Latest

Agility CMS updated with May 2012 Release

Agility recently announced an update to their Agility CMS which they've labeled under the "May 2012 Release" header. The Agility May 2012 Release offers a complete revamp of their digital asset management system, a whole new system for generating image galleries and thumbnails, and the ability to store and retrieve file and image assets in Agility's new Azure-based content delivery network.

In discussing the redesigned digital asset management system, Agility's Joey Varty blogged about the new features in this release and he highlighted what impressed him most.

You now have sections for Media (which matches the old "Documents" section), a new Image Galleries tab, and a Recycle Bin.

One of my favorite things is the new "Show As Grid" option, giving you thumbnails of all files and images in a folder.  Take a look at the new media selection dialog:
 

Agility's new Media Selection Dialog


You'll notice that the selection dialog looks almost exactly like the Media page.  That's on purpose, of course, and your most recent folder and viewing styles are remembered by the system.
There is a  lot of passion behind the development of this release of Agility CMS due to the new features that should be welcomed by authors and site administrators. For example, Agility CMS now includes an image editor that gives authors and administrators the ability to crop, resize, flip, rotate, add text. It's the little things like the automatic generation of thumbnails, drag and drop uploads, and movement of items in content that while minor on the feature list are of subtle importance to a good content management experience. This new release of Agility CMS brings all these features to the user.

CMS Report is impressed with ImpressPages CMS 2.1

ImpressPages CMS has been updated to version 2.1 and I have to say I'm blown away with the new features included in this open source PHP-based CMS.  Last year, I told you that we all needed to keep an eye on this relatively new content management system. Almost from the start, ImpressPages contained some pretty impressive features including the ability to have most of its content administered directly in the website so you can see what the site looks like as you edit. ImpressPages calls this feature in-place editing. A year later and we continue to see some really cool stuff ImpressPages is doing with their CMS.

The Secret to Effectiveness for Virtual Teams

There’s a sea change going on – a quiet revolution in the way we work as teams. Successful virtual teams, without question, have been on the forefront of this change. But co-located teams are also beginning to reap the benefits of a new way of working.

When Meetings Ruled the Day

To decode the secret, let’s start by examining a simple concept that traditionally has been critical to teams:  meetings.

Axceler Survey Finds Microsoft SharePoint Governance Important, Yet Most Organizations Unprepared

WOBURN, MA – According to the initial results of a Microsoft SharePoint governance survey commissioned by Axceler, a leader in SharePoint governance, administration and migration solutions, more than two-thirds of the respondents consider SharePoint governance to be extremely or very important to their organizations.  Yet nearly half of those same respondents confirmed that SharePoint governance policies do not exist or are undefined.

MODX Revolution 2.2.1 Released

Yesterday, MODX Revolution 2.2.1 was released and this new version offers several small enhancements while addressing 85 issues with fixes. New in 2.2.1 is Sudo users. Sudo users is a setting on a user account that gives unrestricted access to the MODX install. This new feature lets site administrators maintain a user account that cannot get locked out of the site while creating access policies for other site administrators and users.

Liferay Hits the Road after Liferay Portal 6.1 Surpasses Half a Million Downloads

Life is treating Liferay very well these days. After only a few months since Liferay Portal 6.1 was introduced, this company witnessed half a million downloads of their 6.1 software. So what does Liferay decide to do next? How does this sound? Take Liferay through a multi-city roadshow so even more business users and organizations become aware of what Liferay has to offer.

Quoting IT: Learn from Success

"People say that failure is important because it teaches you. I think that you can learn more from success. You learn what works as opposed to what doesn’t work. As no success is perfect, you still learn from the effort and improve from there.

That ability to learn is how you become a successful CMS professional."

- Laurence Hart, The Content Management Expert Paradox, Word of Pie, March 26, 2012.

Open Source Meets Google Summer of Code 2012

Every year, I find it an honor when I'm asked by open source projects to announce that they have entered been accepted as mentoring organizations into Google's Summer of Code program. I'm a big advocate of college education and I also understand the importance of a summer job to keeping those college bills under control. Open source projects and the Google Summer of Code provides this opportinuty for upcoming software developers. The Summer of Code is a "global program sponsored by Google that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects".