Wordpress
June 11, 2008
What is the difference between a CMS (content management system) and a Wiki?
In a nutshell:
Both are web based applications/software designed to allow many people to contribute content (typically articles … but podcast and videos are becoming more common) to a website.
I would say the basic difference is that a CMS (Ex: Drupal) is a closed system where only certain people can add or edit content to the website/cms.
On the other hand, a wiki is an open system where anyone can edit and add content. The idea behind a wiki is that the masses will eventually correct any false information – with the help of editors.
My thoughts:
I’m no wiki expert, but I see wiki’s being more suitable to general encyclopedic information. If you need a tighter structure and control over what is being posted on your site, I would be leaning towards a CMS rather than a WIKI.
That said, I am sure that the differences between the two types of software has room for a lot of gray area – I’m sure some CMS software have WIKI like functionality and vice versa.
How about blogs?
Blogs are kinda like a CMS for one person. One other distinction would be that the blog traditionally is date driven – where newer articles are posted to the front page of the blog. As with the WIKI/CMS blurring of the lines, you see the same with blogs and CMS software.
For example: WordPress (a popular blog program) has CMS like features:
- Multiple users can post articles.
- You can have static non date affected pages. WordPress call these ‘pages’.
Beyond the CMS-like features built into the core WordPress package, WordPress has a huge number of plug-ins out there that extend it’s capability considerably … bringing it even closer inline with a true CMS.
A few links:
WordPress home page: www.wordpress.org
Drupal home page: http://drupal.org
Another popular CMS – Joomla: joomla.org
Wiki software: Media Wiki
Ciao,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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May 14, 2008
This first article is meant to give you a global picture about creating WordPress themes. Let’s start by answering a few common questions.
Do you need to know PHP to create or edit WordPress themes?
The short answer is no. It would help to know some PHP but many theme designers don’t, and they do just fine.
Do you need to understand MySQL to create or edit WordPress themes?
Again, no. Mysql is the database that drives WordPress and is a key component … nonetheless, it has no impact on creating themes. So don’t worry about it.
What do you need to know in order to be able to edit or create a WordPress theme?
I would say that you need to know three basic things:
- HTML/XHTML
- CSS
- The WordPress page hierarchy and behavior.
I think the first two are obvious, but the last needs some more explaining.
read more
May 9, 2008
Hi,
First things first: thank you for Akismet!
… I just wanted to offer my sincere appreciation for the WordPress anti-spam plugin: ‘Askimet’.
This nifty plugin has saved me countless hours (and possibly days) of work by filtering out hundreds of spam post each and every day!
I can easily say that for me, Askimet has proven to be the most important plugin for WordPress.
… Just in the time it took me to write this post, Askimet has caught 7 spam comments!
If you see a spammer, smack him!
It is clear that blog spammers are among the worst of Web citizens. They are the hyena’s of the Web, trying to steal traffic they don’t deserve.
Blog spam protection tips
Being a high value spam target (the juicier the traffic …), I can offer the following advice:
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January 15, 2008
Hi,
I’ve just released parts 5 and 6 of my video series of configuring WordPress.
Again, more basic stuff designed to help get people up and running as quickly as possible.
The new videos:
– Configuring WordPress Part 5
– Configuring WordPress Part 6
– Configuring WordPress Part 7
– Configuring WordPress Part 8
Thanks for reading.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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January 8, 2008
Hi,
I decided to create a dedicated WordPress section on killersites.com
Right now, I only a have a few videos (with a bunch more coming) but I am also thinking of maybe some written tutorials etc…
The videos:
So far I’ve only added a few videos but have another 40 minutes of video to edit that should be up this week.
Any comments or suggest are welcome.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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November 29, 2007
The WordPress text editor comes with a set of buttons that allows you to easily format your post by quickly inserting things like links, images and html list.
Though very useful, I found that I needed a few more buttons … and so I figured out how to do it.
I just released a new video tutorial on how to edit the WordPress text editor:
The Video: Customizing the WordPress Text Editor
I hope you find it useful!
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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November 23, 2007
Hi,
For the last couple of years I have been preaching that web designers should learn at least one blog or CMS (content management systems) software so that they can then offer blog/CMS installations and customizations to their clients.
The use of blogs/cms’ is also one of the reasons why I think web designers should learn PHP, given that most blogs are created with PHP these days.
read more
October 9, 2007
In the following article, using a question and answer format, I try to answer some of the common questions about how blogs fit within a business.
1. Can you describe your introduction to blogging, how you became interested how has it impacted you personally?
I first heard about blogging in about 2001 and dismissed it as another tool for people who didn’t want to learn HTML. A year or so later, I realized the significance of blogging and blogging software:
… it was going allow for the original vision of the Web to actually materialize, where anyone could easily get a website on the Web.
Blogs and the blog phenomenon, made me rethink my whole approach to web design as a web professional: blogs, CMS and other similar content formatting tools where the future of web design.
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September 19, 2007
Preamble:
I’ve mentioned several times in the past 2 years, that web designers should learn how to use/edit at least one blog or CMS. Some popular choices:
- WordPress – a blog.
- Drupal – a CMS.
- Mambo – a CMS
.. And there are many, many more.
Why should web designers be concerned?
I won’t go into all the details here, but in a nutshell, a lot of web sites can use the features/functionality provided by blogs or CMS packages. Why reinvent the wheel?
That said, what is the difference between a blog and a CMS?
read more
September 15, 2007
Killersites.com was started by David Siegal (of ‘Creating Killer Web Sites’ fame) back around 1996. This was effectively the first version of the site.
In 2002-2003, I officially took over and started version 2 of killersites.com. It has gone through a lot of changes over the last 4-5 years that has resulted in a lot of web design related content … too much content to manage with html, php and jsp pages running all over the place!
… It is time for a major shift.
WordPress vs. Drupal and Killersites.com version 3:
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