Posts filed under 'Content Management'
Over the last few years not-for-profit and membership agencies have become more tech savvy and have been moving services to their Web sites. These Web sites often include a membership area that is password protected and a membership directory all entered by office staff into the office then transferred to the Web site.
Everything works well for an organization that maintains a database independent of their Web site as long as members cannot edit their own information on the Web site. All this works fine for a couple years until the office staff realizes that members could log in on the Web site and change their passwords and even update their directory listings. The minute that functionality is put on the wish list, the old model of editing the database in the office and uploading becomes increasingly impractical.
These questions need to be answered:
- What happens to the offline database when a member changes their information on the Web site?
- Does this mean I first need to download my database, then make changes, and finally upload it every time I want to edit something?
There are other alternatives. Here are some elements of what I believe an effective strategy contains:
- Simplicity: no double entry. A single online database
- Interactivity: Allows members to change data online as needed
- Accessibility: Allows office staff to retrieve data to print labels etc.
My thinking is that a database solution for the wired membership organization involves using something like Drupal or other content management system that includes tools to manage members along with an interface that allow remote connection to retrieve data for reports. All data maintenance tasks are performed through a Web browser and there is no difficulty in synchronizing user entered values with owner entered data since all data is entered into the same database.
March 2nd, 2007
A client contacted me a few days ago and requested that I add a few additional SPAM impediments to his Wordpress blog. These improvements were based on a post over at Shoe Money that has some excellent pointers.
Based on my quick investigation, it seems that suggestions 5 and 1 offer the most promise and the least complication.
Suggestion #5 is to block No Referrer Requests. Depending on your server configuration, you may need to play with the suggested .htaccess rule. I changed it from the original:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*shoemoney.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) ^http://whereyouwanttosendthem.com/$ [R=301,L]
The following rule is my modification, because the whereyouwanttosendthem.com url was not working correctly … simply appending to the end of the blog url instead of redirecting the page.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*myblog.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.myblog.com [R=301,L]
Suggestion #1 is excellent and simple. Rename your wp-comments-post.php file to anything you choose. Change the links that refer to this file in your comments.php template file and away you go. If you’ve implemented suggestion #5, you’ll need to change your .htaccess rule to reflect the new wp-comments-post.php file.
This is an excellent post by Shoe Money and the whole thing is worth a read!
October 3rd, 2006
Having presented the other side of the coin, I thought I would also publish this post presenting some good reasons to adopt the Wordpress Engine as a CMS.
If you are an experienced user of WordPress and want to setup a non-blog website - perhaps a portfolio site, news/magazine site or even an e-commerce site - you might just want to skip the more robust content management systems most people tend to suggest, like Drupal and XOOPS, and consider using WordPress for your CMS-oriented task instead.
read more | digg story
August 31st, 2006
Though Wordpress can be used as a simple CMS, it is not specifically designed to function as a content management system. Some limitations that should be considered before you choose Wordpress as your CMS include an overly simple post and user management system and a rigid permalink structure.
read more | digg story
August 27th, 2006
As of Wordpress 2.1, it appears that this plugin is relegated to the dustbin. I have no plans to continue developing or supporting the script. The most recent version of Wordpress includes full-featured tools to upload and link to attached documents.
In order to simplify the process of associating Wordpress post attachments with posts, I wrote a quick plugin that will automate the linking process. The plugin lists ALL post attachments.
If you don’t want them all listed, right now you are out of luck. I provide a CSS class called “dd_attachments” and each attachment link is encased in a span element. By making the span element display:block, you can create a list-like appearance.
This plugin relies on new functionality built into Wordpress 2.0 and the functions it uses are largely undocumented. For some basic information on how to use attachments in Wordpress 2.0 visit the Wordpress Codex here.
Version 1.01: I’ve modified the plugin to use an unordered list rather than span elements. The more semantically correct code will behave better in RSS readers where your CSS styles are not available. Also, the attachments follow the main post content now. This works better for most users.
Version 1.02 Added an embedded stylesheet to add class with no effort! Also thanks to TJWood’s suggestions, the code is cleaner and faster. Visit TJ’s site here.
Download the latest version of autolink attachment plugin for Wordpress 2.0
Autolink Attachment with Description
This version is a fork of Version 1.02 that adds the attachment description from each attachment, if there is one. If no description is given, it functions exactly like version 1.02. There’s a new CSS hook on the description paragraph named “dd_description”. Hopefully, this will help someone out there in cyberspace.
Download the latest version of autolink attachment plugin with description for Wordpress 2.0
May 17th, 2006
Ping-O-Matic’s server update seems to have greatly improved its bulk ping speed. This service is by far the best bulk ping service judging by the number of robots that crawl my posts after I notify ping-O-matic’s RPC client.
Over the last few months, I’ve been VERY frustrated by the long wait times and errors generated because WordPress waits for the ping-O-matic server to do its work. Let’s hope those wait times are gone for good!
This is an extremely useful service as long as it can handle the load!
March 7th, 2006
Seeking a fast bulk ping service that actually works … here’s hoping the Ping-O-Matic server changes will help!
Ping-O-Matic Blog Archive Server Move
March 7th, 2006
I opened my blog up to guest articles a week or two ago. I am happy to publish articles that share valuable information. However, I did not do proper research on this article and it contained links to a site that promoted a spyware toolbar called the SearchSpot Toolbar. I’ve removed the article.
If you wish to submit articles of REAL value for my readers, please feel free to do so after carefully reading this post.
February 11th, 2006
While WordPress has become my CMS of choice, there is one major hurdle that it needs to clear before I can deploy it as broadly as I would like. WordPress is still a Web log.
WordPress is structured around a blog engine and though it can be hacked and suppressed, the work is not justified for Web sites where blogging is not required.
This is not a problem for most small E-tailers since blogging is an effective way to meet a niche’’s need for information and community.
What’s the next step for WordPress? Make the blog behavior optional just as pages are currently. If I choose not to add pages to a WordPress blog, everything works seamlessly. If I choose not to add posts, the core of WordPress needs to be bypassed.
Is this changing in version 2.0?
For anyone interested in WordPress development, the beta of WordPress 2.0 is now available.
November 9th, 2005
I have spent the last two years looking for a flexible CMS for my small to mid-size clients. During that time, WordPress has matured from a powerful blogging platform to a flexible content management system that produces standards compliant XHTML.
Thanks to the many plug-in developers, I can now manage pages and customize WordPress to treat posts as any sort of data type I need. WordPress posts do not need to be posts; they can be any item that you need a database to manage.
With powerful WordPress themes, posts can be formatted flexibly turning your Web log into whatever dynamic application your project requires.
WordPress 1.5 has become the CMS I’ve been looking for. Thanks WordPress!
November 1st, 2005
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