Du Vien Trang is a Freelance Web Designer / Developer based in Scotland. This is his portfolio, blog and his digital playground.

Just updated this site to Drupal 5.8. It seems everything is fine but as you can see from the tab blocks, it's broken. :(

Can't seem to pinpoint where it went wrong so will need to continue digging for clues. Bloody annoying when these little things happen as it really messes up the whole design since the tab really pulls it together. Oh! well i'm sure a fix is just around the corner. Better get some sleep for now... sigh!

UPDATE (11th July):
Looks like there is a core bug in Drupal 5.8 which has affected the rendering of blocks. (see: http://drupal.org/node/232037)

This bug seem to have affected many other modules that rely upon having Drupal add the JS or CSS to the head of the HTML document.

There are two ways this can be fixed for now until the bug is resolved:

• Revert block.module back to Drupal version 5.7 - http://drupal.org/node/281026
• Use the new patch file and patch your site - http://drupal.org/node/232037 (under review)

Either way, it should restore some of the affected modules.

Generally if a website can be reached by both www. or without in the domain name, it really doesn't matter much as this article will tell you. However, some SEO guru will argue that search engine will treat this as two separate pages, therefore can cause duplicate contents which isn't good. I'm still not 100% sure about this but to be safe it should be done anyway.  read more »

TroubleshootingWiki.org is a new website designed to provide users with comprehensive, free guides on software troubleshooting. This site intends to help users eliminate the potential problems that might arise while working with various applications.

It is often difficult finding a resource that is focused on providing quality, relevant, and free information on software troubleshooting at one central location. Launched initially with over 20 tutorials covering different Content Management Systems and other software, TroubleshootingWiki.org is expected to grow into an exhaustive troubleshooting resource where users are able to add their own tips and tricks.
CMSReport

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The Case for Drupal-- Why the Open Source CMS is well suited for a Medical Academic Library.

This is an interesting presentation by Paul Albert (of Cornell University) comparing Drupal with Fatwire (a proprietary, enterprise WCMS) But most importantly, he explains why Drupal is enterprise ready and why choosing Open Source over proprietary CMS is the way forward in terms of cost and ease of development.

I think Sun/MySQL's Marten Mickos nailed it when he said "There's a difference between organizations that have more time than money and organizations that have more money than time". Read Savio Rodrigues' post on InfoWorld and Matt Asay's post on CNET for more background.
- Dries Buytaert

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Today, i've had some free time to start a new Drupal 6 theme which i'm quite excited about because it uses the colour module so the template colour can be changed on the fly without needing to mess around with too much CSS.

Part of the reason to use the colour module was that i didn't fine a lot of templates out there for Drupal that harness the power of the colour module. As i was building the template and trying to integrate the colour module, i realise reason why the colour module isn't used too much, possibly because it is time consuming creating those transparency images needed.  read more »

Via Dries Buytaert, Rob Purdie is announcing the relaunch of Amnesty International’s site. The new site was built using Drupal and Alfresco. It is interesting to see how many people have commented on both posts who are craving more information about Drupal and Alfresco integration and it is no wonder. As I mentioned last year in this post, Optaros sees the two offerings as highly complementary–they aren’t (yet) competitors.  read more »

Developing new modules for Drupal 6? Porting older modules? Packt Publishing has just released a new book, Learning Drupal 6 Module Development, by Matt Butcher. This book is targeted toward PHP programmers interested in Drupal 6 module development.

The book takes a hands-on approach. Each chapter walks through the development of a module, theme, or installation profile. As the reader progresses through the book, she or he will be able to create increasingly sophisticated Drupal modules.

If you're new to Drupal development (but have PHP development experience), this book will get you developing modules right away. Are you a more seasoned Drupal developer just looking to get some modules updated? This book focuses on many of the new features, changes, and improvements made in Drupal 6. Check out the sample chapter Creating Our First Module (1.3M PDF) to get a feel for how the book is written.

Read full article: New Drupal Book: Learning Drupal 6 Module Development

If you have started with Drupal and want to expand your knowledge, you either need to sit and spend time on Drupal Handbooks or buy some Drupal books.

Here I am giving some good collection of PDFs available on the web, which can be used for beginner or intermediate developers.  read more »

Congratulations to my good friend Muslim and Ilse who are getting married in June. As part of the announcement, they have kindly asked me to develop a website for only friends and families to view.

The website is at: muslimandilseswedding.co.uk and is a private site for invites only. It was built using Drupal 6 and allows only them to edit the contents while guest visitors can only view the site.

Once the wedding is over, there will be a gallery section added to the site which will allow everyone who attended the wedding to upload their wonderful photos.

I can't wait to be at the wonderful wedding day to finally see Muslim and Ilse tie the knot.