Using Acquia Drupal as an image processor?

November 30, 2008

pipeline_in_trench.jpgCatching up on some blog reading today I picked up on a thread Dave Winer's been writing about. He's using ImageMagick to resize images and produce thumbnails. Throughout the thread I kept thinking this sounds a lot like a standalone version of the Drupal imagecache module. Perhaps, I thought, the answer could be setting up a Drupal site to do the conversion. Nah that's too much I said to myself.

Saturday morning in the fall

November 22, 2008

Osprey in flightAutumn is one of my favorite times of year. Actually truth be told I love most of the seasons, each for their own beauty and grandeur. Mornings that start with a deep chill and transform into crisp days filled with color are hard to beat. Beyond the inherent beauty the promise of winter's coming is inescapable. Skiing, ice skating and building snow forts are just around the corner while the days grow short.

Fall Cleanup

Spring cleaning in my mind gets overbilled. Sure spring days are sometimes warmer than their cousins in the fall, but the days of fall just beg for a good cleanup. Getting the house in order and ready for the longer nights of winter where the family will be inside more of the waking day is but one of the advantages. Fall cleanups, with the holidays and gift-giving around the corner also provide a great opportunity to assess what the family's needs are. With these ideas fresh in mind one is much less likely to run out and get a gift for a family member that isn't needed.

Views attachment display type

November 16, 2008

While doing some overhaul this weekend I had a plan to put a feature story on the front page of my blog and link to a number of shorter items in a series of blocks across the bottom of the page. This got me to thinking that James Walker, aka Walkah, had done something similar. But it turns out it's much cooler.

James posted how he was using the attachment display type in Views 2 to display two views at once. Sure enough the attachment display type is yet another awesome feature in the long line of cool new functions in Views 2.

The great thing is the workflow couldn't be simpler either. By default my blog posts are now not "promoted to front page" and instead go to the "In Brief" section of the page. When I put together a little longer post with a little more thought behind it then I can check one button and the story makes it way to the "featured" position on the front page. It took a very little bit of CSS styling to get the grid view with the in-brief section to do just as I desired but it was quite simple all and all.

Home again Colorado

November 9, 2008

Crossing the Rockies, descending along the Front Range into Denver International Airport at sunset brought back so many great memories. Each time I make that descent and come upon Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder and the other towns tucked up against the foothills it is hard not to imagine returning in a more permanent way.

There are so many beautiful places in the world but here, where the mountainous backbone of the continent meets the great plains is a very special place. And of course walking out to see the Colorado State University banner didn't hurt either. Combine the great city, a good dinner and getting to video chat with the wife and daughter and things look pretty good. Onward to Chicago.

Google will OCR some PDFs

November 9, 2008

At the Reno airport catching up on some news reader backlog I came across the Uncletterer headline Google can now OCR all PDFs. Jumping out of the newsreader and to their site it was exciting news. Well it turns out the headline is misleading. Google can, and will, OCR public PDFs. It won't, however, do any OCR on the documents in private spaces including Google Docs.

I wrote some time ago about the plan for scanning documents and getting rid of our filing cabinets. Well with all that's been keeping us busy since then it hasn't happened. The scanner part of the workflow is great and I have some ideas on what I want to do with the documents once they are OCR'd but haven't taken the time to work out the workflow.

On a completely unrelated note why is it that TSA spends so much time looking at my bag of clothes and completely passes on the bag I forgot to take my ziplock of fluids out of?

We interrupt this program

November 3, 2008

Truth be told there has been less program and more interruption happening here of late. I'd make a statement about that changing soon but the next couple of months are looking to be a little on the crazy side. In the meantime take a look at this video. Likely I'm not alone in musing that there are some folks who I wouldn't mind having them stay home on election day. The truth is, however, the system only works when we all vote. Sure the robo-callers and excessive punditry will be great to put behind us (and hey not everybody has a Nevada cell phone number mind you).

Drupal wins best overall CMS for the second year in a row

October 31, 2008

For the second year running Drupal won Overall 2008 Open Source CMS Award in the Packt Publishing 2008 Open Source CMS Awards. With many great open source projects and several very good open source content management systems the award is even more meaningful.

"To win the Best Open Source CMS Award two years in a row is quite an achievement for Drupal," said Damian Carvill, Packt Spokesman. "In what were extremely close categories, with high quality finalists, Drupal's strength and power shone through for the judges. Particular praise was reserved for the development team's dedication to improving Drupal alongside building a loyal and passionate community, that has enabled its growth, adoption and advocacy. Congratulations from Packt both to the development team and to the community!"

Pages

Subscribe to