Deane Barker’s Technical Blog By Deane Barker • The posts below were originally posted to a blog called Gadgetopia. I have since retired that blog and moved the posts here. Since retiring this blog, most of my article writing has been on Optimizely’s site. Also, I have been “blogging” a bit on LinkedIn, and I’ve archived those posts on this site. Software Isn’t the Problem DateMay 28, 2019 Words4,006 Everyone wants to blame software. No one wants to blame themselves. Towards a Content Modeling Standard DateApril 24, 2019 Words2,065 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 Words3,327 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 Words1,950 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 Words4,207 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 Words2,000 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 Words2,703 What do we believe about the origins of the content we consume? Squirrel Notes: The First Year DateDecember 20, 2018 Words2,585 Some stats and background information on the first year of my CMS newsletter. The Technical Basis for Content Experience DateNovember 16, 2018 Words2,487 At what point does a content repository evolve into a “CMS” in the traditional sense? Points of Differentiation in Headless CMS DateOctober 16, 2018 Words3,552 Why do customers pick one headless CMS over another? How do they differentiate themselves? Multi-stage Templating as Progressive Denormalization DateMarch 21, 2017 Words3,473 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 Words3,268 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 Words2,093 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 Words3,053 Some decisions factors, their interplay, and outside perspective on software selection. The Sometimes Confusing Economics of the Professional Services Business DateJanuary 23, 2017 Words3,499 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 Words1,486 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 Words3,718 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 Words2,749 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 Words2,807 Two examples of updating SQL databases from a CMS. Content Management is an Emergent Skill DateDecember 22, 2016 Words6,170 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 Words2,715 There are some interesting reasons to use a headless CMS that go beyond the “single website” model. Grokking CMS DateNovember 21, 2016 Words1,999 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 Words3,435 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 Words1,354 Pushing more content than can be absorbed actually causes feelings of loss and pain. Content Personalization: A Reality Check DateOctober 12, 2016 Words3,665 CMS personalization tools have failed. Here’s why, and how the next wave might be different. Towards an Invested Engagement Model DateOctober 6, 2016 Words2,996 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 Words1,613 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 Words1,997 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 Words3,474 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 Words2,328 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 Words189 A simple request for a standard term to describe the humans that consume your content. The Need for Content Operations DateJanuary 27, 2016 Words1,492 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 Words626 I’m writing a book about web content management. What is Content Integration? DateApril 27, 2015 Words781 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 Words1,093 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 Words1,059 If you’re a web developer, then you owe your job to HTTP. You should probably know more about it than you do. The “Import and Update” Pattern DateNovember 12, 2014 Words578 Often you need to import AND update content, rather that just simply importing it. This makes tasks of content integration so much easier. Things that Web Crawlers Hate DateNovember 12, 2014 Words320 We make the lives of webs crawlers much more difficult and much less effective, unnecessarily. Do Hyperlinks Change the Meaning of Content? DateNovember 7, 2014 Words511 When you add a hyperlink to text, you might accidentally change the emphasis and implication of it. “As We May Think” DateNovember 7, 2014 Words517 In 1945, an American scientist theorized about an information management system that, in retrospect, sounds suspiciously like the web. Miller’s Magic Number and It’s (Non-) Relevance to Web Navigation DateJune 8, 2014 Words586 There’s a lazy myth of UX that needs to be busted. You Want Collaboration, Not Workflow DateJune 1, 2014 Words798 When people say they want workflow, they probably don’t. Never Fall for a Custom, Hosted CMS. Ever. DateMay 20, 2014 Words1,200 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 Words3,342 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 Words690 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 Words673 The title is accurate. IA is Not New DateMarch 31, 2014 Words924 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 Words732 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 Words273 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 Words1,042 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 Words1,317 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 Words881 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 Words418 Sometimes we don’t document for valid reasons, not just because we’re lazy. Why I Am a Content Management Professional DateAugust 29, 2013 Words616 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 Words690 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 Words1,999 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 Words963 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 Words663 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 Words331 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 Words2,362 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 Words3,063 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 Words2,271 Comparing different systems in the CMS space is far more complicated than it seems at first glance. Here’s some reasons why. The Great Folder vs. Search Debate DateDecember 12, 2012 Words685 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? An Oft-Overlooked CMS Feature: The Community DateDecember 12, 2012 Words1,176 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. Managing Your Tasks in Gmail DateDecember 3, 2012 Words1,299 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 Words381 Decoupled CMS might be making a comeback. Why Django and Rails CMS Are So Rare DateNovember 29, 2012 Words1,126 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 Words677 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 Words979 “I was a early adopter of the Kindle. I bought one of the original first generation devices back in early 2008 . I was convinced that ebooks were the answer to the prayers of a devoted reader, and…” The Art and Practice of Content Assembly: Where IA and CMS Meet DateOctober 1, 2012 Words3,387 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 Words340 “I enjoyed this post from Martin White about the single thing that would make enterprise/intranet search better. Date – the ‘silver bullet’ of enterprise search He says it’s the ability to specify a…” Is Time-Shifted Web Content an Alternate Channel? DateSeptember 16, 2012 Words596 “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 . These…” The Necessity of a Content Index DateSeptember 10, 2012 Words1,796 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 Words712 “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 for it so they can do their own stuff….” What is a “Page Based” CMS? DateAugust 27, 2012 Words553 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 Words1,151 “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 Words495 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 Words464 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 Words1,411 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 Words1,782 “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 Words1,284 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 Words1,915 Bidding CMS projects is hard. Doing it honestly is even harder. Files are the Currency of Web Development DateAugust 16, 2012 Words978 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 Words550 “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 Words337 “Gawker is experimenting with new comment systems, as should everyone really. Pay attention to what Nick Denton is doing with comments It only takes one look at the comments on your average Big News…” Three Types of Metadata DateAugust 6, 2012 Words211 “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…” When eCommerce Might Be a Very Bad Thing DateJuly 15, 2012 Words1,056 “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,…” Why Enterprise Knowledge Management is Structurally Flawed DateJuly 15, 2012 Words401 “Seth Gottlieb has put together a brilliant post that really calls into question the basic foundation of knowledge management: The Employee and the Professional The thing is that advanced skill and…” “Migration” Might be the Most Dangerous Word in CMS DateJuly 7, 2012 Words375 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 Words520 “A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections: I really enjoyed this white paper, published by the National Information Standards Organization . It’s a tour de force around the work of…” Rivers, Not Trees: The Challenge to Organizational IA DateJune 17, 2012 Words1,762 Organizational communication is about dynamic rivers of content, not static trees. The Non-Future of Multi-Tenant SaaS CMS DateJune 15, 2012 Words1,222 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 Words360 “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 : ‘Platforms vs. Products’ has…” The Great Platform vs Product Debate DateJune 7, 2012 Words903 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 Words381 “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 while. ‘Self-published’ is not in any way analogous to ‘published’…” Use Canonical URLs, Please DateMay 12, 2012 Words809 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 Words335 “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 he kept…” Are Comments on News Articles Pointless? DateMarch 19, 2012 Words552 “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 make me not want to live on…” Generating Automatic Bookmarks in Text DateMarch 19, 2012 Words446 “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 was…” The New York Times Topic Pages DateMarch 14, 2012 Words387 “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. To…” Intra-link Management in Content Management DateFebruary 25, 2012 Words1,363 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 Words1,087 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 Words456 “Seth Gottlieb writes about how he’s come full circle back to static publishing of websites. Fun with Static Publishing The sites are content-managed in the background, but written to files then…” The Slippery Definition of a Digital Channel DateJanuary 13, 2012 Words1,466 “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 Words1,460 “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 Words271 “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 Words1,549 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 Words524 “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 Words498 “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 Words603 “Here’s 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 story about a failure of the airline…” Varying Levels of Content Structure DateAugust 22, 2011 Words1,118 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 Words1,041 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 Words243 “I feel like I’ve been saying this for a while now. The future of content management is not in management, but in delivery. Forrester report: Customer experience management defines WCM today According…” Five Tips to Getting a Good Response to a Content Management RFP DateJuly 28, 2011 Words2,366 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 Words795 “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 Words1,165 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 Words416 “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 Words380 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 Words668 “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 . Without books, what do librarians…” The Marginalization of the Tweet DateMay 24, 2011 Words423 “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 Words1,198 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 Words361 “What is a 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 layer….” The Bifurcation of Content Management and Delivery DateMay 10, 2011 Words897 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 Words1,534 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 Words2,889 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 Words913 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 Words703 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 Words612 “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 and…” How do you operationalize knowledge? DateNovember 18, 2010 Words2,024 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 Words685 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 Words695 “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 Words914 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 Words674 “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 Words708 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 Words2,007 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 Words320 “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 Words735 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 Words1,395 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 Words308 “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 Words830 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 Words326 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 Words308 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 Words652 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 Words824 “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 wrap…” What is Metadata in WCM? DateJanuary 24, 2010 Words1,035 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 Words518 “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 Words624 Concepts of “the best CMS” are only valid in the face of actual requirements. The Paradox of Background Knowledge DateJanuary 1, 2010 Words548 “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 Words390 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 Words312 “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 NHibernate…” WYSIWYG Editors and DIVs: A Love Story DateOctober 12, 2009 Words236 “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 involves arbitrarily shading an area…” Should you put your intranet in the cloud? DateOctober 10, 2009 Words348 “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 Words324 “Tony Byrne succumbs to use of the word ‘metator.’ Let us now praise metators 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 Words397 “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 Words503 “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 Words534 With structured content, concepts of “metadata” can be confusing and irrelevant. The Value of Conferences DateJune 19, 2009 Words592 “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 Words697 “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 Words308 “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 Words810 “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 Words351 “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 Words1,208 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 Words788 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 Words1,027 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 Words803 “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 Words501 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 Words563 Getting content out of a system is just as important as putting it in – a truth that gets sadly neglected by a lot of CMS vendors. Coding for Tomorrow DateFebruary 16, 2009 Words782 “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 Words409 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 Words563 “I’m working with Drupal for the first time on a hobby project I’m doing with Seth Gottlieb . Adam Kalsey – Drupal ninja that he is – is advising us on the technical implementation, and he’s been a…” Resisting the Thrill of the Chase DateNovember 29, 2008 Words438 “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 Words587 “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 Words266 “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 Words608 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 Words355 “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 Words650 “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 Words502 “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 Words178 “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 Words456 “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…” Content Management as a Practice DateAugust 15, 2008 Words891 Content management should be treated as a practice, transcendent of any particular language or platform. When is it okay to lose browsability? DateAugust 15, 2008 Words291 “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…” Half-Assed Content Management DateAugust 15, 2008 Words479 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 Words762 “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 Words411 “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’ Site Existence: At…” The Peril of Self-Replicating Hyperlinks DateMay 2, 2008 Words364 “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 Words1,013 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 Words470 “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 Words1,409 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 Words1,212 “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 Words1,892 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 Words550 “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 Words1,715 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 Words508 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 Words1,740 “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 Words494 “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 Words498 “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 Words396 “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 Words630 A good CMS is built from the API out, not the interface in. The Other Gadgetopia DateSeptember 25, 2007 Words270 “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 Words813 “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 Words317 “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 Words1,055 “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 Words534 “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 Words3,203 Comprehensive post discussing the most common features found in content management systems today. File and Image Handling in Content Management DateJune 21, 2007 Words380 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 Words774 “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 Words990 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 Words186 “Here’s something that WYSIWYG editors don’t do well: paragraphs within list items. Like this : This is a paragraph. This is another one. This is another list item. The problem is that one you’re in a…” 10-Minute Software DateApril 11, 2007 Words814 “The other day, I was reading the Wikipedia page on McMansions . It was extremely interesting, and it made a good point: The movement of the ‘atrium concept’ home layout from popularity to ubiquity in…” I’m reading. Seriously. DateMarch 4, 2007 Words684 “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 Words473 “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 Words1,034 “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 Words398 “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 Words736 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 Words612 “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 Words298 “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 Slashdot…” The Secret of Intranet Adoption DateNovember 1, 2006 Words555 “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 Words336 “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 Words658 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 Words479 “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 Words1,359 “I built a shopping cart system the other day. It seemed at the time to be a ridiculous waste of resources – I mean, how many shopping carts are out there already? There are probably 500 open-source…” I Want a Masters in Content Management DateSeptember 29, 2006 Words284 “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 Words889 “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 Words248 “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 Words294 “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 Words242 “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 . This is the first time I’ve seen books on those systems in…” Content Publishing Models DateJune 30, 2006 Words1,549 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 Words682 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 Words1,012 By concentrating on the different “views” a content object may have, you can simplify your content templating considerably. Web Site Tours DateJune 6, 2006 Words848 “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. However, one of the problems with the site is that new…” The Dark Side of Plugin Architectures DateJune 2, 2006 Words360 “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 Words817 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 Words511 “Content management is a process. It starts when someone gets an idea in their head that they want to publish some content somewhere. It ends when that content is actually published. This is the entire…” Your Interface is NOT Your Application DateMay 23, 2006 Words1,447 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 Words543 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. Asynchronous Record Finding in Web Forms DateMay 14, 2006 Words865 “In any content management system of sufficient complexity, you will have to interlink records. You will always get to the point where, in the process of editing a record, you will have to specify…” Are you procrastinating? Or are you just thinking? DateMay 14, 2006 Words461 “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…” The True Measure of Usability DateMay 11, 2006 Words376 “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…” A Lack of Basic Text Formatting Skills DateApril 28, 2006 Words686 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 Words269 “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 Words785 “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 Words732 “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 Words331 “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 Words704 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 Words779 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 Words676 “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 Words958 “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 good, solid Web sites? Can we finally admit…” Email Forms: Slient and Deadly DateJanuary 11, 2006 Words458 “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 Words603 “I was browsing through Google Video last night , and I got to thinking that there’s so much good stuff in there, but there’s a bunch of crap too. And none of it is really organized beyond the general…” The Empty House Syndrome DateJanuary 6, 2006 Words565 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 Words497 “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…” Custom Fields in Movable Type DateDecember 16, 2005 Words200 “Here’s a plugin for Movable Type that may address some of my ‘open vs closed content management’ ranting. CustomFields CustomFields is a plugin that allows you to define custom fields that will appear…” The Quandary of the Single Table Web Site DateDecember 15, 2005 Words635 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 Words395 “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 Words732 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 Words585 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 Words522 “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 Words205 “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. Anyway, this…” Open and Closed Content Management Re-visited DateNovember 27, 2005 Words615 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 Words925 “Someone , 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 made us less…” Middle Ground: Content Management using Static HTML DateNovember 23, 2005 Words1,684 There needs to be a way to reconcile content management and static HTML. Owning the Container DateNovember 18, 2005 Words781 “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 Words390 “I don’t want to talk about personal productivity too much, because there are other sites who do it better. However, I’ve found a simple thing that helps keeps me from getting distracted – Your…” What Makes a Scripting Language? DateNovember 9, 2005 Words449 “I have a friend who programs in .Net . We’ll call him ‘Trevor.’ Trevor and I have epic arguments about the superiority of our chosen platforms. I use open-source, ‘scripting’ languages – PHP and Ruby,…” Spiders are Stupid DateNovember 4, 2005 Words434 “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 Words287 “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 Words1,094 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 Words307 “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 Words551 “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 , I’m going to venture a pretty bold statement –…” Ruminations on Posts vs. Pages DateSeptember 20, 2005 Words782 “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 Words917 “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 Words434 “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 Words610 “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 Words430 “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…” The Site Access Pattern and the Joy of eZ DateAugust 19, 2005 Words1,361 A case study example on the seperation of content and presentation channels. Making Your Fields Do Their Own Dirty Work DateAugust 19, 2005 Words1,922 “At one point or another, all content management systems 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 manage that…” The Content Tree DateAugust 18, 2005 Words1,044 “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 Words824 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 Words513 “I’ve been working with Rails for a few weeks now and it’s making ‘install’ vs. ‘build’ decisions much harder – At its core, Rails lets you build good stuff fast. Really fast. Say you come up with a…” Tagging: The Happy Guy in the Hawaiian Shirt DateJuly 21, 2005 Words489 Tagging is simply categorization under a different name with a simpler interface. Movable Type Tags Plugin DateJuly 19, 2005 Words330 “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 Words273 “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 Words750 “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. To make everything backwards…” Functional Design Patterns DateJuly 6, 2005 Words1,088 “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 Words351 An intelligent URL scheme has usability and technical benefits. A Problem with Tagging DateJune 13, 2005 Words499 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 Words324 “Is it just me, or does RSS suck all the mystery and joy out of the Web? Does it make the whole concept of ‘surfing the Web’ just a little more disappointing than it used to be? Once or twice during…” Do Computers Enable Blissful Ignorance? DateMay 29, 2005 Words578 “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 Words577 “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 Words548 “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 Words295 “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 Words476 “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 reminiscing about ‘The Golden Age of CD-ROMs.’ Remember when CD-ROMs were the…” Will Ajax Hurt Usability? DateMarch 29, 2005 Words445 “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 Words799 “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 Words432 I get irrationally stressed out about querystring arguments. Here’s why. Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself DateMarch 12, 2005 Words634 “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 Words485 “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 Words343 “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 having too little functionality, but having too much. I…” How Spammers Limit Platform Choice DateDecember 17, 2004 Words395 “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 Words951 Structured gaming and development probably have a high correlation. Do they involve the same thought processes? Reading Print Publications Electronically DateNovember 25, 2004 Words476 “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 Words85 “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 Words369 “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 Words289 “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 Words202 “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 Words492 “It struck me last night that there are two models of RSS aggregation: ‘real-time’ and ‘stored’ . Real-time are aggregators like Mozilla’s Sage extension. This model goes and gets the feed real time…” Protecting Content Editors From Themselves DateSeptember 21, 2004 Words864 “Say you put together a nice, static site for a client. There’s a lot of CSS, a fair amount of scripting , a handful of images, and a lot of HTML. The client is going to manage the site with a WYSIWYG…” More Great Wikipedia Coverage: Hurricane Ivan DateSeptember 15, 2004 Words491 “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 Words482 “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 Words448 “Is there a point to ‘catchall’ email addresses anymore? You know, those addresses where mis-addressed email to your domain gets routed? Let me explain – I was having some email trouble this morning….” Of Taxonomies and Crumbtrails DateAugust 15, 2004 Words481 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 Words665 “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 Words1,212 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 Words465 You don’t have to display content in the same architecture in which you manage it. Blogs and PageRank DateJuly 15, 2004 Words353 “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 Words402 “As I become a more experienced developer, I’m learning when you should and shouldn’t break the rules. While following every rule of programming and data modeling is wonderful, sometimes you need to…” Improved Search DateJuly 11, 2004 Words387 “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 Words895 “Web apps are great, but they have interface problems. A Web-based interface is just never going to be as rich as a traditional client-server app. Spolsky alluded to this in a post I made yesterday….” My Corbis Nightmare DateJune 11, 2004 Words962 “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 Words338 “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 Words521 “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 Words522 A CMS that interferes too much with the display and rendering of content can drive you nuts. Are Taxonomies Dead? DateJanuary 9, 2004 Words350 “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 Words246 When something breaks, does it leave a door open or closed? Database / XML Hybrid Content Management DateDecember 6, 2003 Words462 “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 Words308 “As I work with content management more and more, I believe more and more in what this guy has written: Perls of wisdom in a sea of site mismanagement […] site management system vendors are creating…” Content Management vs. Static HTML DateOctober 27, 2003 Words437 “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. Content Management vs. Unstructured, Flat HTML Pages So how do…” Extending Movable Type Using a Pinged Script DateOctober 3, 2003 Words898 “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…” Thoughts on Posts and Articles DateSeptember 22, 2003 Words965 Content can be temporal or permanent. Which type it is has impact on how it’s handled. Discussion Forums as Blogging Apps DateSeptember 22, 2003 Words503 “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….” Navigating Voluminous Blogs DateSeptember 19, 2003 Words350 “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 Words1,255 We have enough platforms and enough technology. Let’s use what we have to build things. Barnes and Noble SMTP Follies DateSeptember 9, 2003 Words245 “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 Words331 “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 Words437 When it comes to RSS, many people think that content usability just doesn’t matter anymore. Types of Blog Postings DateAugust 9, 2003 Words296 “That post I made about attribution 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 Words249 “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 Words545 “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 Words926 “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 Words668 An absurd analogy: content management is like a marriage in so many ways. Microsoft Excel as a Simple Content Storage Mechanism DateJuly 3, 2003 Words323 “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 system?…” Content Management: Think Before You Implement DateJuly 2, 2003 Words408 “On Managing Content and Content Management Systems : 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 and…” Keyword Categorization: Thinking Out Loud DateJuly 1, 2003 Words991 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 Words208 “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 Words884 Different CMS allow you to define your content in different ways. The Value-Add Side of CMS DateJune 19, 2003 Words640 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 Words186 “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 . You don’t have to register…” Problems No Platform Will Fix DateMay 27, 2003 Words367 “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…” Principle vs. Practical in the World of Web Design DateMay 26, 2003 Words499 “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…” Managing Multiple XML Documents DateMay 26, 2003 Words306 “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…” Enterprise Architecture: Top-Down Makes My Head Hurt DateApril 8, 2003 Words410 “My buddy Rob and I were talking the other day about top-down vs. bottom-up enterprise 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 Words308 “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 classes…” Human-readable URLs DateNovember 5, 2002 Words377 “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 Words348 “One of the upcoming goals I have for DeaneBarker.net is an RSS channel. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and is a way for other programs and sites to display things from this site without…” Usability and the Coolness Factor DateSeptember 8, 2002 Words869 “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 Words3,414 “Web developers want one thing: control. HTML is such an imprecise language that building Web pages has continually been a struggle between what we want to do and what the language is capable of. As a…” The Gutenberg Project DateAugust 12, 2002 Words177 “The Gutenberg Project: Gutenberg has been around since the Internet was very, very young – the Web wasn’t even born yet. It’s an effort to catalog as many free books and texts as possible. Gutenberg…”