Tag Archives: Open Source

The World’s Best Content Management System

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Before your eyes glaze over and you click on a link to go elsewhere, read the definition of a CMS:

Content management system (CMS).
The computer software, housed on your site’s Web server, that manages the publishing of content (text, images, video, documents etc.) to your website. Popular examples include Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Realm Platform and even Blogger.com.

View this page which shows some types of content a CMS can manage. Document created for rdCMS (now Realm Platform).

Which CMS?

My Experience With CMS’s

Am I qualified to write an article on what is, or should be the world’s best CMS (Content Management System)? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll let you decide that by telling you briefly my experience with them.

I started designing websites in 1999 (9yrs ago at the time of writing this) and after developing sites for larger and larger clients, the maintenance of the content became so much of a handful that I was forced into the realm of CMS powered websites. I started by introducing small pieces of manageable bits of content, like news modules and custom written photo galleries, to going the whole hog with some open source systems.

In between all that we somehow managed to write our own CMS, which is now a thing of the past. A beautifully created system that went by the name of SimpleCMS, we stopped development on it only a few months ago for various reasons. The main ones being that the open source generation is creating such wonderful pieces of software and the proprietary (commercially sold) systems spend so much money and time not only on their creation, but their marketing and sales.

Am I qualified? You decide.

The Short Answer – It Depends!

I hate giving that answer to a question, and I hate receiving that answer when asking one. Quite frankly, there is no other way in this instance. It depends on your requirements, it depends on your budget, it depends on your timeline, and it depends on what your user’s skill level is.

I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve tried to get one CMS that just fits every need, and there is one system that I can say almost fits the bill. That system is Realm Platform. This brings us back to budget. Not everyone can afford the price tag that comes with a site running on a system as advanced as that. You may wish you could, and think it’s unfair, but I’d also love to own an Aston Martin DB9. Sometimes you have to settle for what is realistic.

If you’re a small company or even an individual (photographer, freelance writer etc.) then you might not have the capital to spend on a custom designed website running on an easy-to-use CMS. You can go as low as free, by setting up a blogger account and just choose a theme that is suitable. Not very unique, but you can.

The next level up would be registering your own domain and setting up some low cost hosting. With a database available, you can install something like WordPress, or have it installed for you. Choose a theme from any of the many available on the www and there you go. Still not very unique, but it’s yours and a good start should you want to commission a designer and themer to modify or create your own look and feel.

Edit: Just a quick comment on that paragraph. We’re offering a rent to own service over at Sitepress where you can pay your site off over a period of 1 – 24 months.

A custom design. I will always maintain that design is how something works, not how it looks. Window dressing only makes people get that warm and fuzzy feeling, but if there is no purpose behind a design, nor any consideration to how people will use and interact with your site, then your efforts are ultimately wasted. A decent custom design shouldn’t break the bank and if you choose your (experienced) designer wisely and communicate effectively with them, you should come out on top. Make sure they know the CMS you’re using, else you’re in for a rocky road.

Do Your Homework

Most systems offer a certain amount of versatility with regards to how things are displayed and the way they work. Most , if not all however have certain aspects that cannot be changed. They are built into the core of the system and overlooking something you deem integral can spell disaster when your business model doesn’t reflect that of the CMS (eCommerce specifically here).

One of my freelance programmers (Mike from SkipJack) once said to me about X-Cart, a proprietary eCommerce system, “don’t expect to modify the system to suit your business, rather look at it as adjusting the business to suit the software”. And although that sounds pretty harsh; unless you have a pretty damn large budget it’s the gospel truth.

You can browse a large number of open source content management systems on OpenSourceCMS.com, read reviews and demo the back end and front end of the systems. If that boggles your mind, then speak to someone like me and I can put things into laymans terms.

So What Is The World’s Best Content Management System?

Depending who you ask that answer could vary to at least 50 different systems. Joomla zealots will shout “Joomla!” in union while the poetic code writers and themers for WordPress will make their presence felt. Drupal, Plone, Vignette, DotNetNuke, Movable Type, Expression Engine, Typo3, Xoops, Nucleus CMS… I can go on, I wont.

Your best CMS is the one that:

  1. suits your requirements
  2. has a healthy community or company to support you and your website
  3. is secure
  4. is browser compatible (works in all major browsers)
  5. is fast
  6. suits your budget

Well, thats my take on it anyway.

Affordable Website Design

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logo1.jpgI’m busy working on and have recently launched a beta(ish) version of a new concept. It’s called Sitepress and it’s a combination of all my accumulated website design, content management and consulting knowledge rolled into one offering. It has a twist however, and one I hope will bring professional website design to those that previously couldn’t afford it or couldn’t justify the cost in their budget.

That twist is that it comes more in the shape of a cellphone contract than a huge once off or phased costing. Starting with 3 packages, you get a host of features and special services which you’d otherwise pay no less than R10 – R15k for.

It’s an idea that just could bring quality website design, development and consulting services to small and medium sized businesses, or even individuals. It’s a concept that poses a certain element of risk to me, but with things planned out properly, I have minimised this risk and with me not out to “get” anyone we can settle into some good productive design work.

My one aim behind this is to minimise the crap that is currently being spewed out by the hoards of newbie web designers and moonlighters that clients seem to be so readily commissioning for quite an important, powerful part of their business. At the same time making it affordable with the option of payments split over your choice of term (6, 12 or 24 months).

Whether or not this will pick up, I have put a fair deal of effort into it’s modelling and planning. I started with a business model document which outlined the offering, the conditions, the pricing and what ever else needed to be put in writing from a business perspective (this is still a work in progress, but will probably never be “finished”). I had Cobus over at Fresh01 integrate my design which I created using some of the content I wrote in the business document into WordPress and the legal side of things is underway by my lawyer.

I’ll most certainly post updates on the progression of this endeavour as and when they happen.

Gallery vs Pixaria

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Note: This review is intended as a comparison of these two online gallery systems from a business and usability perspective. Not overly technical.

Online photo galleries. Specifically the type that allows you to sell your pictures online. This is a topic which has led me to many sleepless nights and many… many of hours of research and testing. I’ve narrowed things down to two systems, both of which are very capable, but both have their pros and cons. One is a system developed by a very talented individual called Jamie Longstaff and it’s called Pixaria. The other is an open source system quite aptly named Gallery.

Pixaria vs Gallery

I’ve had the pleasure of working on both platforms quite extensively, although admittedly I’ve spent considerably longer on Gallery (over 12,000 pictures on one of my Gallery sites). I did also spend many late nights in the Pixaria system and I’m surely set in my ways to a degree, but once I got my head around things it was business as usual.

Unfortunately my Pixaria installation on Mediatemple’s (gs) offering had a nasty reaction to their one click WordPress installation and effectively destroyed it. Good thing I keep backups, but it still means a lot of time uploading and re-linking things. Not Pixaria’s fault, but I’ve said it to you as a warning, so be careful in this regard.

Installation

Installing both systems was relatively simple. Pixaria requires a little more technical knowledge, but is documented so well that if you can’t get it up and running using the instructions, you probably shouldn’t be installing software on a web server anyway. Any web dev worth his/her weight in salt can install either without hassle.

Both require a MySQL database and PHP to run. A few other server configurations and plugins like gdLibrary are also required… or enhance your site. Versions of which can be found in the documentation of each system respectively.

Configuration

Making your installation of a gallery system is quite a personal process. Exactly how you want your gallery to look, how many images to show per page, how you want people to order, how you want to track those orders and anything else you want to have working just the way you want it.

Configuring Pixaria is relatively straight forward. The interface is quite intuitive but I sometimes found configurations take a number of steps where in Gallery they are amalgamated into one. I found the pricing setup a bit tricky and in testing the assigning of prices to items when importing them I think I must have gone back and forth and done things a number of times to get things how I wanted them.

It has been considerably longer since I configured Gallery, but I remember it being very straight forward. After installation, you are presented with a site admin navigation on the left (default skin) and from there it just a matter of clicking around and seeing what it does. The themes in Gallery are especially easy to change as well as the plugins, all through the admin interface, which is essentially the site front end with more options.

Both systems work with a templating system with which you can customise things to your liking with the skills of a good HTML/CSS guru. If you’re not one of them, I recommend you hire one or you’ll likely break either system.

The Admin Interface

Pixaria has a separate admin interface that looks slightly different to the default theme. It’s very elegant and user friendly. Gallery has it’s admin integrated into the look of the front end. In other words, once logged into Gallery, you are seeing the same aesthetic as your visitors as well as the options to administer your content.

Personally, I quite like the Gallery method since you can edit items/albums from one location and you are essentially testing things as you work with them. The drawback to this is that you are permanently logged in and see things as an administrator. I sometimes have to log out quickly to see how it looks without the admin dropdown menus etc.

Pixaria’s admin interface has the advantage of you being able to keep two tabs open, one with the admin, and the other with the front end. For testing this is better and removes clutter from an administratory(sic) front end.

Adding Albums of Images

I use the same method of adding images with both systems and that is to first upload via FTP to a designated folder on the server, and then have the software process the files (create thumbnails etc) on the server. Both seem to work equally as well, but in Pixaria, you are limited to I think 100 images per batch. Since I sometimes add up to and over 300 images per set, this posed a problem.

In Gallery, if you set your timeout for server processes high enough (quite techie this, but ask your host/developer), the number of pictures is incredibly high. I have not tested how high it can go, but I’m comfortable with about 350 images at 640x48px.

I’ve got the process of adding albums and images down to an art in Gallery and once I’ve sorted my images and uploaded, it literally takes a couple of minutes to create a new album, give it a name, some keyword tags and import a couple hundred images. I found the process on Pixaria a bit more laborious and the limit of 100 for processing really made things take longer on larger albums.

In Pixaria’s defense here, the (gs) server was ridiculously slow (not the software, I tested) so my patience was already stressed to the limit.

Copyright & Selling The Pictures

Selling images on the web. Where do I start? Some people think my pictures should be free for them to download. Sorry, I have to eat and as George Bush says “put food on my family” (honestly). As such, the images are watermarked to prevent theft and I offer the ordering of images using a shopping cart, credit card payment facility and other methods of payment. Through bandwidth restrictions in this godforsaken country (Hellkom), I don’t put the full size images on the server as I’d pay through the nose for the privilege, and if I went for international hosting, it would be tooooo sloooow for my market.

Watermarking in Gallery requires me to pre-process the images in something like Acdsee and then upload them. A serious bonus in Pixaria is that the system watermarks the large versions for you. This is great if you want people to be able to download the un-watermarked image. Call it unmonitored sales (no human intervention).

Both systems have the ability for a shopping cart and eCommerce, although in Pixaria it is by default (it is it’s core competency as far as I can make out) and Gallery as a plugin.

Currency options are limited in Pixaria, and I had to change the AUS$ in the code to an R symbol to represent Rands. Not ideal, but it worked. The Gallery plugin that I’ve been using actually uses this method but more generically and doesn’t require a hack. For proper eCommerce, I assume the Pixaria system can face problems here to site owners with odd currencies like mine. Luckily, we do things slightly differently.

I have a “checkout to email” option which leads the customer to our payment page using Gallery and I managed to configure things quite similarly in Pixaria. One thing I like about Gallery is that I edited the email template to show all the details, including thumbnails of the images and instructions for payment. Pixaria is more web based and just sends a brief notification email for most functions of the site. I find it preferable to have the email to print and file like an invoice. Call it a hard-copy.

On mentioning this aspect to Jamie from Pixaria, he said he will look into it and shouldn’t be too large a customisation. Being a one man band, it would be paid work (I assume), and nobody will know the system as well as he. In Gallery you’ll likely find a few people bidding on your project if you post it in rentacoder.com. Beware though. Some of them are charlatans. I won’t get into that now.

Overall, I think the Pixaria pricing structure for your images/products is superior, but with some customisation you can reach your goals with Gallery too.

Price

This will come as a surprise to people who think the freedom in Open Source means you don’t pay for anything, but I think Gallery properly installed, configured and set up will come at a higher price than Pixaria’s minimal $195 (US).

My reasoning is that for you to purchase, install and make some minor tweaks in Pixaria, you should be up and running within a couple of days if you do things methodically and just use your nut. Although Gallery is free and the installation process is simpler, your time configuring, installing plugins, revising the looks to suit what you need and setting up all the shopping cart functionality, your time, or money spent on someone else’s is going to be more.

I would say, the differences will be marginal, and Pixaria’s code does seem to be more elegantly written. I am no programmer, and as such, it’s much of a muchness… if it works, it works.

Conclusion

Who is Pixaria for?
If you’re a professional photographer who wants to sell pictures online. Not for $1 per image, but more in the region of 50 or 100 times that and even needs to have the ability for clients to request a quote for using an image in a publication or ad campaign, then Pixaria is probably your best option. Your ability to customise will be inhibited, but with a built in blog system, if you’re just selling pictures, you should do so very effectively using Pixaria.

Who is Gallery for?
If you’re the person above, but want the ability to change almost anything (for a fee) then you’re possibly better off with Gallery. It integrates with an number of other open source systems (Joomla, WordPress etc.) and a developer is a bid request away on rentacoder. It has it’s pitfalls, but with the right person/team, you can mold Gallery into what you want.

Both systems are brilliant, and as I mentioned, I am using and intend to likely continue using both of them. This comparison is hastily written and if you spot any errors or oversights, please feel free to let me know in the comments.