Web Content Management Systems

Content management systems are more popular these days, even those with little knowledge about Internet & Web making can create fully-fledged websites with the help of content management systems. This article intends to introduce some of the pioneer Open Source web content management systems.

Wikipedia defines Web CMS systems as follows.

web-content-management system (WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, usually implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and many essential Web maintenance functions.

There are a lot of popular Content Management Systems available, many of them are free and open source. Content management systems like Wordpress, Django, Drupal, etc are a few best options among them. Let's see some of them.

Drupal

Drupal is one of the most popular Open Source Content management Systems, it is equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites. Drupal is developed using PHP, the standard release of Drupal (Drupal core), contains basic features common to most CMSs. These include the ability to create a classic brouchureware website or a community oriented interactive website.It also boasts of a variety of features and plugins. One of the main advantage of using Drupal is its community support, Drupal has a strong community driven by developers, contributers, users, fans, etc.

You can downlaod Drupal from http://drupal.org/

Wordpress

Wordpress is another popular Open Source Content manage system, it is the official successor of b2\cafelog which was developed by Michel Valdrighi. Even though wordpress is a complete content management system, it is most popular among its users for its powerful blogging capabilities and ease of use. Like most of the other popular CMSs it also features a rich plugin based architecture and theme support along with its legendary widget system. Since Wordpress is a community oriented open source software, you will have a great support from the community with each and everything from installation to customisation.

Learn more about Wordpress from http://wordpress.org/

Joomla

Another Top of the breed Content Management System. Like other content management systems, Joomla also boasts of a rich architecture with plug-in and theme support. The official site says that - "Joomla makes creating and maintaining Web sites easy for everyone, from total beginners setting up their first site to IT professionals managing enterprise installations." The Joomla has a strong community of developers, contributors and others willing to help anyone who is interested in Joomla.


You can Get your copy of Joomla and learn more about it from http://www.joomla.org/

TYPO3

It is an open-source, enterprise-level content management system focused on providing companies a solution for websites and their intranet. While most of the content management systems try to be simple and basic, TYPO3 comes with a set of complex and powerful features to help you achieve complicated tasks and ability to integrate with other applications. It is recommended for intermediate to advanced users.

Read more and download typo3 from http://typo3.com/

Railfrog

It is a user-friendly, open source website deployment and content management system, producing well structured and standards-compliant pages with Web 2.0 goodness. Railfrog makes it easy for developers, designers, webmasters, or just about anyone else to deploy and manage a website. One of the main features of Railfrog is it is developed on top of the Ruby on Rails web application framework (the same technology behind twitter and basecamp).

Download and Learn more from http://railfrog.com/

Open CMS

Open CMS is another open source CMS based on Java and XML technology. The fully browser based user interface features configurable editors for structured content. Alternatively, content can be created using an integrated wysiwyg editor similar to well known office applications. A sophisticated template-engine enforces a site-wide corporate layout and W3C standard compliance for all content. There are plenty of enterprise standard features in Open CMS, which makes it one of the perfect candidate for enterprise customers, the same time Open CMS keeps the simplicity to attract the ordinary customers too.

Get your copy of Open CMS from http://www.opencms.org

PostNuke

It is another Open Source Content management system, that helps us to creates an impressive, dynamic web site and provides the webmaster with a site they can administer with a minimal amount of HTML knowledge through a web browser. PostNuke's functionality can be increased by installing modules, blocks and themes. For example, you can add a forum, a gallery and contact form. You can also change how your entire site looks by changing themes. All of this can be done with just a few clicks in the administration panel saving you hours of time, both in the initial creation of the website and in its day to day maintenance.

You can read more information and download Post nuke from http://www.postnuke.com/

So now you know a few Free-to-use Content Management Systems, why not try and make a website or blog for yourself ?? Watch out for more useful articles :)

Open Source Web Design - Free web design templates

“If a site is perfectly usable but it lacks an elegant and appropriate design style, it will fail.”
--Curt Cloninger, 2001

Well how many of you are good designers ? [put your hands up :) ]. Hey cheer up if your hands are down :) we have got open source community to help us.

oswd.org - open source web design is a web site founded by Francis J. Skettino. The site provides quality web design templates for free of cost.The site now has more than 2000 quality designs, all the designs are completely free (remember an average cost of a design template available in the market is 40$).

If you are some one looking for a good design for your site or if you are a good web designer who wish to showoff your designing abilities, then oswd.org is a perfect place for you.Yeah this is a site worth a look.

Click here to access the oswd.org site

Technology Review - The oldest technology magazine

I've one more site review for you, I thought I need to let you know some of my favorite sites.At least some of you might be interested.

Okey... Now we are going to talk about one of the grandfathers of technology magazines.Yeah I'm talking about the Technology Review (est. 1899) Magazine by MIT.

Technology Review is a website published by Technology Review Inc.,this is the oldest technology magazine in the world. Technology Review Inc. is an independent media company owned by MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

The site says that it aims to promote the understanding of emerging technologies and to analyze their commercial, social, and political impacts.

This site is one of my favorite places in the internet,The site covers a wide range of technological areas including Information Technology,Biotechnology,Nanotechnology,Energy,etc.

The Technology review is considered as one of the most authoritative magazine about the future technologies.

Visit Technology Review by clicking this link.

I know most of you might have heard about MIT but just in case if some Charlie out there reading this article without knowing about MIT, please click here to know more about MIT.

Looking for Wallpapers to adorn your Kids Desktop

“I only want my kids to be happy” seems to be a simple, harmless, admirable desire. And here is another step by Next Door Nerd ;)

Did you started teaching your kid How to use a computer ? Then why not make a new user account for him ? You know kids need cute things and they love things they are attached to.And we are all need our kids more and more happy.

My neighbor came and asked me to customise his desktop for his Kids.I had no idea where to start, then I tried changing his wallpaper and the kids started loving it.They were talking about the cow and the animals in those images and yeah they really loved it.

You can find those images at www.pixelgirlpresents.com.

The site is not specifically for Kids, it is for all. And it has a lot of illustrations and artworks to download and they are all free.

Need more advices on how to setup your kids Desktop (Let it be any OS), just drop an e-mail at nextdoornerd AT gmail DOT com.

Website recommendation for Windows and Mac users

Looking for some Free Softwares for your PC or Mac ?. Tired searching for them ?

Have a look at these simply great sites,they offer a list of Free and Open Source applications for day today use.

opensourcemac.org is a site recommends a list of best FOS softwares for your Mac.

opensourcewindows.org recommends a FOSS list for your PC.

Both of these sites offers a list of carefully chosen applications ranging from Note taking application to Browsers and Personal Finance Managers.

I personally admire both of these sites for their simplicity and the perfectly chosen list of softwares. Give them a try ...