CCK and Content Profiles to give users a “Portfolio”.
    

There is also a custom theme based on Zen. This included implementing Printing the Description (or Title) Below the Image post so that Image Descriptions are displayed below the image.

CAPTCHA

I like this module quit a bit!  I like how easy it is to add CAPTCHA to a form through the administrative features.  Just make sure you have the checkbox “Add CAPTCHA administration links to forms” turned on.  It’s pretty sweet.

The one issue I can say about it is that there are times when even I can’t read what the CAPTCHA says.  I just do a refresh on it to get a new one…no problem.

Spamicide

Here's a cool module Spamicide that I wish I would have known about earlier.  :)  I was just spammed in my Forums yesterday!  I had my forums made public so that bots could pick up the info and so that anonymous (real people) users could post and add value.  This module will help accomplish this I think.  I may/probably try it out. 

 

All of these little modules...how much memory do they actually take up?  Some are pretty small and have very little code, but add great value.

 

Drupal upgrade 6.11

I upgraded my site to 6.11 and am having the same issue as lots of others.  When logging in, the default page is now the User Profile page rather than the home page.  Argh!!!  I will take a look at the posts where others have shared their ideas.  But hey, this is my fault.  I released the update to prod and just didn’t realize it was happening locally. :P

http://drupal.org/node/449386
http://drupal.org/node/450466
http://drupal.org/node/127849

Update:
I messed around with Actions and Triggers a bit (not long) and decided it seemed easier to go with the Login Destination module (http://drupal.org/project/login_destination).  Boy that was easy to setup.  I like how easy it was to configure it so admin goes to his own page, whereas normal users can go to wherever I configure it to.  Pretty simple to setup! 

I would like to mess around with Actions and Triggers a bit more to get a good example and feel for them.

Dashboard

User Dashboard???  Something to consider http://drupal.org/project/udashboard

 

Any comments on this?

Multiple locations on a single gmap

Here is a GMap issue with a patch (for 5.x) that allows multiple locations to display on a single map.  A patch to Location module is also needed.  I was wondering how to do this because in MyActivityPals.com I want to display all activity locations for a certain type (i.e tennis).  Or for example, for private locations, display friends houses and then all the possible activity locations (i.e. tennis, dart hall) so friends can decide which is closest to all of them.

 

Now I like this.  Put the permissions for content types in a nice grid.   http://drupal.org/project/node_permissions_grid

 

http://buzz.blogger.com/

More links

http://drupal.org/project/microblog

 

http://drupal.org/project/amazon_store

 

http://drupal.org/project/profile_location

 

http://drupal.org/project/usercount

 

Media Modules:  http://drupal.org/project/modules?filters=tid:67&solrsort=sort_title%20asc

 

 

Just something to look at.

http://drupal.org/node/414672

Stuff

http://drupal.org/node/412882

 

http://drupal.org/project/usage - Good for future reference.  What nodes are used the most.

 

Weather module!  yes!

 

Theming stuff

http://drupal.org/node/22803

book; Friendlist

 

http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-6-website-builder-solutions/book  Interesting looking book for building a commerce site with Drupal

 

http://drupal.org/project/flag_friend - Used with Flag module; Looks interesting.  Flag also discussed by irakli as architecture for Friendlist.  http://drupal.org/node/412706  not sure how this would come into play with MyActivityPals

 

 

Interesting.  Did he get paid?  Through the Drupal association?

http://drupal.org/node/413448#comment-1399642

 

 

SEO

A bunch of links and info I found on Search Engine Optimization

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

 

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=70897

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=44231

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

 

http://drupalmodules.com/search/node/seo

http://drupalmodules.com/module/meta-tags

http://drupalmodules.com/module/seo-checklist

Links / Ideas

I'm going to look into something similar to AddThis:  http://www.addthis.com/

AddThis looks like a good solution (after a quick view), but I want to make sure it is the correct solution.  I would like to see what other options there are first. 

 

 

http://drupal.org/node/410540 - Social networking modules questions.  What modules would work for building a social network site.

http://socnet.shellmultimedia.com/ - Michelle's modules for building a 5.x social networking site.  She is still running 5.x due to the fact that not all these modules are ported to 6.x. She does document some modules that have ported to 6.x though.

 

 

http://drupal.org/project/dotgo - Dotgo (www.dotgo.com) is an SMS-enabled service that allows you to interact with your domain for free through the use of the short code for your top level domain (DOTCOM, DOTEDU, etc).

 

 

http://www.whatshappeningincedarrapids.com/Home.aspx - ideas for adding content to my local area.

 

Drupal jobs

http://drupal.org/node/145211

 

http://groups.drupal.org/jobs

Books I have

 

Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6: Build your own professional blog, forum, portal or community website with Drupal 6

 

Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional)

 

Using Drupal

 

 

Bunch to read/catch up on

http://drupal.org/node/367131

http://book.drupalfun.com/drupalebook

 

http://drupal.org/node/344141

https://www.packtpub.com/build-social-networking-website-with-drupal-6/book     DrupalSN15 for 15% off

 

http://drupal.org/node/378578

 

Integration with UserPoints  http://drupal.org/node/398998

 

Make Drupal SEO friendly  http://drupal.org/node/399532

 

Unique Title  http://drupal.org/project/uniquetitle

 

 

Drupal built site

check this out. Developed in Drupal, the software I use for my site.

 

http://drupal.org/node/388112

 

 

Tools

http://blogs.sun.com/netbeansphp/entry/drupal_support_in_netbeans_6

 

http://www.phpdoc.org/

 

 

Module

Default destination after the user does login

http://drupal.org/project/login_destination

GMap default location

Here's a discussion on setting GMap's default location based on the users location.
http://drupal.org/node/353752

What should be used? Zipcode or City/State combo?

http://drupal.org/node/376454

 

 

Affiliates  http://drupal.org/project/affiliates

 

Organic Groups Forum  http://drupal.org/project/og_forum

 

???  http://drupal.org/project/beautytips  I think this is like Bubble Help

 

 

http://drupal.org/node/373360

http://drupal.org/node/373416

http://drupal.org/node/373228

Ad Publishing Module  http://drupal.org/node/371946

 

 

Nodes

Nodeaccess  http://drupal.org/project/nodeaccess

 

Module Builder  http://drupal.org/project/module_builder

 

PrivateMsg http://drupal.org/project/privatemsg

 

 

 

Friendlist

http://drupal.org/node/360188

 

 

Drupal Nodes

Heartbeat:

http://drupal.org/project/heartbeat

 

ActivityLog

http://drupal.org/project/activity_log

FriendList

http://drupal.org/project/friendlist

Documentation in the works
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/friendlist/README.txt?view=markup&pathrev=DRUPAL-6--1


http://drupal.org/node/323559

Various links

Follow Discussion: http://drupal.org/node/368822

Tweeter module: http://drupal.org/project/tweet

Email verification: http://drupal.org/project/email_verify

Contrib Toggle: http://drupal.org/project/contrib_toggle

Drupal Groups

I joined the Drupal group "Iowa" to keep up-to-date with a group and to get more involved in the community. I also sent a request to create a local group in the Cedar Rapids area (Iowa-CR). Not sure what the next steps will be with that. I thought it would be cool to start a group and get together with others and brainstorm or just learn some new stuff.

Node

I implemented Simplenews node in my web site MyActivityPals. Very nice features and easy to use!!! I like it.

My Drupal Site listed

http://www.drupalsites.net/weblink/my-activity-pals

http://drupal.org/node/368239 - Calendar

Sites Using Drupal

Found this link about sites using Drupal:  http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites You'd be surprised at what is using Drupal and how they are using it.

 

Drupal Nodes

http://drupal.org/node/367816 - GMap of Nodes; Something of interest for MyActivityPals.com

http://drupal.org/node/366562 - Help test the upgraded Drupal.org