Deane Barker’s Technical Blog

The posts below were originally posted to a blog called Gadgetopia. I have since retired that blog and moved the posts here.

Software Isn’t the Problem

DateMay 28, 2019

Words4,043

Everyone wants to blame software. No one wants to blame themselves.

Towards a Content Modeling Standard

DateApril 24, 2019

Words2,108

This industry would benefit greatly if only we could agree on how content is modeled.

Content, Campaigns, and Context: Why CDPs Are Having a Moment

DateApril 18, 2019

Words3,398

We’ve gradually moved from content to campaigns. The current wave of CDPs might indicate we’re taking another step.

Repouring the Foundation: The Perils of Content Modeling on the Fly

DateApril 7, 2019

Words1,978

Editors sometimes want to change content models on the fly. This is rarely a good idea.

Words, Links, and Centrality: Evaluating 17 Years of Gadgetopia Content

DateApril 1, 2019

Words4,198

What do you do when you have too much content to review?

Problems, Patterns and Why Every CMS Thinks It Knows What You Need

DateMarch 19, 2019

Words2,026

Generally speaking, a CMS is a system to manage content that doesn’t exist yet and that it can’t know anything about at the time the CMS is designed and built.

Breaking the Fourth Wall of Content

DateFebruary 27, 2019

Words2,760

What do we believe about the origins of the content we consume?

Squirrel Notes: The First Year

DateDecember 20, 2018

Words2,622

Some stats and background information on the first year of my CMS newsletter.

The Technical Basis for Content Experience

DateNovember 16, 2018

Words2,568

At what point does a content repository evolve into a “CMS” in the traditional sense?

Points of Differentiation in Headless CMS

DateOctober 16, 2018

Words3,618

Why do customers pick one headless CMS over another? How do they differentiate themselves?

Multi-stage Templating as Progressive Denormalization

DateMarch 21, 2017

Words3,622

Templating often isn’t single-step. Progressive refinement has a necessary place in content delivery.

An Unofficial Guide to Whatever-as-a-Service

DateFebruary 10, 2017

Words3,383

A look at the Big Three service frameworks, and all the complications and shades of gray which orbit around them.

The State of the Headless CMS Market

DateFebruary 8, 2017

Words2,138

A look at the current players – intentional or otherwise – in the headless CMS market.

Why Organizations Pick CMS X Over CMS Y

DateJanuary 31, 2017

Words268

Some decisions factors, their interplay, and outside perspective on software selection.

The Sometimes Confusing Economics of the Professional Services Business

DateJanuary 23, 2017

Words3,533

There are a lot of different ways to lose money on a project, and that calculation is not simple.

The Consultant’s Dilemma

DateJanuary 14, 2017

Words1,497

Some consultants spend a lot of energy trying to never, ever flinch. I’ve stopped doing this.

The Truth About CMS Form Builders

DateJanuary 11, 2017

Words3,751

CMS users consistently over-estimate (1) how much they need form builders, and (2) how much the tools can do.

The Tortured Metaphor of Spatial Content Relativity

DateJanuary 4, 2017

Words2,789

We often try to force-fit content into physical metaphors, where it doesn’t always fit.

Case Studies of CMS-to-SQL Decoupled Publishing

DateDecember 28, 2016

Words2,853

Two examples of updating SQL databases from a CMS.

Content Management is an Emergent Skill

DateDecember 22, 2016

Words6,509

Content management is a bundle of skills which come together to form a larger, meta-skill.

Use Cases for a Headless CMS

DateDecember 14, 2016

Words2,770

There are some interesting reasons to use a headless CMS that go beyond the “single website” model.

Grokking CMS

DateNovember 21, 2016

Words2,024

Reflections on what it means to really understand a CMS, down to its bones.

The Book Itself: Four Thoughts on the Enduring Value of the Printed Book

DateNovember 15, 2016

Words3,497

The book itself matters. Beyond the practicalities it offers over ebooks, the printed book carries with it intangible characteristics that we take for granted and wouldn’t miss until long after their absence.

Content Firehoses, Absorption Rates, and The Endowment Effect

DateOctober 17, 2016

Words1,378

Pushing more content than can be absorbed actually causes feelings of loss and pain.

Content Personalization: A Reality Check

DateOctober 12, 2016

Words3,732

CMS personalization tools have failed. Here’s why, and how the next wave might be different.

Towards an Invested Engagement Model

DateOctober 6, 2016

Words3,034

What you want from a contractor is investment. Ironically, the biggest impediment to that is often the parameters of the relationship itself. Some relationships are simply designed to fail.

Defining Digital Project Scope: What Do You Need?

DateSeptember 13, 2016

Words1,640

The first step on any implementation is to figure out what you need done. The range of services is vast.

The Page-Based CMS is a Natural Byproduct of the Web

DateAugust 15, 2016

Words2,025

The concept of how a “page” relates to content is a critical aspect of how a CMS works. The web has influenced this relationship.

Patterns in URL Redirection After CMS Migrations

DateAugust 11, 2016

Words3,561

A necessary part of any content migration is redirect the URLs from old content to new. There are a number of strong patterns to this task.

Proposals Are Like First Dates

DateJune 6, 2016

Words2,357

People lie in proposals all the time. This is a story about how we didn’t.

What do we call the people we make content for?

DateJune 2, 2016

Words195

A simple request for a standard term to describe the humans that consume your content.

The Need for Content Operations

DateJanuary 27, 2016

Words1,525

We spend a lot of time planning and building sites with CMSs. We spend less time actually using them. I think there’s a place for a service offering that does exactly this.

The Flying Squirrel Book

DateJuly 14, 2015

Words652

I’m writing a book about web content management.

What is Content Integration?

DateApril 27, 2015

Words793

We spend a lot of time making content that doesn’t exist in our CMS look like it does. This is an attempt to put a definition around that discipline.

Editorial Scripting in CMS

DateJanuary 29, 2015

Words1,104

Does all code need to be code? Or can some of it be managed as content? Is there a place for a separate level of code managed by editors?

We Suck at HTTP

DateJanuary 7, 2015

Words1,072

If you’re a web developer, then you owe your job to HTTP. You should probably know more about it than you do.

Things that Web Crawlers Hate

DateNovember 12, 2014

Words331

We make the lives of webs crawlers much more difficult and much less effective, unecessarily.

The “Import and Update” Pattern

DateNovember 12, 2014

Words588

Often you need to import AND update content, rather that just simply importing it. This makes tasks of content integration so much easier.

“As We May Think”

DateNovember 7, 2014

Words526

In 1945, an American scientist theorized about an information management system that, in retrospect, sounds suspiciously like the web.

Do Hyperlinks Change the Meaning of Content?

DateNovember 7, 2014

Words527

When you add a hyperlink to text, you might accidentally change the emphasis and implication of it.

Miller’s Magic Number and It’s (Non-) Relevance to Web Navigation

DateJune 8, 2014

Words597

There’s a lazy myth of UX that needs to be busted.

You Want Collaboration, Not Workflow

DateJune 1, 2014

Words810

When people say they want workflow, they probably don’t.

Never Fall for a Custom, Hosted CMS. Ever.

DateMay 20, 2014

Words1,222

There is NO benefit to you in being talked into using a custom CMS which is hosted and controlled by a web development shop.

How to Give a Good Conference Talk

DateApril 17, 2014

Words3,397

In 2014, I wrote down some notes about how to give a good conference presentation. I’ve been expanded them ever since.

Perspectives On What “Archiving” Means in Content Management

DateApril 16, 2014

Words704

Lots of vendors claim to do “archiving,” but they can’t agree on what this means. It turns out that not many users do either.

Why I Love to Manage Content

DateApril 7, 2014

Words683

The title is accurate.

IA is Not New

DateMarch 31, 2014

Words926

Information architecture has existed since we had information, despite the occasionally belief that it’s a digital invention.

The Necessity of Asynchronous Communication

DateMarch 22, 2014

Words759

Sometimes, waiting for an answer is the correct and productive way to communicate with someone, despite claims that “facetime” is the most important interpersonal method.

Movable Type White Paper

DateMarch 18, 2014

Words279

I wrote a white paper for Movable Type about how to use a decoupled CMS to manage content in a non-content-based website.

The Peril of Not Stating Your Budget Upfront

DateDecember 31, 2013

Words1,054

If you don’t state your budget upfront, then the recipient needs to make some assumptions, and they might not assume what you expect. Your responses might be limited as a result.

What Makes Developers Really Great

DateSeptember 17, 2013

Words1,328

A developer ostensibly visited me for a job interview once, which didn’t go the way either of us expected. I wrote him a letter afterwards to explain the problem to him.

Is Content Geography Just Another Property?

DateSeptember 12, 2013

Words895

Reasons why content geography – meaning the spatial relationship of content to other content – is a proportionately more powerful way to model content then a simple, discrete content property.

Why We Don’t Document Code

DateSeptember 6, 2013

Words426

Sometimes we don’t document for valid reasons, not just because we’re lazy.

Why I Am a Content Management Professional

DateAugust 29, 2013

Words621

Content is a subset of information, and – consequently – content management professionals comprise a subset of information professionals. Here’s why I count myself among them.

The Content Management Strategist

DateAugust 13, 2013

Words697

The content management strategist slots in neatly between content strategy and a CMS implementation.

Five Practices of the Well-Rounded Content Management Developer

DateJuly 12, 2013

Words2,028

Good content management developers constantly work to increase their empathy and perspective. Here are five ways to do that.

Why do too many developers love to build CMS from scratch?

DateJune 24, 2013

Words977

CMS gets re-written from scratch more than any other genre of software. Here are three reasons why.

Examining the Separation Between Presentation and Content

DateJune 15, 2013

Words678

Separating content from presentation is harder and more murky than you think. Here are some thoughts from a white paper about the topic.

Posts are Not Blogs

DateMarch 18, 2013

Words323

A small, silly rant about about what we call things.

Spanning the Gap from Feature to Conversion: Are We Building the Right Bridges?

DateFebruary 21, 2013

Words2,404

The development of a CMS tends to get bogged down in the wrong issues. We need to extend CMS along marketing lines, not technical lines. The lack of this painfully evident in the open-source CMS space.

Content Reuse and The Problem of Narrative Flow

DateJanuary 1, 2013

Words3,113

Reusing content across multiple channels is the Holy Grail of content management. But it’s not that simple. For certain types of content, it’s very hard to do without alienating your audience.

Why Categorizing, Comparing, Rating, and Evaluating a CMS is Really, Really Hard

DateDecember 13, 2012

Words2,298

Comparing different systems in the CMS space is far more complicated than it seems at first glance. Here’s some reasons why.

An Oft-Overlooked CMS Feature: The Community

DateDecember 12, 2012

Words1,208

You’re not just buying a CMS, you’re buying into the community around it. Buyers (and vendors) need to pay attention to the state of their community a lot more than they usually do.

The Great Folder vs. Search Debate

DateDecember 12, 2012

Words702

Does organizing content in some larger geography have value? Do users want it organized this way? Does it have any inherent value over “standard” metadata?

Managing Your Tasks in Gmail

DateDecember 3, 2012

Words1,309

For years, I’ve used a small feature of Gmail as the key tool in my productivity stack.

Bringing Decoupled CMS Back

DateDecember 2, 2012

Words389

Decoupled CMS might be making a comeback.

Why Django and Rails CMS Are So Rare

DateNovember 29, 2012

Words1,148

Django and Rails are notably absent from the boxed CMS space. There are specific reasons why, and – in a larger sense – why platforms with strong frameworks tend to limit this growth.

Librarians and the Book: A Marriage of Convenience

DateOctober 15, 2012

Words686

We tend to associate librarians with books, but this is slowly changing. We should really associate librarians with information.

The Book as a Trophy of Knowledge

DateOctober 9, 2012

Words996

“I was a early adopter of the Kindle. I bought one of the original first generation devices back in early 2008 (when they were fully $400). I was convinced that ebooks were the answer to the prayers...”

The Art and Practice of Content Assembly: Where IA and CMS Meet

DateOctober 1, 2012

Words3,440

Making your content strategy work with your CMS is tricky. Often it comes down to issues of content assembly. Capabilities in this space vary greatly.

The Challenges of Date Scoping in Enterprise Search

DateSeptember 27, 2012

Words326

“Date – the ‘silver bullet’ of enterprise search: I enjoyed this post from Martin White about the single thing that would enterprise/intranet search better. He says it’s the ability to specify a date...”

Is Time-Shifted Web Content an Alternate Channel?

DateSeptember 16, 2012

Words617

“I’m wondering at what point does ‘time-shifted’ web content constitute an entirely different distribution channel? By ‘time-shifted,’ I mean services like Instapaper, Readabilty, and Pocket (formerly...”

The Necessity of a Content Index

DateSeptember 10, 2012

Words1,814

Having a comprehensive index of content is a base requirement of a CMS. This limits what can really be considered a “CMS” and what can’t.

Why Your App Needs Automated Data Export

DateSeptember 6, 2012

Words726

“If you have an app of some kind in which people store data, then everyone probably wants an API. Developers somewhere are clamoring for you to open a web service (SOAP, REST, protocol du jour,...”

What is a “Page Based” CMS?

DateAugust 27, 2012

Words570

The label of “page-based” is normally used as a pejorative in the world of CMS. Here’s why it matters less than you might think it does.

The Psychology of News

DateAugust 24, 2012

Words1,162

“I love the news. I’m a news junkie. I’m constantly attached to CNN in some form or another, and have been since I started college. Lately, I’ve become very interested in news from a content strategy...”

What You Owe Vendors Who Respond to Your RFP

DateAugust 23, 2012

Words500

When you send out an RFP, you are asking something of the people who respond. It’s good manners to fulfill your end of the bargain.

The Myth of the Hourly Rate

DateAugust 22, 2012

Words472

Hourly rates for integrators are largely a pointless metric on which to evaluate them.

The Unique Challenges of CMS Support, Part II

DateAugust 22, 2012

Words1,399

The support required of a CMS varies greatly, and there’s a blurry line between “support” and “consulting.”

The Information Needs of the Indoctrinated Audience

DateAugust 21, 2012

Words1,804

“In any web project, the glamour audience that gets all the attention is the new audience – the previously unknown visitors that know little about you, and need to learn from scratch. We spend so much...”

CMS Partnerships Revisited: Badge Collectors and Dragon Slayers

DateAugust 18, 2012

Words1,300

Here’s why firms that strike up partnerships with every vendor are probably not the firms you want to work on your project.

Everyone Wants a Number

DateAugust 17, 2012

Words1,930

Bidding CMS projects is hard. Doing it honestly is even harder.

Files are the Currency of Web Development

DateAugust 16, 2012

Words994

Some CMS try to remove or limit the use of files in their development. This is corrupting one of the basic tenets of web development, and it will make developers hate you.

Seduction by Wireframe

DateAugust 14, 2012

Words601

“I really enjoyed this article from RSG and can so relate to it. It’s about ‘UX overreach’ in site overhauls – when IAs and UX people get too active and try to do too much, adding layers and layers of...”

The Anti-Patterns of Blog Commenting

DateAugust 6, 2012

Words350

“Pay attention to what Nick Denton is doing with comments: Gawker is experimenting with new comment systems, as should everyone really. It only takes one look at the comments on your average Big News...”

Three Types of Metadata

DateAugust 6, 2012

Words219

“A month or so ago, I posted about the NISO document for building digital collections. Buried in that document was a great quote about the different kinds of metadata. Essentially, NISO claims, it...”

Why Enterprise Knowledge Management is Structurally Flawed

DateJuly 15, 2012

Words406

“The Employee and the Professional: Seth Gottlieb has put together a brilliant post that really calls into question the basic foundation of knowledge management: The thing is that advanced skill and...”

When eCommerce Might Be a Very Bad Thing

DateJuly 15, 2012

Words1,073

“You shouldn’t always sell stuff on the Internet. This might seem odd coming from a guy who gets paid to help you sell stuff on the Net, but it’s true. If you are in the physical retail business,...”

“Migration” Might be the Most Dangerous Word in CMS

DateJuly 7, 2012

Words387

When someone says “migration” in the context of a CMS project, stop everything and make them define exactly what they’re talking about.

NISO on Digital Collections

DateJune 24, 2012

Words522

“A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections: I really enjoyed this white paper, published by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). It’s a tour de force around the...”

Rivers, Not Trees: The Challenge to Organizational IA

DateJune 17, 2012

Words1,794

Organizational communication is about dynamic rivers of content, not static trees.

The Non-Future of Multi-Tenant SaaS CMS

DateJune 15, 2012

Words1,259

The idea of SaaS CMS is largely obsolete. Whether a CMS is SaaS or not is largely a question of business model.

RSG on Products vs. Platforms

DateJune 8, 2012

Words373

“After our discussion yesterday on products vs. platforms, Tony Byrne sent me a report from Real Story Group that really lays bare the entire argument. Some quotes (all with Tony’s gracious...”

The Great Platform vs Product Debate

DateJune 7, 2012

Words924

CMS falls into a spectrum of what is a “product” and what is a “platform.” This debate has been going on for a decade now, and will likely never be resolved.

What does “published” mean anymore?

DateMay 12, 2012

Words383

“‘Self-published’ is not in any way analogous to ‘published’: There’s a very interesting discussion going on over at Reddit that’s very similar to something a line of thought I’ve had for quite a...”

Use Canonical URLs, Please

DateMay 12, 2012

Words840

URLs are not absolute. There are a million shades of gray, and canonicals were invented to resolve this. Use them.

Solving Your Own Problems By Writing Good Questions

DateMarch 19, 2012

Words337

“I really like Jeff Atwood’s post about the Rubber Duck method of problem solving. Apparently, the name comes from a manager who would have people ask their questions out loud to a rubber duck....”

Generating Automatic Bookmarks in Text

DateMarch 19, 2012

Words458

“Recently, I sent someone a link to a long Gadgetopia post, and I wanted them to read one particular paragraph. So, I had to tell them, scroll down about halfway to the paragraph that starts... It...”

Are Comments on News Articles Pointless?

DateMarch 19, 2012

Words559

“I’ve always maintained the commenting on major websites – especially news sites – is just a complete disaster these days. Comment threads on sites like CNN and USAToday (especially USAToday, for some...”

The New York Times Topic Pages

DateMarch 14, 2012

Words396

“I really enjoy the Times Topics pages, and I think the New York Times does this exactly right. We’ve talked several times in the past about posts vs. pages and how they’re fundamentally different....”

Intra-link Management in Content Management

DateFebruary 25, 2012

Words1,390

Linking pages in a CMS to each other can be more complicated than you think. You have to ensure you’re link to content, not URLs, and you have to maintain a record of these links, for a variety of reasons.

Supplemental Indexing in Content Management

DateFebruary 21, 2012

Words1,117

Having a separate index of CMS content, structured for optimal querying, can help you solve a lot of sticky problems.

Decoupled CMS is the New Black

DateJanuary 23, 2012

Words459

“Fun with Static Publishing: Seth writes about how he’s come full circle back to static publishing of websites. They’re content-managed (-ish) in the background, but written to files then uploaded to...”

The Slippery Definition of a Digital Channel

DateJanuary 13, 2012

Words1,454

“Working in web content management, we tend to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on a single channel: the web, and naturally the website that pushes information into it. But, more and more, I’ve...”

What an RSS Purge Taught Me About How I Consume Information

DateJanuary 7, 2012

Words1,518

“I’m making a very concerted attempt lately to cut down on the RSS feeds I consume. Earlier this year, it had reached neurotic levels – Google Reader was like a heroin addiction. Because of this,...”

Content Choreography

DateJanuary 7, 2012

Words277

“Content Choreography – The Art of Dynamic Web Content: I like this new name – ‘content choreography’ – for a summation of all the skills and governance required to make content work, along with the...”

Checking the Box: How CMS Feature Support Is Not a Binary Question

DateNovember 26, 2011

Words1,575

The classic “feature matrix” of RFPs is a terrible way to measure a capabilities of a CMS. The support of a particular feature in a CMS is rarely a yes/no question.

Have Analytics Cursed Journalism?

DateNovember 12, 2011

Words512

“I just watched Page One, which is a great documentary on the New York Times and its place in the post-print world. One recurring theme – hinted at a lot, and outright stated a couple times – is that...”

How to Make Conference Speakers Love You

DateSeptember 28, 2011

Words507

“I spoke today at the Social Intranet Summit in Vancouver, which was put on by the good folks at Thought Farmer. Great conference, all-around, but I was especially struck by how well it worked for...”

Data Won’t Solve Your Problems

DateAugust 30, 2011

Words541

“There’s no such thing as big data: This is an article about how companies fail to put ‘big data’ – the reams and reams of information he accumulate – to good use. It starts off with a really good...”

Varying Levels of Content Structure

DateAugust 22, 2011

Words1,144

Content structure is achieved at a variety of levels – structure within a property, structure withing a content object, structure between different content objects, etc.

The Unique Challenges of CMS Support, Part I

DateAugust 14, 2011

Words1,060

Vendors support of content management is hard because each boxed CMS is coupled with a custom integration, and it’s difficult to assign blame when something goes wrong.

Experience Management (Read: Content Delivery) is Trumping Content Management

DateAugust 10, 2011

Words249

“Forrester report: Customer experience management defines WCM today: I feel like I’ve been saying this for a while now. The future of content management is not in management, but in delivery....”

Five Tips to Getting a Good Response to a Content Management RFP

DateJuly 28, 2011

Words2,392

The common patterns of writing RFPs is especially poor when it comes to content management. There are several specific things you can do to get better responses.

Just Give Us a Budget Target

DateJuly 27, 2011

Words805

“I’m going to propose a radical thing to anyone shopping for Web development services: just tell us how much money you have to spend. Gosh, that sounds crass, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it to, but I’m...”

Content Geography: The CMS Feature You Take for Granted

DateJuly 17, 2011

Words1,177

One of the highest manifestations of content structure is the overhead “geography” that content gets organized into.

Are Contextual URLs Worth the Trouble on an Intranet?

DateJuly 15, 2011

Words436

“I’m wondering if there’s a really strong purpose to contextual URLs on intranets? I’ve been a strong proponent of good URLs in the past, but I’ve just converted an intranet from a URL pattern like...”

Web Content Management is Losing Its Competitive Advantage

DateJuly 7, 2011

Words386

Once considered a competitive advantage, content management has largely become the normal. The idea of not using a CMS is almost archaic, so discussion of “the benefits of content management” are increasingly irrelevant.

The Future of the Librarian: Information Architecture and Literacy

DateMay 28, 2011

Words683

“I’ve often wondered, what does the post-library era look like? Let’s face it, though there will be a long tail, the era of the bound wood pulp is coming to an end (Amazon certainly thinks so)....”

The Marginalization of the Tweet

DateMay 24, 2011

Words432

“So, Twitter is buying TweetDeck today, and it’s got me thinking about how the tweet just might be getting marginalized, and what that means. TweetDeck is a good piece of software, but, despite the...”

Virtual Staging vs. True Staging Environments

DateMay 15, 2011

Words1,221

Once considered a norm, the concept of a separate “content staging environment” has slipped into disuse. It still has some advantages, but the alternative – a live, “virtual” staging environment – probably has more.

Is there a distinct type of CMS for “news”?

DateMay 13, 2011

Words368

“What is a (news) CMS?: Interesting comments about how news organizations need a CMS specifically wired for news. This involves, among other things, abstracting your repository from the presentation...”

The Bifurcation of Content Management and Delivery

DateMay 10, 2011

Words913

Content “management” and content “delivery” have diverged into two separate concepts. The disciplines used are different, and I argue that it won’t be long before vendors start splitting off their delivery suites from their management suites.

Chasing the Ideal: Relational Content Modeling in Content Management

DateApril 11, 2011

Words1,552

Every CMS tries, in some extent, to duplicate the classic model of the relational database. Some come closer than others to this “ideal.”

Decoupled Content Management 101

DateMarch 26, 2011

Words2,945

Originally, content management repositories were separated from the publishing layer. This line has blurred over the years, and there are numerous models that combine aspects of both decoupled and “active” delivery tiers.

The Utility of Drag-and-Drop Page Composition in Content Management

DateMarch 9, 2011

Words945

Drag-and-drop page composition has become a key selling feature of content management in recent years. It’s impressive, certainly, but useful is it, in reality?

The Psychology of Repository Permanence

DateMarch 4, 2011

Words718

One of the biggest problems in implement content management inside an organization is getting employees to accept that this is the “one true solution” in which they should put their faith.

My Printing Frustration with Google Docs

DateJanuary 6, 2011

Words629

“I love Google Docs, and we use it constantly at Blend – there’s never a day when a half-dozen new Docs aren’t created, edited, shared, etc. The ability for more than one person to be in a document...”

How do you operationalize knowledge?

DateNovember 18, 2010

Words2,051

Knowledge management requires you to ask some very basic question about how you plan to turn knowledge into content in which to be managed.

Your CMS as Bad Cop

DateOctober 16, 2010

Words690

Content management systems thrive on consistency, which gives you a very roundabout benefit – you can use it as a “bad cop” to force people in your organization to be more consistent about their content.

“Give us simplicity, so we can ignore you.”

DateOctober 10, 2010

Words708

“Simplicity Is Highly Overrated: This has been making the rounds for a while, but I just got around to reading it. Don Norman – principle of The Nielsen-Norman Group and author of Emotional Design and...”

WCM Vendors: It’s Time to Abstract Your Repository

DateSeptember 5, 2010

Words945

Over the last decade, content management has become increasingly focused on the web. However, in this world of true multi-channel publishing, the web is just one of many channels, and its time CMS vendors made their repositories less web-specific.

Why “WEM” Worries Me

DateSeptember 4, 2010

Words693

“Web Experiement/Engagement Management” is the latest trend in content management, but I have a fear that vendors will focus on it to the detriment of another, equally important parts of their systems.

Enter the Content Developer

DateAugust 21, 2010

Words719

With all the channel options available for content publishers, the “web developer” may be giving way to a more general “content developer.”

The Problem of Context

DateAugust 14, 2010

Words2,044

Content is not isolated in its presentation – it’s often presented with other information that is somehow related to it. Modeling and managing these relationships can be harder than you think.

Writing Shorter Books Re-visited

DateAugust 9, 2010

Words332

“Short rant here – authors, can we please start writing shorter books? We’ve talked about this before, but now I have a specific example. I’m trying to learn more about encodings – you know, character...”

Editors Live in the Holes

DateJuly 24, 2010

Words746

We tend to develop templates with a “hole” for where “the content will go.” However, we ignore what happens in that hole – what specific tools editors will be given to manage what happens in their “hole.”

The Dawn of the Web Content Delivery System (WCDS)

DateJune 13, 2010

Words1,414

Web content delivery is becoming so complex and important that it’s deserving of a system all its own that aggregates, harmonizes, and enhances content for delivery.

Episerver Launches eCommerce Platform

DateJune 3, 2010

Words312

“Episerver Commerce Arrives!: I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I am proud to announce the official launch of Episerver Commerce. Episerver Commerce is a powerful commerce platform targeted at...”

Using Proxy Content Objects for Non-CMS Content

DateMay 19, 2010

Words813

Incorporating applications and other non-content functionality in your website in easier when you use a proxy content object to represent it.

CMS Admin Interface Customization: An Example

DateMay 16, 2010

Words334

A graphical look at all the different ways the Episerver admin interface can be customized. A good example of customization options you might want or need for your installation

Abstract your Crumbtrails

DateMay 14, 2010

Words311

When you have a “pure” crumbtrail – one that is based on a page’s position in the larger content geography and nothing – problems can result. It’s easier if you abstract this, and other navigation, away from the content structure.

Attention CMS Vendors: The Web Root is Sacred

DateMay 7, 2010

Words660

There are a few things that CMS vendors do that make some systems very hard to develop with, including the confusion of content files with code files.

Why I Hate Stored Procedures: A Manifesto

DateMay 6, 2010

Words840

“I am not a fan of stored procedures. I really dislike them, in fact. I know they have a place, but, in general, they’re insanely over-used. Specifically, I do not believe in using stored procs to...”

What is Metadata in WCM?

DateJanuary 24, 2010

Words1,047

The term “metadata” is abused when it comes to web content management. In most cases, metadata does not actually exist apart from “first order” data, and thus the term has lost all relevancy.

The Psychology of the Bullet Point

DateJanuary 3, 2010

Words525

“I’m warning you in advance that this might sound ridiculous, but I think I’ve figured out the psychology of a bullet point. Face it, bullet points are attractive. People usually like to see them in...”

The Fallacy of “The Best CMS”

DateJanuary 3, 2010

Words637

Concepts of “the best CMS” are only valid in the face of actual requirements.

The Paradox of Background Knowledge

DateJanuary 1, 2010

Words554

“I really loved this post from Rajesh Setty about why smart people don’t share their knowledge. He examined why some of the smartest people are so less likely to share their knowledge than other...”

The Most Basic Questions Asked of a CMS

DateDecember 24, 2009

Words399

When learning a new CMS, there are a set of core questions I ask of it. Vendors should concentrate on those questions and being able to provide quick wins for new adopters.

Episerver’s Dynamic Data Store

DateOctober 20, 2009

Words324

“Introducing The Dynamic Data Store : Episerver is shipping a handy new feature in CMS 6 which provides for data storage of...whatever. [...] storing data in a database using Entity Framework or...”

WYSIWYG Editors and DIVs: A Love Story

DateOctober 12, 2009

Words247

“Why do WYSIWYG editors suck at invisible, surrounding elements? I’m evaluating a design right now to quote a content management implementation. One of the elements involved arbitrarily shading an...”

Should you put your intranet in the cloud?

DateOctober 10, 2009

Words355

“Intranet in the cloud : A nice rant about how more companies should host their intranets externally, rather than inside their own infrastructure. I was recently pressed on the subject of a ‘hosted...”

The Role of the Metator

DateSeptember 12, 2009

Words331

“Let us now praise metators : Tony Byrne succumbs to use of the word ‘metator.’ Metators are not just found among corporate web teams. Records managers have been dealing with metadata for decades. Now,...”

An Argument for Building Your Own CMS

DateSeptember 7, 2009

Words407

“Content Management Systems just don’t work. : This is an excellent post about something we’ve discussed before – is a ‘boxed’ CMS really worth it? For instance, in this excerpt, the author is...”

The Personality of Books and the Big Problem with my Kindle

DateJune 22, 2009

Words514

“I love my Kindle, but there’s one thing that’s...icky, about it. One thing that confirms all the background fear and dread I had about transitioning from actual paper to ebooks. The Kindle strips out...”

Just What is Metadata, Anyway?

DateJune 21, 2009

Words542

With structured content, concepts of “metadata” can be confusing and irrelevant.

The Value of Conferences

DateJune 19, 2009

Words603

“I’m just back from Web Content 2009, which I really enjoyed. It got me thinking a bit about conferences, and the value of going to them, especially in light of Scott Abel’s discussion of the trouble...”

Do you respect your platform?

DateMay 23, 2009

Words711

“If you work with a development platform enough, you develop some weird, imagined relationship with the platform’s development team, even if you never meet them. In working with the fruits of their...”

How Version-Controllable or Auto-Deployable is Your Software?

DateMay 20, 2009

Words303

“Just a quick rant here to say that companies need to be cognizant of source control and integration services when they design their software. When they ship their software – especially server-based...”

You don’t even know what you don’t know

DateMay 20, 2009

Words818

“The other day, I got to talking with an old colleague. We worked together in the IT department of a bank about eight years ago. Since then, we’ve both stayed in IT, and our conversation eventually...”

eBooks and the Vanishing Concept of the Page

DateApril 25, 2009

Words375

“How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write: this entire article is an interesting look into how e-books and Google’s digitization efforts will change how we read. But this section stuck out...”

Beyond Web-Centricity in Content Management

DateApril 11, 2009

Words1,244

As content moves “beyond the web page,” we need to start handling it in such a way that it lends itself better to multi-channel publishing.

How Sales Prospects View CMS Platforms vs CMS Implementations

DateApril 5, 2009

Words808

In the platform vs. product debate, different people see different things. In order to successfully sell CMS, you have to understand how the prospect is looking at it.

The Why and How of CMS Vendor Partnerships

DateApril 4, 2009

Words1,045

Content management vendors like having partnerships with integrators. Here’s why it works (or doesn’t work) for either side.

Technical Debt

DateMarch 1, 2009

Words818

“Last week, we discussed coding for tomorrow – the concept of writing code not for the current moment, but instead for the moment six months down the road when you have to crack that code back open and...”

Episerver’s Custom Page Providers

DateFebruary 20, 2009

Words508

Discussion of an example of content aggregation, or the ability to raw in content from disparate sources and present it as part of a unified system.

Give Me My Friggin’ Content! Or, why methods that start with “Get” are a good thing.

DateFebruary 17, 2009

Words575

Getting content out of a system is just as imporant as putting it in – a truth that gets sadly neglected by a lot of CMS vendors.

Coding for Tomorrow

DateFebruary 16, 2009

Words802

“The more I program, the more I believe this statement: you’re not just programming for today, you’re programming for today and for six months from now when you crack the code open again to make a...”

My Obsession with Content Trees and Subcontent

DateFebruary 15, 2009

Words415

A discussion of how an obsession with a certain form of CMS architecture can make us blind to alternative forms.

Thoughts on Drupal

DateJanuary 2, 2009

Words571

“I’m working with Drupal for the first time on a hobby project I’m doing with Seth Gottlieb (about which you’ll hear much more later...). Adam Kalsey – Drupal ninja that he is – is advising us on the...”

Resisting the Thrill of the Chase

DateNovember 29, 2008

Words453

“There’s a common saying in business that ‘it takes three times more effort to get business from a new customer than from an existing customer.’ I believe that to be true, regardless of your industry....”

Understanding the Possibilities

DateNovember 27, 2008

Words592

“I maintain that there are several different levels of ‘knowledge’ when it comes to being a developer and working with technology. Consider. Knowing that something can be done, and knowing exactly how...”

Search is Hard

DateNovember 5, 2008

Words269

“We’re researching search options for a client this week, and I stumbled across this blog post which spoke volumes to me: Search is Easy, But Good Search is Hard So true. Search, in it’s most basic...”

Give Me an API for Filtering Content

DateNovember 1, 2008

Words618

Content management systems should include an API for filtering a bucket of content, obtained through any means

Is responding to RFPs a waste of time?

DateOctober 21, 2008

Words365

“I was having an email exchange with my friend Kevin Shoesmith. He knew I had been with the guys at silverorange, and he pointed out a blog post from Dan James earlier this summer, about how to grow a...”

What Makes a Wiki?

DateOctober 17, 2008

Words662

“In Sioux Falls this summer, we had something of a scooter revolution. Scooters were everywhere. And I noticed something – some of the scooters were so big they rivaled the size of motorcycles. So, I...”

Kingdom of the Non Sequitur

DateOctober 3, 2008

Words506

“So, I’ve been on Twitter for two weeks now, and I really enjoy it. I treat it as a smaller blogging platform really – I post things to Twitter that wouldn’t really be entitled to a full-blown blog...”

The most important feature of a CMS is...

DateOctober 3, 2008

Words199

“LinkedIn: Answers: What’s the most important feature that you look for in a CMS?: A simple question posed on the LinkedIn. Some good answers, and worth reading for a CMS junkie. Excerpts: Community...”

Content Management as a Practice Re-visited

DateSeptember 17, 2008

Words474

“Content Management as a Practice: Seth has posted a follow-up to my blog post which expanded on a conversation he and I had in Chicago. Our conversation was about teaching content management as an...”

When is it okay to lose browsability?

DateAugust 15, 2008

Words303

“One of the things I struggled with in the redesign – and still haven’t completely figured out – is when it’s okay for some content to no longer be browsable. By ‘browsable,’ I mean ‘non-orphaned’ – a...”

Content Management as a Practice

DateAugust 15, 2008

Words907

Content management should be treated as a practice, transcendent of any particular language or platform.

Half-Assed Content Management

DateAugust 15, 2008

Words495

Some content management situations don’t require a full-blown CMS. Rather, they required “content-oriented” management of data, which integrates into a larger system.

Authors: Write Shorter Books

DateJuly 5, 2008

Words782

“Is comprehensive-ness a point for, or a point against, a technical book? I used it think it was an advantage – the bigger, the better – but as I get busier and my company accelerates, it’s...”

The Five Rings of Usability

DateJune 20, 2008

Words384

“When you look at the usability of an entire Web site, I want to propose that there are five levels of it. From widest to narrowest, here is what I dub ‘The Five Rings of Usability’ (man, I love making...”

The Peril of Self-Replicating Hyperlinks

DateMay 2, 2008

Words372

“I built an intranet for a client. One of the functional items is a viewer into an Exchange calendar. We use a handy third-party component to display the contents of an Exchange public folder on a...”

Uber-Text Pages and the Lack of Inheritance in Content Management

DateApril 21, 2008

Words1,010

In any CMS implementation, you invariably end up with a generic “text page” other, more structured, pages. What is the dividing line between these pages, and how could it be more effectively handled?

Benefits of Plain English URLs

DateApril 15, 2008

Words491

“We have a client building a large, static site. The files in the site right now – in the middle of development – are named for their page ID on the content manifest: etc. We’re going through now and...”

Menuing in Content Management: Implicit vs. Explicit

DateApril 5, 2008

Words1,434

Menuing and navigation in content management can be handled explicitly, where navigation is its own subsystem, or implicitly, where navigation is built based on the content structure. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

A Case for Movable Type as your Intranet

DateMarch 30, 2008

Words1,243

“Here’s a fact: intranets don’t have to be crazy-complicated. Intranets are fundamentally about sharing simple information, which is not as hard as some people make it out to be. As simple as this is,...”

Composite Pages and Embeddable Content

DateMarch 27, 2008

Words1,863

Handling structured, one-off pages in a CMS can be complicated. This is a discussion of two of the common patterns – composite pages and embeddable content – and the pros and cons of each.

Google Custom Search Business Edition: Back to Reality

DateDecember 29, 2007

Words562

“A few months ago, Google released Google Custom Search Business Edition, which is a way to use Google as the search engine on your own site, while having more control over the search results page....”

To Structure or Not to Structure

DateDecember 7, 2007

Words1,739

The decision of when to structure content or not can be subjective. This is an example of one such situation, and the pros and cons of the various methods.

The Four Disciplines of Content Management

DateNovember 24, 2007

Words520

All of the disciplines put under the “content management” moniker can actually be split into four distinct groups.

Shelfari: When Usability and Ethics Collide

DateNovember 6, 2007

Words1,758

“At what point does a usability flaw become unethical? If a usability flaw continues to cause people to do something undesirable to them but very desirable to you – and you know this and don’t change...”

The Wikipedia War Over Dumbledore’s Sexuality

DateOctober 20, 2007

Words495

“J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, dropped a bombshell on fans this morning when she announced that Albus Dumbledore had been gay all along. This was also a bombshell to Wikipedia, for...”

ASP.Net and the Confusion of GET and POST

DateOctober 17, 2007

Words451

“My loathing for ASP.Net has been well-known in these pages, but part of me has made peace with it. There are some things about ASP.Net that I very much like, and I promise I’ll post about them one...”

Swapping Content

DateOctober 10, 2007

Words405

“Here’s something content management vendors need to understand about ‘scheduling’ and ‘expiring’ Web content. This is a common feature request, but users don’t always want to use it in the manner...”

Content Management as an API

DateOctober 2, 2007

Words617

A good CMS is built from the API out, not the interface in.

The Other Gadgetopia

DateSeptember 25, 2007

Words272

“I own the ‘big six’ Gadgetopia domains – com, net, org, info, biz, and us. Beyond that, I never bothered to get all the country domains, because how could you, really? There are so many of them. So, I...”

Time is More Than Just Money

DateAugust 30, 2007

Words828

“One of the things we constantly struggle with at Blend is capacity. I’m very blessed to be able to say we have more work that we know what to do with. Every day, new deals just seem to fall from the...”

Intranet Needs and Wants Survey

DateAugust 24, 2007

Words331

“Intranets: what staff really want: This is a really good survey from Gerry McGovern’s company that answers a pretty important question that I see a lot of confusion about: what should we put on our...”

I Believe in Presentation Logic

DateAugust 23, 2007

Words1,015

“I believe in presentation logic, I really do. Call me a hack, but formatting logic mixed into your presentation code isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I started Web development in traditional ASP. And I...”

Why Paying For It Is a Good Thing

DateJuly 13, 2007

Words554

“Pay To Play: Fair Price for Good Community: Josh Clark nails another good post today as he discusses a new ‘communal bike rental’ program in Paris. For 29 euros a year, you can ‘check out’ a bike for...”

What Makes a Content Management System?

DateJune 30, 2007

Words3,259

Comprehensive post discussing the most common features found in content management systems today.

File and Image Handling in Content Management

DateJune 21, 2007

Words385

Often, a binary file needs to be bound to a specific content item, and needs to “live” in the context of that item.

The State Pattern and Web Applications

DateJune 3, 2007

Words789

“I’ve been doing some reading lately on Design Patterns. I find myself trying to relate the examples to Web applications. One of the interesting ones is the State Pattern. This says that an application...”

The Necessity of Subcontent

DateMay 20, 2007

Words1,011

The ability to organize content into trees consistent of parent-child relationshps is a core feature of content modeling, and resolves so many modeling patterns

Paragraphs in List Items

DateApril 27, 2007

Words211

“Here’s something that WYSIWYG editors don’t do well: paragraphs within list items. Like this (ironically, Markdown does it just fine): This is a paragraph. This is another one. This is another list...”

10-Minute Software

DateApril 11, 2007

Words834

“The other day, I was reading the Wikipedia page on McMansions (via Kottke). It was extremely interesting, and it made a good point: The movement of the ‘atrium concept’ home layout from popularity to...”

I’m reading. Seriously.

DateMarch 4, 2007

Words690

“Why does ‘reading’ get confused with ‘surfing the Net’ so much? I’m struggling lately with the concept of a hobby, and why I don’t have one. It seems that everything I do is in some way connected with...”

Questioning the Effectiveness of Keywords in URLs

DateDecember 29, 2006

Words483

“There’s an accepted theory in SEO: put keywords in your URLs. This is so accepted, that no one questions it and content management systems routinely have modules, extensions, and allowances for users...”

On Posting Practices

DateDecember 27, 2006

Words1,053

“Aaron Mentele is asking about posting practices for people who blog a lot. But while the first part of my prediction seems to be true, I can’t say the same about posting getting any easier. Deane...”

Navigating Text

DateNovember 29, 2006

Words420

“I’m wondering if there’s any training to help users navigate text. The more I watch people work on a computer, the more I see that navigating text from the keyboard is a big time waster. I read a big...”

Architecture and Functionality in Content Management

DateNovember 28, 2006

Words740

Some content management features are “out of the box,” while some are developed during integration. Which pattern is better than the other, and why?

Why Boxed CMSs Can Suck

DateNovember 22, 2006

Words635

“I’ve Never Met a Boxed CMS I Like: SitePoint has a brutally accurate post about CMSs and making them run actual Web sites. The first issue is that the very nature of a CMS is not easily boxable,...”

Drinking From a Fire Hose

DateNovember 21, 2006

Words275

“Are there RSS feeds you can’t keep up with? I have a few that I just can’t stay on top of due to posting volume. A friend of mine called it ‘drinking from a fire hose.’ They are: DZone (yes, I know I...”

The Secret of Intranet Adoption

DateNovember 1, 2006

Words569

“Here’s something I believe to be true: intranet adoption is more a function of personal and corporate psychology than of technology. Put another way, the greatest technology in the world won’t help if...”

Masturbatory Web Design

DateOctober 20, 2006

Words342

“I used a term with a colleague the other day – ‘masturbatory Web design’ – and he thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. I use the term a lot, so I don’t think about it, but he thought it...”

What Content Management Won’t Do

DateOctober 15, 2006

Words684

Content management can do a lot, but there’s a lot that it won’t do, and you need to understand this before you implement. This is a reality check on the problems content management is not going to solve for you.

The Three Types of Intranets

DateOctober 11, 2006

Words487

“I was having a conversation with a client the other day, and I articulated something I’ve felt for a long time, but have never really written down. There are three types of intranets. They’re very...”

Random Thoughts on Shopping Carts

DateOctober 1, 2006

Words1,383

“Almost all of my work was in CMS. I did very little ecommerce work. The project discussed here, might be the only ecommerce project I ever did, in fact. If you do a lot of ecommerce work, this is all...”

I Want a Masters in Content Management

DateSeptember 29, 2006

Words290

“I want a masters in content management. Sadly, none exists. I have a bachelors in Government and International Affairs. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got into I.T. during my senior year in...”

The Devil is in the Details

DateAugust 4, 2006

Words902

“Here’s something not that shocking: the same amount of time spent on different Web development activities can yield vastly different productive results. Put another way: you can spend two hours on...”

Crucial Microsoft Word Skills That Just Don’t Get Taught

DateJuly 22, 2006

Words261

“My church is building a huge new addition, and part of it is going to be a computer lab. This means that I’ll finally have a nice spot to teach some free computer classes, which is something I’ve...”

The A-Ha Moment

DateJuly 17, 2006

Words300

“When was your a-ha! moment about the Internet? Think back to the early days: can you remember a moment when you thought: Whoa, this thing may really take off? I was pondering this the other day, and I...”

Computer Book Trends

DateJuly 17, 2006

Words249

“I was in Barnes and Noble tonight, and I noticed a few things. There were four books on the shelves having to do with Mambo and/or Joomla (I refuse to add the exclamation point). This is the first...”

Content Publishing Models

DateJune 30, 2006

Words1,574

Different content management systems publish content in different ways. This is a discussion of the three major patterns.

Channeled Interfaces: Hiding the Big Picture

DateJune 24, 2006

Words690

Not every CMS editor needs access to all CMS functionality, and often this access can be confusing. In many cases, to pays to “channel” the interface down to just the functionality a particular role needs to see.

The “Named Content Views” Pattern

DateJune 10, 2006

Words1,073

By concentrating on the different “views” a content object may have, you can simplify your content templating considerably.

Web Site Tours

DateJune 6, 2006

Words857

“Last year, I built a nice little Web site for my church pre-school. Go take a look – it’s really well-done, and has served the school well. (Look hard enough, and you might find my wife in there...”

The Dark Side of Plugin Architectures

DateJune 2, 2006

Words368

“I love plugin architectures. Having a well-done method for people to extend your system is a huge, huge benefit that we’ve discussed and lauded in relation to Firefox and Movable Type. But, there’s a...”

Discrete vs. Relational Content Modeling

DateMay 31, 2006

Words832

Content modeling “inside” a single content object is generally quite simple. What’s trickier is content modeling between multiple content objects.

The First 85%

DateMay 25, 2006

Words520

“Content management is a process. It starts when someone gets an idea in their head that they want to publish (or change) some content somewhere. It ends when that content is actually published. This...”

Your Interface is NOT Your Application

DateMay 23, 2006

Words1,462

The interface you interact with when using your CMS is only part of the picture. You need to be concerned with the API that lies under that interface as well.

Theoretical vs. Actual Functionality

DateMay 19, 2006

Words556

Theoretical functionality is all the things a CMS can do. Actual functionality is the stuff you’re actually going to use. There’s a big difference.

Are you procrastinating? Or are you just thinking?

DateMay 14, 2006

Words468

“Here’s something I’ve learned: when faced with a programming project, the worst thing you can do is start coding right away. Programming is not like building a house. When you build a house, a wall...”

Asynchronous Record Finding in Web Forms

DateMay 14, 2006

Words885

“Clearly, with advances in client-side programming and the advent of Ajax and UI modals, this post is just a nostalgic look back and how bad we used to have it. Almost all the problems in this post...”

The True Measure of Usability

DateMay 11, 2006

Words383

“Lately, I’ve struck upon a new benchmark for usability: the extent to which the interface disappears. Let me explain – My wife drives a Honda Odyssey minivan. This is the Swiss Army Knife of minivans....”

A Lack of Basic Text Formatting Skills

DateApril 28, 2006

Words697

Most content creators have a lack of basic formatting skills, making it difficult to have them create well-rendered content.

When Tables are Just Tables

DateMarch 10, 2006

Words226

“Here’s another argument for CSS-based, table-less design that I haven’t heard before: by not using tables for layout, then you know that a table is, in fact, a table intended for the display of...”

Mensches, Lovecats, and Drive By Altruism

DateFebruary 19, 2006

Words792

“This weekend, I was struggling with a .Net / XML / XSLT problem. I’m not a big .Net guy, but I’ve been working with it for the last few months on a big project for Blend. Brian, from MyHomepoint has...”

My Contribute Purchasing Experience

DateFebruary 4, 2006

Words744

“There’s a class of product that fits into a crappy pricing slot. It’s a slot where a purchaser isn’t going to make a purchase right away, because they’re going to have a lot of questions. But at the...”

Open Source CMS White Paper

DateJanuary 31, 2006

Words343

“I read a great white paper on open-source content management last night called ‘Content Management Problems and Open Source Solutions.’ In it, the author examines several different scenarios and...”

Image Abstractions and Implementations in Content Management

DateJanuary 30, 2006

Words730

Image handling in content management can be complicated, but the first step is abstracting the image that appears in your finished content from the file that it’s based on.

Your CMS Isn’t Too Good for Static HTML

DateJanuary 20, 2006

Words800

Content management system often deride static HTML. However, static files are necessary in some cases, and we discuss some patterns for integrating them into an otherwise content-managed site.

The Quandary of the Web Development Sales Process

DateJanuary 19, 2006

Words685

“I often give thought to the really unfortunate sales process involved with Web development. There’s so many variables involved with building a Web site, and so much of it is buried in the creative...”

The FrontPage Experiment Has Failed

DateJanuary 12, 2006

Words979

“Can we finally admit that the FrontPage experiment has failed? You know – the promise that FrontPage will allow novice Web authors to create and maintain (especially maintain) good, solid Web sites?...”

Email Forms: Slient and Deadly

DateJanuary 11, 2006

Words466

“I really hate email forms, from a developer perspective. Meaning, I hate forms that just email something somewhere and then forget about it. The fact is that email is a horrifically dodgy medium to do...”

Filterblogs

DateJanuary 7, 2006

Words615

“Nine months after this post was written, Google acquired YouTube and Google Video was shut down. Consequently, most of the links in this post no longer work. – Deane Barker I was browsing through...”

The Empty House Syndrome

DateJanuary 6, 2006

Words569

When you migrate content into your new CMS, you go through an awkward period much like building a house with no furniture in it. It pays to minimize this period by testing some furniture out as soon as possible.

The MSDE

DateDecember 22, 2005

Words505

“One of our clients has started working with some software that uses the MSDE – the Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine. This is a stripped down, black-box version of SQL Server for people that need a...”

The Quandary of the Single Table Web Site

DateDecember 15, 2005

Words650

Many smaller projects need a single table of managed data in an otherwise static website. What’s the best way to handle these situations?

The Quality of Free Discourse

DateDecember 11, 2005

Words405

“I’ve participated in a lot of online forums. The value of the information you get from them varies. Some of it is good, but you get a lot of cruft, especially from hit-and-runners – people who are...”

Moving from Content Management to Information Management

DateDecember 7, 2005

Words743

We tend to think of content management as being used to manage content that will be consumed by people outside our organization. However, it can be used for purely internal content as well.

The Problem with Custom Fields

DateDecember 3, 2005

Words620

This is an explanation of why just adding “custom fields” to a blogging platform doesn’t necessarily turn it into a CMS.

The Mother of all Content Management Discussions

DateDecember 1, 2005

Words547

“Making A Better Open Source CMS, by Jeffrey Veen: This is a great article – a rant, really – about how much the author thinks the open-source CMS offerings just plain suck. He laments about a lot of...”

Notifying RSS Users of Changes

DateNovember 28, 2005

Words211

“I’m going to kill the individual entry comment RSS feeds. They’re not getting used much, and they mean double the files when we rebuild. With 4,600 entries, this becomes a problem. (Additionally,...”

Open and Closed Content Management Re-visited

DateNovember 27, 2005

Words631

A CMS should be able to solve content-related problems without me having to write code to support it.

A Call for Memorization

DateNovember 27, 2005

Words936

“Someone (I don’t know who), said ‘Half of intelligence is knowing the answer. The other half is knowing where to find the answer.’ In today’s world, we all know how to find the answer. But has that...”

Middle Ground: Content Management using Static HTML

DateNovember 23, 2005

Words1,720

There needs to be a way to reconcile content management and static HTML.

Owning the Container

DateNovember 18, 2005

Words803

“The big limitation of Web apps is that you’re at the mercy of the user’s browser. It may behave like you want it to, or it may not, but there’s no doubt that it limits how complicated and functional a...”

Sometimes It’s Better to Just Sit and Stare

DateNovember 11, 2005

Words409

“I don’t want to talk about personal productivity too much, because there are other sites who do it better (warning: shameless inter-FM network plug). However, I’ve found a simple thing that helps...”

What Makes a Scripting Language?

DateNovember 9, 2005

Words466

“When I wrote this, I was a developer who was deeply insecure about being just a ‘web scripter.’ Back in 2005, a lot of corporate IT still took place in more traditional environments like Visual Basic...”

Spiders are Stupid

DateNovember 4, 2005

Words444

“I’ve been monitoring the 404s on this site. I changed our URL pattern a while back, so I have a page that catches all the 404 and resolves the old pattern against the new one, then redirects. Anything...”

Do we put more intellectual value on information we pay for?

DateNovember 3, 2005

Words294

“Do you put more value on information you pay for? Do you pay more attention to something you paid, say $5 for, than something you read for free on the Net? A friend and I were having this conversation...”

Coming Soon: Guided Content Maps

DateOctober 28, 2005

Words1,099

Disparate content ideas need to be drawn together into a cohesive whole through topic pages.

When the Net and the Real World Collide

DateOctober 27, 2005

Words318

“A friend and I were talking tonight about the perils of setting up a Web community to compliment a real-world community. For instance, a community Web site for your church, or for your neighborhood –...”

Squarespace

DateOctober 20, 2005

Words562

“I’ve spent some time today playing with Squarespace, since their ads kept appearing my AdSense. While I try not to get too excited about new things (lest my head explode), I’m going to venture a...”

Ruminations on Posts vs. Pages

DateSeptember 20, 2005

Words803

“Blogging systems have always confused ‘posts’ and ‘pages.’ We’ve talked about this before: what is the difference between a time-sensitive ‘post’ and an ‘eternal’ page? At what point does a ‘post’ get...”

The State of Microsoft Word in the Enterprise

DateSeptember 10, 2005

Words867

“One thing that continues to amaze me is how poorly people use Microsoft Word, considering its dominance in business word processing. The ‘barrier to entry’ for a Word user is extremely low – just open...”

Fabian Pascal is Smarter Than Me

DateSeptember 3, 2005

Words441

“The legendary Fabian Pascal showed up yesterday to tell us all that we were stupid over in the relational data model post. Specifically, his comment was: None of you know the relational model, which...”

Is the Relational Model the Best Model?

DateSeptember 1, 2005

Words624

“Is the relational model of data storage the best, most efficient way to store data? I’m talking about the traditional database model of tables, fields, row, foreign keys, etc. What are the other ways?...”

Ajax: Controlling the Scroll

DateAugust 25, 2005

Words445

“This is going to seem obvious, but I hit on something today about Ajax. I knew this in the back of my head, but it jumped to the front today – Ajax can do a lot, but the most simple and powerful thing...”

Making Your Fields Do Their Own Dirty Work

DateAugust 19, 2005

Words1,926

“At one point or another, all content management systems (CMS) come down to some kind of datatype. You have to be able to set a field to a string, or an integer, or whatever, and then enforce and...”

The Site Access Pattern and the Joy of eZ

DateAugust 19, 2005

Words1,392

A case study example on the seperation of content and presentation channels.

The Content Tree

DateAugust 18, 2005

Words1,067

“A while back, I mentioned the concept of a ‘content tree’ in regards to content management. I cited this as a ‘functional pattern’ and promised to talk about it more, but I never did. So, here goes –...”

The Envelope Pattern of Content Management

DateAugust 4, 2005

Words844

CMS don’t need to have an intimate knowledge of the content they’re managing. Rather, they just need to know that they’re managing content in general, and leave the specifics to the implementation.

Rails Blurs the Lines

DateAugust 2, 2005

Words522

“I’ve been working with Rails for a few weeks now and it’s making ‘install’ vs. ‘build’ decisions much harder – (We interrupt this post to get two things out of the way: Yes, Rails is as good as...”

Tagging: The Happy Guy in the Hawaiian Shirt

DateJuly 21, 2005

Words497

Tagging is simply categorization under a different name with a simpler interface.

Movable Type Tags Plugin

DateJuly 19, 2005

Words336

“I played with the Movable Type Tags plugin tonight. It was...almost a great thing. I can see where it would work well for a lot of things, but ultimately, I uninstalled it. The tag concept is actually...”

The Pointlessness of Category Archives

DateJuly 17, 2005

Words279

“What do you do with category archives when you get too many posts? That’s what I can’t quite figure out what to do with this site. We have over 4,000 posts. This means that I have categories with 500...”

Unresolved 404 Patterns

DateJuly 17, 2005

Words797

“I changed the URL scheme of this Web site over the weekend. I had been meaning to do it for a while, but some problems with Movable Type 3.2 kind of forced the issue. (I have got to stop rushing into...”

Functional Design Patterns

DateJuly 6, 2005

Words1,105

“Applications have patterns – ways of doing things that have stood the test of time. These aren’t object modeling patterns, about which books and books have been written, these are...best practices for...”

The Benefit of Having Context in URLs

DateJune 28, 2005

Words362

An intelligent URL scheme has usability and technical benefits.

A Problem with Tagging

DateJune 13, 2005

Words511

Tagging invariably leads to problems with standardization and hierarchical classification. A tagging structure can slowly morph into a taxonomy, with the same inherent problems.

RSS and the Waning Mystery of the Web

DateJune 7, 2005

Words331

“Is it just me, or does RSS suck all the mystery and joy out of the Web? Does it make the whole concept of ‘sufing the Web’ just a little more disappointing than it used to be? Once or twice during the...”

Do Computers Enable Blissful Ignorance?

DateMay 29, 2005

Words596

“I’m reading David Allen’s book ‘Getting Things Done.’ I’m not a total convert yet, but I am planning to read it a second time. It’s got a lot of good information. One of the things the book has forced...”

Batch Process Brainstorming

DateMay 26, 2005

Words587

“When you’re building a big Web app, oftentimes you get to a point when you need to run some asynchronous batch process. You need to do something at, say, 2 a.m. that doesn’t involve a request from a...”

Databases and Trust

DateMay 18, 2005

Words559

“Here’s something I’ve learned over the years: when modeling data to build a database, be very careful what fields you decide to include. Don’t throw in extraneous fields just because ‘someone might...”

Tagging

DateApril 10, 2005

Words293

“The idea of ‘tagging’ content is suddenly everywhere. With Flickr and del.icio.us and Technorati embracing the concept of tags, suddenly it’s getting some broad acceptance. But what are ‘tags’? At the...”

The Lost Art of the CD-ROM

DateApril 7, 2005

Words511

“I was reading today about how Wikipedia is going to release a CD or DVD of all its content. Very cool idea. This got me reminicising about ‘The Golden Age of CD-ROMs.’ Remember when CD-ROMs were the...”

Will Ajax Hurt Usability?

DateMarch 29, 2005

Words449

“I’m curious what effect Ajax will have on usability. With this technique, the unspoken nature of Web apps is changing, and apps using Ajax will likely do things that users don’t expect. When I first...”

Smarty as a “Sub-Language”

DateMarch 21, 2005

Words860

“I’ve been spending some time working with Smarty lately. This is ostensibly a ‘templating language’ for PHP. But I think it goes beyond that. I assert that Smarty has become a sub-language all by...”

My Querystring Argument Neurosis

DateMarch 19, 2005

Words473

I get irrationally stressed out about querystring arguments. Here’s why.

Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself

DateMarch 12, 2005

Words640

“Here are two things that cut so many good ideas off at the knees. These two factors are the two biggest things that stop good ideas from getting implemented and make programmers pause when they should...”

How Do You Make Them Understand?

DateFebruary 14, 2005

Words494

“Here’s something that plagues organizations and their Web sites: knowing what information should be published to their readers and having the willingness to publish that information. I don’t think a...”

In Search of a Lightweight WYSIWYG Client

DateFebruary 1, 2005

Words359

“I’m interested in finding a nice, lightweight, WYSIWYG HTML editor for use by non-developers. In this scenario, as I’m sure you know, is not havig too little functionality, but having too much. I...”

How Spammers Limit Platform Choice

DateDecember 17, 2004

Words402

“Joe and I have been working with eZ publish for the last few months. It is, without a doubt, the best content management system I’ve ever used. I got more done in one week with eZ publish than I did...”

Are Computers Just Really Expensive Dice?

DateDecember 3, 2004

Words974

Structured gaming and development probably have a high correlation. Do they involve the same thought processes?

Reading Print Publications Electronically

DateNovember 25, 2004

Words488

“A trend I’ve been seeing lately is distribution of print publications in ‘reader’ software thats presents them just as they were printed. This goes beyond just PDF – entire magazines and newspapers...”

The 90-50 Rule

DateNovember 18, 2004

Words88

“I have a new rule of thumb for Web development: the 90-50 rule. This rule comes into effect when you get 90% done with a project...and only have 50% left to do. The details are what kill you, and they...”

Using FrontPage as a Database Record Editor

DateNovember 4, 2004

Words381

“My company just bought Small Business Server 2003, and a copy of FrontPage 2003 was included, so I’ve been playing around with it for the last week. Overall, a huge improvement over previous versions...”

What Makes a Blog?

DateOctober 18, 2004

Words302

“Today in the sky: Here’s another interesting example of a USA Today blog. It’s about air travel, of all things. Ben Mutzabaugh posts at least a dozen things a day about airlines. He seems awfully well...”

Global Database IDs

DateOctober 1, 2004

Words215

“Here’s a handy feature for a database... Tables can have primary keys, but what about a database-wide primary key? When a row is inserted, the ‘id’ field would be populated with a numeric key that’s...”

RSS Aggregation Models

DateSeptember 23, 2004

Words505

“It struck me last night that there are two models of RSS aggregation: ‘real-time’ and ‘stored’ (yes, I just made those two terms up...). Real-time are aggregators like Mozilla’s Sage extension. This...”

Protecting Content Editors From Themselves

DateSeptember 21, 2004

Words953

“Say you put together a nice, static site for a client. There’s a lot of CSS, a fair amount of scripting (in whatever language – we’ll assume PHP here), a handful of images, and a lot of HTML. The...”

More Great Wikipedia Coverage: Hurricane Ivan

DateSeptember 15, 2004

Words516

“Hurricane Ivan – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Wikipedia coverage of Hurricane Ivan is just phenomenal. They have hotlinked satellite images, all the latest announcement and statistics, links to...”

Getting Misty Over Old Machines

DateAugust 19, 2004

Words496

“You ever get sentimental over an old computer? One that you just can’t throw away? Back in 1998, I worked part-time at Best Buy so Annie and I could pay cash for our wedding the next summer. That...”

Catchall Email Addresses

DateAugust 17, 2004

Words529

“Is there a point to ‘catchall’ email addresses anymore? You know, those addresses where misaddessed email to your domain gets routed? Let me explain – I was having some email trouble this morning....”

Of Taxonomies and Crumbtrails

DateAugust 15, 2004

Words508

When content can be assigned to more than one taxonomy node presents a logical crumbtrail issue.

Where Have All The Writers Gone?

DateJuly 30, 2004

Words676

“Over the years, I’ve learned a big secret about building information-focused Web sites. This big secret is the single most important thing you can do for your Web site. It is the absolute...”

Preventing Data Corruption Due to User Interface Bugs

DateJuly 24, 2004

Words1,257

In a non-versioning system (CMS or otherwise), user interface bugs can lead to data loss more easily than you think.

CMS Administration vs. Presentation Languages

DateJuly 17, 2004

Words437

You don’t have to display content in the same architecture in which you manage it.

Blogs and PageRank

DateJuly 15, 2004

Words361

“Will the preponderance of blogs these days wreak havoc with Google’s PageRank model? It used to be that you couldn’t get a link from a big name site without having something they they wanted to link...”

Data Globbing with MySQL Regex

DateJuly 13, 2004

Words454

“This post is very old, and this is a terrible idea by today’s standards. But it’s vaguely interesting from a historical perspective, so I’m leaving it up. – Deane Barker, February 1, 2020 As I become...”

Improved Search

DateJuly 11, 2004

Words416

“I worked on improving the search on this site today. Search has been through a number of iterations. First, I used the basic Movable Type search. But it was slow and I wanted to do some interesting...”

Do You Want to Save Your Changes?

DateJune 18, 2004

Words941

“Update: See the comments. I have found a way around this in both IE and Mozilla. I thought about deleting the post, but if taken with the comments, it’s still a pretty good tutorial of how to do this....”

My Corbis Nightmare

DateJune 11, 2004

Words984

“Yesterday, I wanted to buy a stock image from Corbis to use in a Web site I’m developing. It was a standard hi-res image of a man standing in front of a building reading a newspaper. This should have...”

Pitching SQL Spitballs

DateMarch 18, 2004

Words345

“Some time ago, my company was maintaining information in an Access database that we also wanted to use as Web content. We were on a Windows host at the time, so we just FTPed the database up to the...”

Why Email is Better Than the Telephone

DateFebruary 23, 2004

Words451

“I hate it when people call me on the phone. I’d much rather they use email. I got to wondering why this was so the other day, and here goes: Email is quicker. I’m at my computer anyway, so I don’t...”

CMS’s Should Manage Content, Not Display It

DateFebruary 18, 2004

Words535

A CMS that interferes too much with the display and rendering of content can drive you nuts.

Are Taxonomies Dead?

DateJanuary 9, 2004

Words360

“The taxonomy was always supposed to be the be-all and end-all of information architecture. A good, solid category structure was how all the information in an enterprise was supposed to fit together....”

Fail Open or Fail Closed?

DateDecember 18, 2003

Words250

When something breaks, does it leave a door open or closed?

Database / XML Hybrid Content Management

DateDecember 6, 2003

Words486

“Thoughts on Content Management: This guy and I think alike. In the beginning of the article he touches on the same things I talked about when I compared open and closed content management systems....”

Generic Content Management Isn’t Realistic

DateDecember 4, 2003

Words269

“Perls of wisdom in a sea of site mismanagement: As I work with content management more and more, I believe more and more in what this guy has written: ...the vendors’ ideal of a generic...”

Content Management vs. Static HTML

DateOctober 27, 2003

Words461

“Content Management vs. Unstructured, Flat HTML Pages: This article tries to make the point that content management is for everyone. It’s a comparison of using a CMS against using simple HTML. So how...”

Extending Movable Type Using a Pinged Script

DateOctober 3, 2003

Words930

“I find myself in a constant struggle between accepting Movable Type for what it is, and working to extend it. There are a few cases where I want to do interesting things with entries, but I don’t want...”

Discussion Forums as Blogging Apps

DateSeptember 22, 2003

Words518

“Rob left a comment on a previous entry about the site Pocket PC Thoughts. This site is doing something I’ve been thinking about for a while: running a blog-type site off of discussion board software....”

Thoughts on Posts and Articles

DateSeptember 22, 2003

Words991

Content can be temporal or permanent. Which type it is has impact on how it’s handled.

Navigating Voluminous Blogs

DateSeptember 19, 2003

Words356

“As you get more and more entries in a blog, how to you ensure people can find what they’re looking for? Blogs are very front page-centric – unless you’re watching the front page everyday, browsing the...”

Do Yourself a Favor and Stop Learning

DateSeptember 19, 2003

Words1,271

We have enough platforms and enough technology. Let’s use what we have to build things.

Barnes and Noble SMTP Follies

DateSeptember 9, 2003

Words251

“An order from BarnesAndNoble.com wasn’t delivered after 10 days, so yesterday I went to their site to find out why. I found a customer service form, and submitted it with my name, email, order number,...”

“Better” is a Relative Term

DateSeptember 8, 2003

Words335

“A couple of years ago, I was trolling for Web design clients and I found a site that looked a little dated and that could use some help. So I sent the owner an email which was unintentionally a little...”

Content Usability in RSS

DateSeptember 1, 2003

Words482

When it comes to RSS, many people think that content usability just doesn’t matter anymore.

Types of Blog Postings

DateAugust 9, 2003

Words306

“That post I made about attribtion got me thinking about the format and content of blog postings. The way I see it, there are basically three types of postings. Original Content, No Target: This is...”

Groupware and the Motivation to Use It

DateJuly 29, 2003

Words253

“Here’s a thought: there’s big money in collaboration apps. Not building new ones, but instead training and motivating people to use the ones they have. Is this a problem in your office? You get...”

Calling Scripts Pre- and Post-Batch

DateJuly 24, 2003

Words558

“Here’s a request for all software developers building software that does batch processing: PDFMoto, Movable Type – any program that ‘re-publishes’ as a single event. Include functionality to allow me...”

My Experience with E-Books

DateJuly 19, 2003

Words949

“I’ve started reading e-books, and I think I’m addicted. I read a book last year called ‘The Social Life of Information’ which put forth all sorts of reasons why e-books weren’t going to work. I agreed...”

Content Management as a Marriage

DateJuly 14, 2003

Words410

An absurd analogy: content management is like a marriage in so many ways.

Microsoft Excel as a Simple Content Storage Mechanism

DateJuly 3, 2003

Words335

“I was doing something for my church last night when I came face-to-face with ADO’s great support for extracting data from Excel files. So I got to thinking...how about Excel as a content storage...”

Content Management: Think Before You Implement

DateJuly 2, 2003

Words424

“On Managing Content and Content Management Systems (CMS): This guy makes a great point here: I have yet to see one [CMS] that is anywhere worth the amount of money and time needed to get it into place...”

Keyword Categorization: Thinking Out Loud

DateJuly 1, 2003

Words1,002

Gadgetopia struggled for years with IA and content organization. This post is a good representation of how I was trying to think through the problem.

Access as a Client-Side CMS

DateJune 24, 2003

Words222

“How about Microsoft Access as a client-side content management tool? After playing around with Radio UserLand and CityDesk, I’m finding more and more utility in a client-side apps. They’re responsive,...”

Open and Closed Content Management

DateJune 20, 2003

Words908

Different CMS allow you to define your content in different ways.

The Value-Add Side of CMS

DateJune 19, 2003

Words657

Managing content is hard. Templating it is not. Which side of the equation is delivering the value?

Content Access Models: The Four Major News Outlets

DateJune 5, 2003

Words188

“I got to thinking today that the four major news Web sites offer four graduated levels of content access: CNN, Anonymous access: Just about everything at CNN.com is free (with the exception of some...”

Problems No Platform Will Fix

DateMay 27, 2003

Words372

“This whole Aestiva thing has got me thinking about development platforms. Every week, there’s a new one that claims to be simpler and faster than the last one. ASP is simpler than JSP, PHP is more...”

Managing Multiple XML Documents

DateMay 26, 2003

Words316

“One of the continuing quandaries I’ve had with XML is the management of multiple XML documents. If I have one, big XML document, then it’s easy to work with – to parse with an API, to transform with...”

Principle vs. Practical in the World of Web Design

DateMay 26, 2003

Words520

“Web design and development isn’t a perfect science – there are no absolutes. You can take a stand on how something should be done, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to work that way. I...”

Enterprise Architecture: Top-Down Makes My Head Hurt

DateApril 8, 2003

Words422

“My buddy Rob and I were talking the other day about top-down vs. bottom-up entrerprise architectures. My last company attempted to implement a top-down architecture, where every system was planned out...”

Let’s All Use Headings Again

DateNovember 22, 2002

Words287

“HTML provides formatting tags for headings, so why don’t we use them? H1, H2, H3...you wouldn’t believe how often designers re-invent the wheel by enclosing headings in DIV tags with stylesheets...”

Human-readable URLs

DateNovember 5, 2002

Words429

“I’ve always been a big believer in legible URLs. There’s nothing more annoying than a URL that stretches into hundreds of characters – ever tried to email one of those to a mail client that wraps at...”

The Value of RSS

DateSeptember 21, 2002

Words353

“One of the upcoming goals I have for DeaneBarker.net is an RSS channel. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ (or ‘Rich Site Summary,’ depending on who you ask) and is a way for other programs...”

Usability and the Coolness Factor

DateSeptember 8, 2002

Words915

“Does a good looking Web site get used more than a plain one? If so, why? Consider two Web sites: Site A is written in plain HTML / CSS / JavaScript, etc. It’s a ‘traditional’ Web app, well-designed...”

The Well-Appointed Web Page

DateAugust 19, 2002

Words3,484

“Note the date on this. As I write this note, this blog post is almost 20 years old – it’s older than one of my kids (and I’m old). I’ll provide some notes below on how things are the same or different...”

The Gutenberg Project

DateAugust 12, 2002

Words189

“This post has nothing to do with the content of tis blog anymore. I was tempted to archive it when I purged thousands of other posts, but it’s the very first blog post I ever wrote, so I keep it out...”