Loosing Site

RoopleTheme have released Tapestry, a very flexible theme for the Drupal content management system. The tableless design validates against XHTML and CSS specifications and also performs well in Accessibility Valet tests. When properly configured Tapestry will not only give sites good browser compatibility, but can also comply with Section 508 web accessibility guidelines.

Tapestry | A Drupal Theme via kwout

Tapestry comes with 20 pre-built styles that can be used as is, or used to provide a starting point for a custom style sheet. It also comes with a very flexible set of layouts for 2, 3 and 4 column displays.

2.2. Using Tapestry Sidebars | Tapestry via kwout

Even greater flexibility is given by the Block Theme module that site administrators can use to apply a custom themes to any block on the site.

2.3. Using the Block Theme Module | Tapestry via kwout

While the template itself gives an easy mix and match approach to site design, it also acts as a solid starting point for additional CSS development, inspiration for which can be taken from some of RoopleTheme’s designs for dooce and 43 folders.

Services | RoopleTheme via kwout

(CLARIFICATION: The 43 folders theme was created by RoopleTheme based on a design by Chris Glass.) 

Tapestry is open source, released under the GNU General Public License it is compatible with Drupal 5 and 6.

Coventry based Senokian Solutions have just launched Tactile, a hosted contact management and sales pipeline tool. Tactile is aimed at small businesses who are daunted by the cost and complexity of traditional customer relationship management solutions.

Tactile CRM: Easy to use affordable CRM. Client and contact management, sales pipeline reporting and email management. via kwout

Before building Tactile CRM, Senokian spent time working with local companies to better fit the software design to the needs of a typical small business. Their approach is described in an evaluation of an implementation of Open Source in Health Care by OpenAdvantage.

NHS: National Institute for Mental Health in England — OpenAdvantage – Freedom, Choice, Control via kwout

Tactile is built on EGS, an award winning open source Enterprise Groupware System, built using PHP, Postgress, adodb, Smarty, Prototype, Scriptaculous and the Zend Framework.

EGS via kwout

With prices ranging from free (2 users) to 75GBP (200 users) per month Tactile’s hosted service provides a scalable low-cost  CRM solution. Where and whether Tactile finds a niche depends in part on their selection of features and interfaces, but also may be affected by location, support and cultural nuances expressed in the interface.

In a recent Independent on Sunday article David Randall and Victoria Richards paint a gloomy picture of on-line privacy, highlighting a number of incidents in which employers and educators have used online social networks to gather information about their current and prospective employees and students.

Facebook can ruin your life. And so can MySpace, Bebo… – News, Gadgets & Tech – Independent.co.uk via kwout

Whilst those who brag about engaging in criminal activities on social networks can legitimately expect to have the information they’ve shared come back to haunt them; should employers, recruiters and educators assume the same rights as the police or the security services?

The terms and conditions of social networks often restrict activity to personal use only.

“You understand that except for advertising programs offered by us on the Site (e.g., Facebook Flyers, Facebook Marketplace), the Service and the Site are available for your personal, non-commercial use only.”

Facebook | Terms of Use

Any employer using these networks to gather intelligence about an employee will be violating the terms of service by gathering personal data for commercial use.

Ownership of content is generally retained by the users of social networks.

“You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”

Google Terms of Service (covering Orkut)

In many cases media displayed in social networks are stored on separate hosting services with their own conditions and requirements, and have the additional protection of declaring Creative Commons licenses that explicitly state the media are for non-commercial use.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States via kwout

Employers who include text and images from social networks as evidence at an industrial tribunal will be violating the copyright of the very employees they are in conflict with.  Employees who are unlikely to waive the unnegotiated (and presumably quite high) fees for the prejudicial use of their intellectual property.

Even where an image is marked as available for commercial use issues of privacy and model consent remain.

On the Texas suit against Virgin and Creative Commons (Lessig Blog) via kwout

Employers and educators who violate privacy should be aware that they may also be violating contract law and copyright law. They should be unsurprised if they face legal consequences as a result, and should budget accordingly.

The question is, who will sue first:

• individuals protecting their privacy

• content owners protecting their intellectual property rights

• service providers protecting their users and their market share

• the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, because that’s what they do

Privacy | Electronic Frontier Foundation via kwout

The Microsoft Windows versions of Photoshop CS and CS2 are now able to run better on Linux thanks to Google’s sponsorship of some Open Source development.

Google Open Source Blog: Google Sponsors Wine Improvements via kwout

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API that uses 100% non-Microsoft code. Google contracted with Codeweavers, who provide professional Wine services, to develop over 200 patches that increase the stability of Photoshop when running in the environment. In addition, Google interns have contributed over a thousand patches.

Wine HQ via kwout

Long committed to Open Source use and development, Google’s support of Wine is a natural part of its Picassa for Linux project, coincidently making it makes it easier for Windows users to move to a Linux platform.

Today marks a milestone for the Drupal content management system as version 6 is released.

drupal.org | Community plumbing via kwout

Significant changes include:

• easier setup and installation
• drag and drop administration
• multilingual interfaces
• improved workflow handling through the use of actions and triggers
• OpenID support
• many improvements to theming
• enhanced security
• improved performance

Greg Knaddison has prepared a good screencast demonstrating some of the updated features.

New features in Drupal 6 (updated) | Mastering Drupal via kwout

For designers an important change is the introduction of .info files for themes, through which designers can define and control regions, features, stylesheets and scripts. This improves the separation between design and code, paving the way for smoother team interactions.

Work has already begun on drawing up a roadmap for version 7 with Dries Dries Buytaert’s definition of a killer containing:

• Better media handling
• Custom content types in core
• WYSIWYG editor
• Better performance
• Better tools to structure/organize content
• Basic Views like module
• Automatic upgrade functionality
• Improve node access system
• Better internal APIs
• Better external APIs (import/export, webservices)
• Usability improvements

Background information on this selection of features can be seen in Dries ‘ presentation on the state of Drupal at the Barcelona 2007 Drupalcon.