Märt Matsoo - my site, my rules
Team: Estonian Foreign Ministry
Position: Web Specialist
My recent musings & posts:
Changing "Search this site" text in Drupal
I like Drupal a lot and you could say I am committed to it, but just like in any relationship, there are little things that make you scratch your head. Changing default site text ("Search this site", "Read more" etc.) is one of those things. It should be simple. Perusing Drupal forums and seeing some of the solutions people have resorted to (ie. hacking core, rolling a custom module just to implement hook_form_alter) makes you wonder if this CMS isn't just a bit too complex.
Path Filter Module - I wish I had found it sooner
Drupal is known to have a pretty steep learning curve. There's a lot to it and it's hard to get your head around just how it works. "No problem", you think, "I'll just learn as I go." Well, I wish it were that easy. The fact is, in the rush to get things built you might employ a suboptimal solution and later discover there was a great module that would have done things nicely for you.
Should a content contributor know (some) HTML?
Yes, I think so. There, I said it. Admittedly, it's a selfish opinion since it would make my life at work as "the web guy" a lot easier. However, I also think it would improve the quality of websites in general.
Use the Drupal Schema API
So, you are using Drupal, you've probably read a bunch of articles and tutorials...maybe even skimmed some books and you figure you have a grasp of how it works. You've read that there's the "drupal way" of doing things and you'd be happy to do so, but you're not sure what that means in practice and you're in a rush to get your site working. You know php and mysql so what's the problem? You just want to start coding.
Sun E250 Server Fridge
Prelude
One tends to discover some odd things while net surfing and a while back I came across a site featuring a Silicon Graphics server that had been torn apart and converted into a fridge.
Pretty cool. Nerdy, but cool. Wouldn't it be a nice change to have a computer that served cold drinks instead of tepid aggravation?
Well, it just so happened that sitting beneath my desk at work were two Sun E250 servers that used to house our company's website before it was completely redesigned on a different platform. What's more, these servers had front doors that swing open; much like a fridge!
