Archive for Blog Software
Joomla Lovers May Have The Greatest iPhone App Ever
Posted by: | Comments
For the first time in my geek life, I am seriously tempted to switch away from WordPress, all because of one iPhone app.
Joomla Admin Mobile, an iPhone application created by Covert Apps empowers users belonging to the Joomla faith to not only edit pages and articles, but also add multiple images to them without throwing all of the images at the bottom of the post (like WordPress 2) or near the top (like Squarespace).
Priced at $9.99, Joomla Admin Mobile (or JAM for short) sells at a much higher premium than other Joomla apps, although JAM does offer a few features lacking from its rivals.
What I Loved
Just like most of the other iPhone blogging apps, JAM allows Joomla users to upload images to their server.
However what separates JAM from rivals is not only can edit the image from within the app, without having to launch a photo editing program (like iRetouch) in order to touch up a picture.
Users can easily crop, adjust the image size or rotate pictures (in many fun and various forms) from within the app, saving times and energy when composing an article or section.
Another awesome feature that I love about JAM is the ability to edit user accounts directly from the app itself without having to power up the laptop.
Site admins can grant (or take away) access levels of registered users, change their passwords, email accounts or even screen names on a whim, and last (but not least) block users from logging in if they suspect an account has been compromised.
Admins can also email users registered upon the site from within the app, which is helpful if they suspect an account has been hacked (in which you can alert them of a new password).
Last but not least, JAM does support expandable post summaries, without having to hard code it in (which I have to do with my WordPress app).
What I disliked
Most of what I did not like about JAM had to do with the user interface which is quite ugly when compared to both the WordPress 2 and Squarespace iPhone apps.
When it comes to composing an article, I felt that there was too many “taps” compared to its rivals, which allow you to edit an article immediately instead of showing you a preview first.
Although I did love the basic photo editing features, I did wish the app came with a formating bar for HTML links, similar to what the LiveJournal.app has.
Also adding video support (perhaps via YouTube?) would be nice as well, as it could help JAM stand out from the crowd (as not many blogging apps have embraced video, despite the launch of the iPhone 3GS).
Conclusion
JAM is a powerful app for Joomla lovers, and perhaps one of the most powerful CMS/blogging apps that I have come across ever since WordPress and BlogPress entered Steve Jobs backyard.
JAM’s closest rival is BlogPress, although the latter does not upload images to your server but via third parties (Flickr and Picasa).
Despite being the only app to fully support Joomla, Covert Apps may want to adjust their pricing of JAM, as many users whine about apps being priced at $5, let alone $10 (mainly due to the global recession).
Overall Covert Apps is a “must have app” for Joomla lovers, and may help the Joomla community enter the blogging mainstream alongside of both Blogger and Wordpress.
Drupal 7 Alpha 1 Released
Posted by: | Comments
When speaking about “WordPress CMS” often the Drupal platform is mentioned as the most viable and more powerful alternative to WordPress. After more than 2 years of development the Drupal community now received what it has been waiting for for a long time: the first Drupal 7 release.
Albeit still only an Alpha release, the bang in the community was big and I suppose for the Drupal users it was very welcome news to finally be able to look forward to certain features like Custom Fields which are standard since a really long time in the blogging community. Drupal 6 already brought an image uploader and tags to the software and Drupal 7 now brings more features WordPress and users of other blog software have known for a while already.
What’s new in Drupal 7? With Drupal 7 come image editing, integrated updater and custom fields.
Revamped User Interface
An incredible amount of work has gone into improving the user experience and administration interface. The new administration theme “Seven”, the overlay module, the dashboard and the configurable shortcut bar, all lead to a much more user-friendly interface. In-place editing is enabled for blocks and nodes by default, so modifying the content of a site becomes much simpler.Custom Fields
Drupal 7 bundles in the ability to add custom fields, similar in functionality to the Content Construction Kit (CCK) module. However, fields are no longer limited only to content types; they can be added to users, taxonomy terms, and other entities. Fields also have support for translations.Image Handling
Drupal 7 brings native image handling to core. Image fields may be added to content, and have image styles applied to them, such as scaling, cropping, and other effects.Update Manager
Building on Drupal 6’s Update module, which keeps site administrators informed when new module and theme releases are available, the new Update Manger module can also install and upgrade modules and themes.Front-end “under-the-hood” improvements
A new render API allows for highly granular theming, core template files have been revamped to provide more semantic markup, Drupal 7 now has built-in RDFa support, includes jQuery UI and a new AJAX framework, and a new core theme “Stark” which exposes Drupal’s markup directly for those who want to dive in and start theming.
In addition, Drupal 7 has several major accessibility enhancements, making it the most accessible release of Drupal to date!Back-end “under-the-hood” improvements
A revamped database layer resolving nearly all limitations in the Drupal 6 database layer, automated testing framework, new PHP stream-based file API that supports private and public files simultaneously, revamped node access system, new hooks for more flexible system interaction, an Entity API, a job queue API, and many, many, many more improvements.Drupal 7 is also the most scalable release to date, with features such as built-in proxy server support, advanced caching techniques, and Content Delivery Network support for static files.
If you’re a fan of Drupal or alpha versions, you can read more about the announcement and download Drupal 7 Alpha 1 here. I bet you’ll have to wait until at least 2011 before ‘Gold’ status is reached though.
WordPress 2.9.1 Released
Posted by: | Comments
After the festive season the dev crew has released an update for WordPress 2.9. WordPress 2.9.1 is a bugfix release and contains no new features. If you have waited updating to 2.9, now is the time to upgrade as most issues have been resolved.
Issues with scheduled posts should be resolved and the same applies to feed parsing errors in the admin dashboard. Update your blogs now via the build-in updater or download the latest WordPress update now.