More CMS's, this time for PHP

I recently had a requirement for a CMS to run on a Linux server. For 99% of my day-job I use ASP.NET but I am an old hand at PHP and I'm not overly familiar with the syntax of Ruby or Python so PHP was my language of choice.

I was after a small, easy to set up, flexible solution which wasn't going to take ages to install and configure and that also didn't require me to use a massive framework.


I friend recomended Pixie which is a free, open source offering from toggle and I've got to say that I was pleasantly supprised. Admittedly it's a million miles away from the object oriented nature of .NET that I'm so used to but it does have a plugin architecture and is easily skinnable.

I recomend giving it a try!

Someone else I know and like

Following on from my post the other day, I'd like to link you up to the musings of Oliver Dore.

I’ve known Oli for about 6 years now, since we met while I was teaching at the University of Lincoln.

He has worked at a few top class agencies here in the UK including mN and now works for HUGE, Brooklyn in New York.

Oli is a fantastic developer with a very strong eye for design and he’s possibly one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met! Go check him out on his tumblelog.

Blogging and Advertising

I've been blogging on and off for just over a year now and I'm consistently getting around 300 hits per month which I'm really impressed with. Most of my traffic (about 50%) comes through a single post about resizing images which leads me to believe that 90% of the folks that read this blog are developers like my self. And I guess this was alway my intention as I doubt anyone really wants to read about how I just mowed the lawn after playing 9 holes of golf, but I had reason to believe (and now have proof) that a few of my ramblings would hold some interest for a few people out there.

As a web developer I don't really like banner ads and rarely ever click on them (I think I've clicked on maybe 2 in my 10+ years of internetting) and a never click the sponsored links that show up at the top of Google, they're only at the top because someone paid for them, and to me that spells a false positive. The non-sponsored links below stand a very strong chance of being more relevant.

So, anyway, as a bit of an experiment and a completely transparent attempt to make a quick buck I've taken advantage of the quick and easy method blogger now provides to "Monetise your blog" and lobbed AdWords on here.

Obviously I hope I make my millions from it but I'd like to see if I actually make anything from it at all. I'd like to see if all developers are like me and see right through online advertising. Or if it's just me that thinks I can do a better job of finding what I'm after than Google can.

Here's hoping!

People I know and Like(?)

Quite a lot has happened in and around my little blogosphere in the last few months.

Back in February I mentioned the development blog of my friend, ex-colleague and ex-house-mate, James (Jay) Field's work for his Interactive Media MA project "Frontier".
Frontier is a massively multiplayer online game that Jay is building in Flash. The blog has gone a bit quite at the moment since he was made senior lecturer at the Hull School of Art and Design.


iheartspaceships
Nearly a year and a half ago, Ryan and Andy bought a domain name and said they were going to produce a blog. Yesterday they launched "a day early".

Ryan is a Flash Developer here at twentysix Leeds and works across many large brands on both web and AIR based Flashieness.

Andy is our UI Developer working on many of the same clients and projects but does miraculous things with JavaScript and CSS.

Hopefully they'll have some interesting thoughts soon over at iheartspaceships.com


niid.to
About a month ago James and Tom C left twentysix Leeds to persue a life of love and freedom as freelance developer and designer respectively. Amongst various freelance work that they won't tell us about they also founded niid.to, a social to do list and they have an accompanying blog over at http://niidto.blogspot.com/

26point1
Our Technical Director, Matt, used to run two blogs for the different types of nonsense he likes to spout off about. "matts 2 minute reviews" and "matts random days". Not that long ago, he merged them into one central repository of nonsense over at 26point1. Hop on over there to read about all kinds of rubbish, both technology-based and not...

Metallica

I'm off to see Metallica at Nottingham Arena tomorrow night. Can't wait!

As you'll be able to see from my Last.fm, I've been listening to a lot of it today and yesterday to get in the mood :)

Final Frontier

My old friend James only just showed me the devblog for the project he's basing his masters work around. Swing on over to http://www.frontier.lincoln.ac.uk/devblog/ and check out the crazy work he's doing.

Tidy Up

I just deleted all my old half started posts in an attempt to get some more writing done, I figured I would never finish these posts now or in the future as the moment really has passed and would seem even less applicable as time crawles on.

Well, what else am I going to do at 8am on a Saturday :(