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In the last few months I’ve finished some pretty large drupal projects and thought I would share my top five tips for getting things rolling on your next drupal site. If you want a general overview of building drupal sites smashingmagazine.com just published the definitive post that I’ve read to date.

1. Adhere to drupal best practices from the start. Look forward to your site being around for a long while and set it up correctly. Even the basics, like taking advantage of using the sites/all folder to hold your non-core modules and themes can save you a lot of time down the road.

2. Make the website accessible to a wide range of people. It is easier to plan things like text-size controls, email-to-a-friend and print buttons when you’re in the design stages. Adding them in afterwards can look amateurish.

3. Give yourself time to input content and give it some TLC with proper formatting. Nothing is more boring than the same basic text layout on every page. With CMS’s half the point is having the same frame around your content so that navigation is consistent, etc. - but that doesn’t mean your text and image content has to be the same with every node. Float an image left, float it right, pull out an important quote and give it the bold+italic treatment. Don’t rush through this “final part” of the job - it’s very important.

4. Use some kind of design/development framework. Whatever works for you, but the point is to keep it consistent so that when it comes time to fix something or add a feature you can do it quickly. For most people just starting out with the same basic theme, like Zen, is enough. Later on though you might need to start keeping a folder of your regular modules, pre-configured modules, sample configurations of certain key theme components, and anything else you might need within arms reach. A note of caution though - make sure you check drupal.org for updates of the modules once in awhile.

5. FCKeditor - is the best editor there is, period. A lot of folks swear by tinyMCE but I think they’re just plain wrong. FCK has a built in file manager (that is a pain in the ass to configure but very worth it), a default CSS XML-based stylesheet associated with user-styles that is easy to override,  but most importantly it has a feature tied into the text editor that shows block elements boundaries in your html structure which is of huge benefit to 99% of all users.

http://www.fckeditor.net/

Lately I have been busy crossing genres between Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes (which we saw just last week at Element in Victoria) and some podcasts by Erol Alkan and Tiga. Alkan’s Beyond The Wizards Sleeve (link will open up iTunes) was recorded at G-Mex in Manchester and is stuck on repeat for me at the moment. This youtube video of Alkan at Coachella 2008 is pretty unstoppable.

Another brilliant podcast is WNYC’s Radio Lab hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. Each show is unique and has an amazing story to tell, but Zoe Keating’s supersonic cello magic (iTunes) is really something to hear.

Lastly, enjoy Dawn Landes playing Young Folks (bluegrass style).

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time getting to know my new acer aspire one and this weekend I finally feel like I’ve reached a major milestone. After grabbing a few scripts from userstyles.org for the firefox stylish addon my web browsing ux is now satisfactory. Among the other addons that have filled the gap left by this tiny, pain-in-the-ass-keyboard are Speed Dial (loads thumbnails of your favorite sites in newly created tabs) and Foxmarks for bookmark syncing. Mostly the tweaks were about cutting down on the amount of typing that has to be done and making the best use of the small screen space available. I’ve also turned auto-hide on, a feature I thought I would never use for any length of time, but it saves a good quarter of and inch of realestate at the bottom of the screen so it had to go.

I’m very proud to announce the release of my first wordpress theme, pl00. Don’t let pl00’s plain wrapper fool you - it’s meant to be a development theme that quickly gets a themer from A to B. I use it on every wordpress project I work on. One of pl00’s best features is that the homepage has 5 widget areas. It’s been tested in Firefox, Safari and IE7 and is W3C validated.

Tags: fixed width, three columns, valid CSS, valid XHTML, white, simple, widgets, widget ready, 3columns, right sidebars, SEO friendly, gravatars, h:over effects, text-only

Download pl00

I’m thinking of switching back to pc’s. In a way it feels like I joined an awesome cult (mac) only to find out that there is another cult (win) across the street that has an indoor pool, robots and all the gravy you can drink. Of course that gravy could kill you and those robots could severe your limbs at any moment, but what’s life without some risk? The latest HP and Dell laptops have serious hardware packed into them that the Macbook Pro just doesn’t cut it when it comes to live video processing. So after reading a lot about what gear other performers use, I’m thinking of taking the plunge and grabbing an HP laptop, something like this one. Lately I’ve been having fun with a little Acer Aspire One (warning: the Aspire One website has really annoying music)., and even loaded up Resolume to see what it could do (sort of a success, but mostly it sucked).