After installing Drupal 4.7.4 yesterday for testing on project I am working on, Drupal 5 beta 1 gets launched today. So I just got done installing it and it was a breeze with the new installer script. After installing the php5-gd library and configuring cron, I now have a working Drupal 5.0 beta 1 system working. I’m just glancing over the administration and it already looks to be a huge improvement in the usability of the administration of a Drupal site. I am extremely stoked about this release as I’m increasingly relying on Drupal to get work done whether it be in my personal or professional life. The drupal folks have done a stellar job this year in increasing the profile of drupal and is definately the premier Open Source CMS on the market. The new default drupal theme is hands down 100% better than the old default theme.

If you are evaluating CMS’s you’d be stupid not to take a look at drupal. The code is clean and easily extendable and you can pretty much make it do anything.

Drupal, keep up the good work! Can’t wait for the official release of 5 to start using in projects.

**Update** you can check out my demo of Drupal 5.0 beta 1 at http://test.zemote.com/drupal

[tags]drupal, CMS, joomla[/tags]

Check out Tony Duggins lead singer of The Tossers solo project Undone.

On the heels of the aquisition o YouTube by google, people may not be able to directly with GooTube, but many can probably still make a good deal of money in the video arena. Niche’s are where it’s at. The problem with YouTube is that it is not easy to search video and find relevant content you want in between videos that are totally irrelevent. People that do niche video sites will not get 1.65 billion from google, but stand to make a healthy living.

So what niche are you interested in? What are you waiting for, go build your youtube for your niche.

[tags]YouTube, YouTube, Google Video, Video, Niche[/tags]

On Robert Scoble’s blog today, Robert suggested we all buy playstation’s and HDTV’s on credit at Best Worst Buy and and justify it by saying it’s only $140 in payments.

I think it is extremely irresponsible for anybody to suggest buying tech toys on credit if you can’t afford it. In a world where consumer debt is at an all time high, one should not be promoting people to go buy things on credit just to keep up with the Jones’s. These are wants, not necessities.

What happens in an emergency, you’ve run up your credit cards on toys that you can’t afford, and an emergency comes along like your furnace going out in the middle of the winter… Get that credit card out and dig yourself deeper into debt. Once someone starts living on debt, it is hard to get out of the vicious cycle.

Scoble, I am hereby calling you out as this being one of the most irresponsible thing you’ve ever said. Everyone else should be saying the same thing!!!

[tags]Robert Scoble, Scoble, Scobleizer, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, HDTV, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, Playstation, Playstation 3[/tags]

Google released their Docs & Spreadsheets online Application today and it supports blog publishing to what seems like any type of blog. I ‘m currently writing this post in a Google Doc and will be publishing it from google’s publish tools. I’m curious to see how this works out and if I can add images inline and they automatically get posted and how it all works. I can see it not being the most efficient way to post to a blog already. We’ll see, here we go…. now with the post.

**Update** So I posted this and a title wasn’t added. Not sure what I have to do to get a title added. I should probably read the google docs first. I hate to read technical docs 🙁 So far I will not be making this my blogging tool of choice. But I find it a great way for someone to create and read word and excel docs without ever having to install an office suite on their machine. Have we finally come to an age that we know longer need an office suite on our machine? For most users google Docs & Spreadsheets will be able to handle most if not all their document needs. The power user probably still wants to keep excel and word handy. All google needs now is a online presentation suite and a database and google office will be complete.
[tags]Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google, Office, Online tools, word, excel, office killer[/tags]

Was just wondering if there are any Chicago readers heading to Tech Cocktail?  Shoot me an e-mail and we can hook up and chat over a beer.

[tags]Tech Cocktail, Techcocktail, Chicago[/tags]