Laura let everyone know last week that Idealware's web site is up for a major upgrade, coming soon. The Idealware blog won't be left behind -- we're happy to announce new bloggers and some other important changes that coincide with the Web Site update. Here's what you'll want (and need) to know:
New Bloggers!
We're growing the blog roster, with an eye towards landing at ten bloggers posting about twice a month, for a healthy and diverse amount of content focused on helping nonprofits use software and technology to serve their missions. Joining Heather Gardner-Madras, Steven Backman, Eric Leland, Laura Quinn and myself are:
Johanna Bates has a strong background in technology management, with special knowledge of the web and online communications.
Debra Askanase brings her background of 20 years of community organizing with a focus and expertise in how nonprofits use social media to the blog.
Andrea Berry, who currently serves as Idealware's Director of development, brings her expertise in fundraising and donor management systems to the blog.
Marc Baizman brings a broad range of tech skills to the blog, with a background as both a nonprofit technology director and consultant in the sector.
New RSS Address!
Take note that, if you're one of the hundreds of people who subscribe to this blog in an RSS Reader, we will be moving to a new RSS address. You can change your settings now, and that's recommended, as the old feed will stop updating once we're on the new site. The address is:
As we make changes and improvements to the blog, we're eager to hear from you. What do you look to get from the Idealware blog? What works? What doesn't? What would you like to see more of? What burning topics are we failing to address? With a bigger group of bloggers and a renewed focus, we want to write about the things that you'd like to know more about. Feel free to offer your suggestions any time, either in the comments, or to Idealware at our Twitter feed or Facebook page.
I'm wrapping up the Drupal 101 series with some talk about Drupal themes, and some additional info on topics that we've already covered. The goal of these posts is to give new Drupal administrators an idea about how Drupal works, and some pointers to the key add-ons and resources in the broad Drupal ecosystem. For reference' sake, we started with an intro, moved on to Modules, and then covered navigation. So, now that we have a functional web site, what does it look like?
Getting Themes
Drupal comes with five or six themes to choose from, and, if you use them, then your site will look very, um, uninspired. This might not be a problem if your goal is not to impress your visitors, but simply provide information or functionality, but, if you're putting up a website for your organization, you want one that stands out from the crowd. So you have two choices: you can find a better, less common theme, or you can customize one of the default themes.
The first place to go is to Drupal Theme Garden. This is where many Drupal theme designers share their work. Here, you can either find a theme to use (or customize for your use), or get a good idea about the types of things you can do with your theme.
Customizing Themes
From the Administration menu, you can modify any theme's main text elements, deciding whether or not to display your site's mission or slogan, name or logo. And you can replace the default "droplet" logo with your own logo (a no-brainer!). Assuming that you've started with a theme that you really like, this might be enough. But, if you want to do more serious customizations, such as moving the logo to the center of your header or changing the site colors, you're going to need basic web 4.0 programming skills and, most likely, some level of comfort with the PHP scripting language.
Most themes consist of one or more style sheets, a number of "tpl" files with PHP/HTML code laying out various page elements, such as blocks, footers and sidebars, and one called page.tpl.php that establishes the overall page layout. The main styles are usually stored in styles.css, and you can make a lot of changes to your site's appearance here, modifying default background colors and images, placing and resizing content.
If that's not enough, most customizations can be done using Wordpress's internal macros and functions, meaning that you won't have to worry about assigning variables or what goes into the foreach loops. Wordpress has simple commands that you can insert into a page to loop through your posts and display them or list your categories in the sidebar. A nice breakdown of the Wordpress functions can be found at WpExplorer.com.
If you do modify the stylesheets and templates, make sure that you are storing your themes in sites/default folder and that you're properly backing up whenever you do an upgrade. If you modify theme files in the main themes folder, and then upgrade to, say, a Drupal security fix, your modifications will be overwritten. In general, themes remain functional from dot release to dot release (e.g., what worked for Drupal 6.1 still works in 6.9), but the Drupal maintainers often make dramatic changes in number versions, so don't assume that your theme in Drupal 6.9 will not be messed up if you upgrade to Drupal 7 (coming soon).
More Installation Options
In the first Drupal 101 post, I mentioned Fantastico, a two-click installer for Drupal available on most hosting services that use the cPanel site management interface. I subsequently ran into this useful article about Elefante and Simplescripts. These are packages that you can use to install a variety of popular open source applications, including Drupal.
In addition to application installers, there are other options for installing Drupal:
Customized Drupal installations like Open Atrium and Acquia come with more modules and functionality.
There's been some development and discussion about Installation Profiles, a Drupal add-on functionality that lets you define additional installation details, such as module defaults and inclusion of additional modules and data for distributing custom Drupal installations.
Conclusion
What I hope this Drupal 101 series has done is to offer some context and guidance for people new to Drupal who are about to give it a try, and some backing to my initial proposition that Drupal's strength is it's flexibility. Along the way, I've received tweets asking "Why Drupal?" and my answer is that Drupal isn't the only CMS out there, or necessarily the best one for your web site. There are a huge variety of commercial and open source options. In fact, my personal website runs on a combination of Frog CMS and Wordpress, because I wanted a simple tool for integrating RSS feeds, which Frog provides, and a powerful blogging platform. On the other hand, last week the White House ditched their commercial CMS for Drupal. So this series might also inspire you to look elsewhere, particularly if a more traditional, tree-structured content management interface will work better for you than Drupal's layout by association model. Whichever way you go, we suffer more from a surfeit of good options than a lack of same.
When comparison shopping, we have come to expect that companies will make outlandish claims about their stuff. Sometimes it's frustrating, but most of the time, I continue on numb to the distorted claims clinging to the brands all around me. For nonprofits in the business of providing a social benefit, its especially disheartening when I read similarly exaggerated claims about their accomplishments.
I see credible communication as a social benefit. Sandra Stewart, a colleague over at Thinkshift Communications, shared a beta "Credibility Quotient" to help quantify the credibility of initiatives. I found it useful as I thought about building nonprofit websites, and the kinds of messaging and communications strategies that become implicit in the architecture of the sites I build.
Thinkshift identifies several factors in determining credibility, including provable claims, accurate data, attention to challenges, relevance to the audience, consistency with actions and more. These factors and definitions show the different perspectives we can take when considering whether web content is credible, and helps to determine where to focus to fix any problems. For me, the details of the scoring and weighting are less important than the exercise in understanding what credibility factors are most important, and how to read content for these factors.
A recent day started with a call from the tech manager at an organization I work with. A variation on their website domain name had turned up as a porn site. What to do?
This particular organization has high advocacy visibility, including right now. Rather than foul play relative to current news, it appeared that a paper company had been squatting on the name for a few years. Companies may do this to pick up pay-for-click revenue on people coming to the page by mistake. In other cases, it may have hopes of eventually forcing the legitimate organization to buy the name.
Some thoughts about this type of situation.
First, be proactive. In this case, we had registered a bunch of domain names for this organization. We had considered what other names constituents might go looking, and we also reserved some other name variations for future initiatives. When I looked at what names the client "owned," I felt reassured we had been proactive back when and over the years.
On further reflection about the name we missed, however, I saw what we had overlooked. It is not enough to just think about what an organization's constituents might go looking for based on organizational communications. As web search has grown, you also need to consider what random people further out from the core constituency might go looking for. In this case, we had the ".org" and ".net" version of this name (not the organization's main name at all), and the bad guys had grabbed the ".com" for themselves. I and they had probably reasoned back then, since no one would think of them as a company, no need to get the ".com" names. But if your organization is prominent, then surely it is worth the $10 a year per name or less to register more names. I wouldn't consider it squatting if these are variations on your organization's unique name and identity.
Another phenomenon are "typosquatters." People who grab versions of your name that someone might misspell. We have all had that experience. "www.googgle.com" instead of "www.google.com" maybe.
Second, when something like this happens, plan your response carefully. It is easy to find out who does have the name. Your domain registrar (godaddy, network solutions, gkg.net, etc) will have a "whois" function, or go to whois.net. Then, research the name owner and see who else has complained about them. Immediately going to a lawyer to write a letter might cause the name holder to realize they had something useful. They might set a steep price for recovery. This on top of your own legal fees. Other folks' experience suggest that sometimes these shadowy companies might just let a bunch of names lapse, and you can grab them back when the registration expires. It’s a chance, and one to consider before rushing in.
Third, sometimes a gentle approach works. An organization for whom we were creating a first site, found that its exact acronym with the .org was owned by a corporate entity related to the game maker Atari. From the company's work, it seemed possible that they had an interest in that name. Even so, we approached them in an open way, describing the organization's mission and non commercial use. Lo and behold, we got the name back at no cost at all. Go Atari?
Fourth, don't wait around before registering your new names. For a project last year, as the site was being developed "off line," we kicked around the various names to be used. The name was obscure enough that we knew we didn't have to worry too much about competing interests. We didn't register it because we were still finalizing the choice. As the site got closer to launch, the client probably started listing the name here and there. A few days before we were finally ready to register the name, it got taken. And taken by another entity with no relationship to the client's type of work.
These guys probably had web search tools looking for references to web domains that were not actually registered and grabbing them. This story also ended well. We researched these guys and found they did have a real address and a stated pledge to not take names that reflected another entity's business. They gave up the name at no cost.
Fifth, consider establishing your rights to the name. How do you do establish that the name goes with your organizational work? Well, more entanglement in legalities, but it might make sense to trademark your organization's name. Should you need it, this can give you some rights. There is a generally accepted policy for resolving disputes over domain names. See http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp-rules-24oct99.htm which a legitimate company will adhere to. This will not give you the right to collect damages but it won't cost a lot and could help you to get your name back.
The three client situations I mention range over a lot of what could happen and I hope give some ideas how to prevent problems. When my buddies recover their name variation from porn site, I'll update this post. Meanwhile, I don't consider this exhaustive advice, and wonder what other experiences readers may share.
I am not by nature a tech tools junkie. I tend to stick with what works for longer than my peers and database designs colleagues. That said, I am always on the lookout for something new that really works. Balsamiq Mockups fits that category.
I just stumbled on it from a passing mention by Eric Leland, fellow idealware.org blogger. Balsamiq Mockups is good for just one thing: creating mockups of database and web applications. Maybe like me, you spend a lot of time on this often tedious task. If so, then Balsamiq can replace simple or complex html tools, Gliffy (another passion), Visio, Word/Excel/Powerpoint, Google docs, Access forms, pen and notebook (love that too).
Here’s ten things I really like about Balsamiq:
Really easy to learn. I got going preparing mockups for an important web project with about 15 minutes learning time.
Has what you need. It has about 60 cool gadgets to drop on your page canvass: everything from full desktop or web browser frames, to date pickers and multi-media playback controls, to chart representations. Anything you might want to include in a project, you will find.
Fun: the gadgets and controls all look hand drawn, so your mockup really looks like a mockup and you have the same creative ease as if you were using a pencil or easel pad. Instead of feeling, oh, I got stuck after the design meeting with translating ideas into mockups, you'll think, oh, I got the fun task.
Fast: Once you get started, it should take 10-20 minutes per page. Try doing that in Excel or Dreamweaver.
Supports healthy planning: I can already see that drawings will invite comment and discussion and better getting to agreement than more formal looking things.
Collaborative: Even the off-line desktop version has a team orientation, by allowing you to send and receive diagrams from team members as XML files.
Easy to install: it is an Adobe Air application and installs on top of that in just a minute or two. Developer Giacomo Guilizzoni was a senior Adobe engineer (working on Adobe Connect, which we also value).
Nonprofit friendly: The web site offers free licenses to nonprofit and Open Source developers. Write to Mariah, Giacomo’s wife, partner, and director of Philanthropy, and she’ll set you up. (I purchased a first license of Balsamiq, but earnestly asked for a second if I wrote up our experience for this nonprofit audience. I probably would have done it anyway.)
Cross platform: Runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux desktops and as an add-in to some higher-end collaborative tools. Paid desktop copies are $79.
Self-explanatory: you can also stick easily-distinguishable post-its, call-outs and other simple annotations on top of the mock-up so it becomes self-explanatory.
Is there room for improvement? Of course. Would love to see (in standalone version) easier way to group and order mockups in a project, some of the tools could use a bit more options, more annotation support. I'm sure these will come. Meanwhile...
Balsamiq has been love at first sight. Thanks for introducing us, Eric.
I love the initial stages of creating a great new website. The part after the planning, when we know the objectives and some of what the website users want, and before we start building the system. Usually I am sitting down over at a coffee shop with a nonprofit and my geeky developer friends, and we are furiously brainstorming on paper, old receipts, napkins - drawing lots of sketches of pages as we explore what is effective.
There are many terrific tools that make it really easy to bring the sketches to life online. I used to turn to Visio, Illustrator and Photoshop to get our thoughts into something beyond a sketch, but found these tools just too complex to whip out depictions of what we had discussed, and difficult to share and collaborate with the files created.
After my latest napkin sketch session, I discovered Twiddla. Although it lacks the energy and ambiance of the coffee shop and its napkins, it is a wonderful tool for groups to collaboratively view and sketch on top of web pages and other uploaded images. The people I invite do not need an account, and can quickly join an audio conference through the computer, without dealing with call-in codes and other login nonsense. We happily set about defacing websites and brainstorming design directions, and can do screen captures to preserve the digital graffiti for later use.
After twiddla-ing, I want to take all the great ideas and extend them in different ways. Visiting the same websites we defaced earlier using the FireFox browser, I use the ColorZilla and Firebug extensions to view and manipulate how the web page actually looks, as though I were editing the page. ColorZilla is a free extension to FireFox that gives you a simple point-and-click tool to discovering what the color is of anything on a web page, in RGB, hex and other codes. I can use Firebug to view all sorts of things about how a particular web page is coded, including its stylesheet, and edit this code right in the browser. While sometimes I wish I could change some of the terrible sites that are out there, Firebug only changes the site for you at the moment. I can copy the code for a color I like on one web page, then visit another and change the stylesheet to use that new color, and see right away how it looks online. If I messed up the page, no worries, just reload and it all comes back to normal. Great stuff!
I love how Gliffy takes Visio and strips it of almost everything complex, leaving a simple flowcharting tool that just works. I can draw lines linking boxes and triangles with ease, and label quickly, and when done, share this with the whole team. I can also use the available templates to start with a web page frame, and adjust the columns, drop in boxes representing features we discussed and have a variety of sketches ready in no time.
Is it just me, or is everyone redoing their web site all of a sudden? This summer, we had a rash of requests to talk about web site options. I am writing this after a neighbor who has never previously talked tech with me literally stopped me in the street about her organization’s site.
Here’s the problem. A redesign today isn’t that different than it was five years ago. The process is about the same. The time commitment, designer hours, and cost is about the same. Many people still think that’s what they need. Liven up the design, get new content up, and show you have a pulse.
OK, everyone today also wants easier changes to their site. Nonprofits held captive to board members or the founder’s niece for every little change is so 1990s. If you redo your site with Adobe Dreamweaver, at least get set up for easy page maintenance with companion product Contribute. Inexpensive (from TechSoup), easy to learn, and no web designer needed for adding content and keeping up to date.
But these days, it’s really a makeover plus. Once you get talking, most folks want more.
You soon cross a threshold where the choice to just update the site conflicts with the things you really want to do, if not now, then soon. Better cataloging of material; “members only” special content; commenting, tags, ratings, news feeds, tell-a-friend, printer friendly pages, and all the rest to make your site easy to use.
And it’s not just click- to-donate anymore. It is event registration; Analytics; blogging; internal planning, discussion and organizing; community calendar; newsletter signup and on.
If you are not doing a lot interactive yet, you can definitely tackle a couple of new things as add-on services for now. There’s lots of great, free or inexpensive pay-as-you go a la carte services for blogging, events, calendars and more. A la carte often means different visual looks and no shared contact information.
Much better to move to a content management system, such as the big Open Source ones frequently mentioned here--Drupal (our favorite), Joomla and sometimes Plone, as well as the pricey commercial ones like Kintera and Convio, and the many lesser commercial ones discussed on idealware and techsoup. Yet the leap to a full installation of one of the content management/web development systems, including a strong visual design “theme,” and all your content, will cost substantially costly than just updating the site in Dreamweaver.
It is truly worth it because you will now be on a modern platform that can and will continue to evolve as your needs evolve. What’s tough and unexpected for many small organizations is justifying the additional cost to get there, if you haven’t planned on it. These are hard choices for folks with small budgets.
When I have these conversations and it looks like it’s going to go in the direction of a traditional Dreamweaver facelift, I find myself musing on Rick’s words to Ilsa in the final scene in Casablanca. I think to myself, if your new web site takes flight in 2008 or 09, and it’s not on a CMS, then “you’ll regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.” Well, maybe not the rest of your life, but Bogart’s Rick is a lot tougher than me.
It’s hard telling people they should wait. There’s certainly lots to do to prepare for a full blown web upgrade. Focus on your email newsletter so you know your constituents; see how hard or easy its going to be to get new stories on your home page regularly; start a linked blog; study your Analytics; focus on evaluating your contact management.
And there are ways to experiment. Google Sites, Wordpress, wikis and Ning all come up for us as alternative to full blown CMS-driven systems. These are easy, lively, even fun. And they can be done with not just less budget, but less planning time from organizations than building a full Drupal or Joomla site. They may suffice or they could be experimental before committing to bigger project. There’s no universal truth on this matter, and it’s a great time to move forward.
Laura let everyone know last week that Idealware's web site is up for a major upgrade, coming soon. The Idealware blog won't be left behind -- we're happy to announce new bloggers and some other important changes that coincide with the Web Site update. Here's what you'll want (and need) to know:
I'm wrapping up the Drupal 101 series with some talk about Drupal themes, and some additional info on topics that we've already covered. The goal of these posts is to give new Drupal administrators an idea about how Drupal works, and some pointers to the key add-ons and resources in the broad Drupal ecosystem. For reference' sake, we started with 
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