Software reviews: Drupal
Originally conceived as an online bulletin board system by Dries Buytaert, Drupal has now evolved into a free, modular blogging engine and content management system.
At its core, Drupal supports pluggable modules which provide additional functions and features including mailing list management tools, concurrent versions systems integration, and even photo galleries.
A clean code-base and an outwardly minimalist layout allow users with backgrounds in PHP to write code easily. In addition, the program’s categorization system can be set up primarily on the preferences of the site administrator. The taxonomy module then automatically classifies new incoming content.
Overall, administrators and users have a large degree of automation at their fingertips with Drupal, which integrates between the core and periphery modules with a system of callbacks that allow modules to insert functions into Drupal’s queue of tasks. This customization increases efficiency and productivity of users, making Drupal popular with project management firms, company intranets, and even online classrooms.
Despite its general efficiency, in the past Drupal has also been criticized for its difficult and time consuming installation procedure. However, the latest installment, 5.0, comes pre-packaged with a web-based installer to facilitate installation.
Livelink With Content Management System
Since 1998. has provided affordable website solutions for all business sectors. We are one of the very few new media companies that provide enterprise class websites at fixed cost. Our websites are modular, scalable and easy to manage. All our Website solutions include a creative design, content management system, search engine optimisation, accessibility (W3C) standards and visitor traffic analytics.
A powerful CMS is essential if you wish to create an effective sales and marketing website. It enables you to easily and reliably manage and publish content, be it announcing a new product or a service or adding a news story. Drupal CMS is full of useful tools and features whilst being flexible and stable. Drupal CMS works through the web browser and gives you a tailor-made website on a powerful and stable platform.
Drupal CMS delivers the following benefits to your business:
* All of the required functionality delivered on day one
* Easy to use – no technical skill required
* No software to buy, operate and upgrade
* Extend functionality with add on modules
* Proven track record with over 50,000 websites worldwide
* Carry out Search Engine optimisation yourself
* Full W3C & DDA accessibility compliance
* Delivers your new website quickly (within 6-8 weeks)
* Removal of any overheads and responsibility from your I.T. department
* Platform is updated regularly with emerging technologies and techniques
Technology & Infrastructure
* Uses LAMP technology (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)
* Deploys Web 2.0 technologies like RSS & Ajax
* 24/7 monitoring of servers with 100% network uptime guarantee
Earn Money With Google Adsense and Wordpress – Part 1
Implementing Google Adsense as a marketing strategy starts with Google’s Wordpress.
While Wordpress is mainly a blogging platform, it is also a functional Content Management System, or CMS. Wordpress makes it quick and simple to manage the contents of your blog and other sites.
Wordpress functions like a word processor using a special administration panel called a dashboard to create and manage posts and pages. You can manage categories and every other part of your site with dashboard.
The customization options for Wordpress are nearly unlimited. Wordpress users may use any of the thousands of templates or themes that have been developed, many of which include Adsense blocks that optimize your site for a high click through rate. You can thus turn your site into an Adsense website by simply uploading an Adsense-ready theme. You can thus devote more time to developing high-quality posts and articles for your website and blog.
Not only do many themes include link units and Adsense ad units, but they are also often Search Engine Optimized, or SEO, which means the construction is best for a search engine spider to recognize it, and they will also interlink pages so that access is in the correct order.
Pingomatic in Wordpress will ping many services every time you create a new entry. With each ping, search engines are informed that your site has new content, so that they can send their spiders to examine it. Wordpress can also generate RSS feeds and complete sitemaps.
Wordpress’s blogging platform allows visitors to comment on blog posts and other content you produce. This is great as it encourages user interaction and site ’stickiness’. Don’t overlook the advantage of increased site content each time someone posts a comment.
Thousands of ‘plugins’ are available for Wordpress – plugins bring extra functions to your site and are quick and easy to install. One of them automatically turns words into links- a simple but extremely powerful aid for affiliate marketers. That plugin makes it very simple to generate affiliate links and words with which you would like your site to be associated.
Affiliate webmasters and Adsense site operators will love Wordpress!
Customizing Drupal 6 Themes
Working on a site’s interface to make it distinctive and attractive not only requires some technical know-how when it comes to Drupal, but as with any design-like task, it also needs some creativity. Your site, at the moment, is fully functional and doesn’t look awful it’s a bit plain, but it will get the job done. With a bit of effort, creating something entirely new is not out of the question, and Drupal comes with a host of features to make our lives easier.
If, like me, you enjoy working on the more creative aspects of a website, then this is really the tutorial you have been waiting for. It’s time to design, plan, and implement the visual environment in which users will be immersed. Creating a pleasing atmosphere in which to interact will certainly do a lot in terms of ensuring users are happy.
This tutorial will discuss the following:
* Planning a web-based interface
* CSS
* Themes
There is quite a lot involved in coming up with an entirely fresh, pleasing, and distinct look for a site. There are lots of fiddly little bits to play around with, so you should be prepared to spend some time on this section after all, a site’s look and feel is really the face you present to the community, and in turn, the face of the community presents to the outside world.
Do You Know About Software Training Institutes
Software training is a process used to inform, educate and improve the knowledge and skills of a trainee to perform certain activity or to learn a new technology. This training places a high value on sharing information and experience.
India is producing thousands of students each year with technical degrees. But, surveys show that only 15 20% of these students are employable. Here the software training institutes pitch in to fill the gap. IT software training provides with required skill and makes a trainee industry ready. Now with software skills are becoming part of even non technical jobs, for more details visit to www.software-index-website.com training business is flourishing. These institutes even serve the internal requirements of corporates.
Keeping with the emergence of various specialties in the IT market, training institutes offers comprehensive training solutions in software development, networking and security for individuals and organizations. They moved a step ahead and partnering with software & hardware vendors to offer specialised training. All major institutes, including NIIT, Aptech, for more details visit to www.scripts-to-sell.com Jetking, and CMS, have corporate tie-ups. These tie-ups help institutes to provide other value added services like placement and certifications to students.
A few challenges faced by training institutes:
1. Managing time and date schedules with clients.
2. Balancing course design and delivery.
3. Large amounts spent on travelling, conference halls, printing, and presentation equipments.
4.Opportunity cost of not being able to conduct classes for non availability of trainers.
5.Not able to conduct multilingual courses or classes for a batch witch speak different languages.
E-learning platform emerged to address these challenges. An E-learning platform is a system that has the power of communication and organization. It provides required infrastructure for training institute to conduct training programs online.
It provides benefits like: for more details visit to www.freelist-pro.com
1. Provides innovative and planned methods for deliverance
2. Exchange of information through text, video, chatting, e-mail and online-meetings.
3. Learning can be completed at flexible pace, place and time.
4. Overcomes language barriers
5. No batch related issues such as size, schedules, compatibility.
Various studies show that online training is as effective as instructor-led training for software applications. The courses provide highly task-oriented instruction for a software package. With advent of online training a revolution in IT training is taking place. Now IT training institutes will be reaching broader range of customers and in turn play vital role in Indian IT growth.
How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off by Your Web Designer
OK, you’ve heard, read, and been told by folks that having a website is a great way to reach a global audience. You even know some folks who do a substantial business entirely on the internet. You don’t want to be left behind, so you decide to have your own website. But let me warn you – there are several things that you need to do, learn, understand and research before you jump in, unless you have money to burn. If not, let’s get started right away.
First of all, you need to decide what you really want and expect from your website. When I say want, I mean everything – A to Z. How do you want your website to look aesthetically? How do you want your navigation? Do you want a static site or a dynamic one? How frequently do you want it updated? Will you write the content yourself or will you seek the services of a copy writer? (warning: if you copy content off some other website you are doing copyright infringement and may receive a DCMA complaint and even get sued). Always plan your website content keeping the focus on your customer. What does your customer seek before arriving at your website? It is advisable to visit a few websites, especially your competitors and see how they have their websites done. This will give you pointers and help you take directions.
Once you know what you expect from your website, start inviting web design and development quotes from multiple sources, like recommendations from friends and associates, online sources like elance, yellow pages, etc. Also ask them what type of hosting plans will be required. Once you’ve taken sufficient quotes, do some research for hosting providers on Google; you will get several choices. I’ve found that AwareINDIA.net is one of the good ones who give excellent support. Their rates are also very economical (just a few cents to a few dollars a month depending on the plan you choose). You will also need to have some idea of search engine marketing (SEM) costs before you form a budget for web design. SEM is a great way to ensure free long term visitor traffic to your website. While SEM will not be required immediately, it makes sense to know if all expenses meet your budget, else you will require making some compromises. It is also advisable to let your SEM company work hand in hand with your designer, as your website also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO) so that SE robots can index your pages properly and rank them higher for your desired keywords and phrases.
It may interest you to know that there are several open source software available which can take care of your website needs. For example, OS commerce and Zen Cart are some great options if you plan to have a shopping cart system and ecommerce enable your website. If you want a discussion forum, PHPbb is one of the best used extensively. If you’re looking out for a Portal or CMS software, there are Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, Post Nuke, PHP Nuke, and many more. Some folks even use blog software to power their website which gives it an interactive edge. Popular blog software are wordpress, b2evolution and nucleus. The good news is, most of these software can be installed for free at the click of a button without requiring any technical skills, if your hosting provider supports fantastico (AwareINDIA.net does support it). In fact, you can even buy ready made templates specially designed for and compatible with these software. Some companies even make customized templates. It’s a good idea to research on these software and also discuss this with your programmer and weigh the options if it is viable or not. Building a system from scratch would be quite expensive, especially if you’re on a tight budget. In fact, just mentioning about fantastico and these open source software with your designer will immediately cause him to feel as if you’re very much aware of the market and he will certainly think twice before giving you an exorbitant quote!
Some hosting providers also provide a Do-It-Yourself website builder which is quite easy to use, eliminating the need for a web designer altogether. However, there are some limitations with such options. AwareINDIA.net does offer this option; in fact, you can even get a free trial and see if it suits your requirements. If you’re comfortable using Microsoft Word, you should be able to design your own website without much hassle.
If you do plan to use the services of a designer, make sure you have everything in black and white. Keep the terms and conditions of the contract crystal clear. This is good for both of you as it is binding. Use an escrow service if required – most online portals like elance have this option. If you wish to read more of my work, you can visit http://www.bharatbhasha.com/author.php/Nirjara%20Rustom – I’ve written several articles related to SEO, online success, marketing tips, email marketing, etc.
Healthcare – awash in regulation
A PracticeHQ interview with Michael Manere, founder and VP of Total Compliance Solutions
To provide its’ members with the latest information on compliance in the medical practice, Practicehq interviewed known compliance expert, Michael Manere, VP and founder of Total Compliance Solutions, Inc. Mr. Manere has been at the forefront of the movement to outsource physician’s office regulatory compliance.
PracticeHQ: Why Compliance?
Manere: There is hardly any aspect of Healthcare that is not now regulated by the federal or state government. In fact, the amount of regulation has more than tripled in just the time I have been in the business – and I thought there was a great opportunity back then, 17 years ago.
And the penalties and other costs to the medical practice for some transgressions have become truly life altering. $20,000 each time you make the same mistake in coding, $1,000 for not posting an OSHA poster. Jail terms for relatively simple mistakes. Physicians can no longer afford to practice without some assurance that they will not fall afoul of the employee from hell… or the patient who thinks he’s a lawyer… or maybe is a lawyer.
Physicians all the time tell me that they will not fall victim to any of these difficulties – but never realize that their own patients feel that way about every ailment they come to them about. These things do happen – and a lot more regularly than auto accidents, and who has never had one of those?
PracticeHQ: What should physicians and physician practices be concerned about in the area of compliance?
Manere: There are several highlights: One of which is FACTA. Who’s ever heard of FACTA? Not many, but did you realize a doctor could face penalties of up to $2,500 for each patient’s name that is released to the public with confidential financial information – just a name matched with a social security number is considered financial information. Whereas the government requires the doctor’s office to retain patient medical records, in some cases indefinitely, if they loose any of it – they could be in big trouble. Lawsuits carrying as much as $1 million in statutory damages, plus punitive damages, have already hit other commercial brethren.
Manere: Another area to be concerned about is HIPAA. While we’re talking data management, who among you hasn’t suffered from the onset of HIPAA? Who are you releasing Medical Records to… and how do you know? Is your release staff trained in the law? The exposures here are financially extraordinary – and threaten your license to practice – forever.
On OSHA: Who among you has not occasionally run across the “employee from hell� Employees are “dropping a dime†on anyone who gives them grief – like your complaining about their 2 hour lunch. While it is wonderful that OSHA has caused some very unsafe conditions to be cleaned up – employees now hold the threat of an OSHA inspection over their employer’s heads – knowing that the law will protect them from any liability even if they were totally wrong.
Similarly, your violations of the National Fire Prevention Administration guidelines will be cited by your local fire department – when it gets a call triggered by one of the agencies that may inspect your facilities. Fire violations resulting from an OSHA inspection? You bet.
About the DEA: Not to be out done by the Columbian Drug cartel, Massachusetts based DEA agents occasionally make a big bust in medical offices – or in other places where they trace the schedule 2s, 3s and 4s to a physician – and sometimes to his supply of free samples. He’s at risk here, no matter how benign the action – DEA agents follow drugs aggressively – and they are empowered with all sorts of punitive tools.
Practicehq: So what about disposing of the needles, drugs and samples?
Manere: Did you know that you have a lifetime responsibility for the hazardous waste you generate in your practice? Where are your sharps going? How do you dispose of your outdated drugs? Do you know for sure that they are being properly destroyed – or will they turn in the publics drinking water and public landfill or needles up on a beach somewhere? You may not think of the DEA,DEP, EPA very much when you think of compliance – but they are on the list of “other agencies†who will get a call if you run afoul of any other agency’s regulations. And their penalties do hurt.
Practicehq: And what about CMS FINANCIAL COMPLIANCE?
Manere: All those special agents who were looking for Al-Qaeda are more recently looking for fraud and abuse in your billing – and by all accounts – with more success. You might think that under-coding is the way to go – but coding wrong is coding wrong. Don’t bill for services different than provided, don’t bill for services that were unnecessary, don’t bill for another provider, don’t “unbundled†services to increase the reimbursement. The list of “don’ts†is daunting – and you had better have an expert prospectively review a representative sample.
PracticeHQ: In the barrage isn’t there also CORPORATE COMPLIANCE to adhere to?
Manere: This is a broad and somewhat misleading title – but it refers to all those things your practice might be doing which are of interest to the attorney general – like referring patients to another provider in which you have a financial interest… sometimes this has turned out to be your hospital. Think hard about what arrangements you have. And don’t even think of taking a “gift†from a drug company. Their records are examined far more than yours. Sorry, but those trips out on the lake and those nice dinner receptions are often illegal too.
Most will not think of an Americans with Disabilities Act police – but every person is entitled to file a complaint – disabled or no. So do you have arrangements in place for an interpreter, for access to your facility by a particularly obese person,
for translation – its no longer people who must accommodate – its you. There are people out there just looking for ADA accessibility violations so they can make the point and get publicity. They may even be well meaning – but this is not the kind of pressure you want causing your ADA compliance plan initiatives.
Practicehq: Are there compliance issues with HEALTH PLANS?
Manere: Third party payers have been held liable for claims from patients who were directed to a select list of providers. That’s the reason they have their own inspection teams. They can’t afford to have a provider that does not have in place a good risk management program. The first thing any of these plans will look for is your record of problems with patients, regulatory agencies and malpractice carriers.
Manere: Speaking of MALPRACTICE INSURANCE CARRIERS…Malpractice insurance companies may pay out just a few times a year, but today, those settlements and judgments are often exceedingly large. If a malpractice carrier can eliminate just a few claims, it can cut in half its total claim losses for the year. And surprise – the practices that have had difficulties with regulatory authorities are the very ones most likely to have major malpractice claims. (If they don’t have an effective employee safety plan, for instance – it’s pretty likely they haven’t much of a risk management plan either.) These are the practices that pay the really big premiums – if they can get insurance at all.
PracticeHQ; So, what’s the bottom line through all of this?
Manere: Getting into trouble with one regulation can start a cycle of referrals to other agencies that can be mind numbing. If the hassle of dealing with these regulators isn’t enough, the legal fees, the increased insurance costs – and the lost employees and patients will likely have you wondering why you just didn’t put a little more effort into your compliance plans in the first place – especially when partnering with an expert can save you money from day one.
ABOUT PRACTICE HQ: PracticeHQ is the leading online resource for Healthcare Professionals that hosts the most current information, articles, and multimedia content from leading practice management professionals. Membership is required through Healthcare Networks of America or by subscribing to PracticeHQ.com.
Ecommerce and Shopping Carts for Great Plains: Where to Start Your Research
Microsoft Dynamics GP for sure has multiple third party products and extensions, however in this article we would like for you to first come through Microsoft Business Solutions original products and modules. If one of native Microsoft s-commerce solutions fits you, then you should be more secured in down the road software version upgrades, migrations, etc. Microsoft Great Plains is in the transition to become partially (or maybe even fully in the future) web application, and current name of the platform is Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal
1. BP & eCommerce. If you were on the market of Great Plains Dynamics consulting & implementation for a while, you probably remember old good ecommerce application eOrder for Great Plains Dynamics. Last version of eOrder was available for Great Plains 7.5. Beginning with version 8.0, Great Plains introduced Business Portal and Order Management module, which is in essence successor of eOrder. However you should understand the difference in technology – OM is Sharepoint based .Net ASPX application, while eOrder was legacy IIS ASP application
2. Order Management features. In general they are pretty close to what old eOrder was offering: catalogue with departments and items groups, Pricelists and customer price level pricing schemas, please review these features in GP Inventory Control and Receivable Management modules plus in Sales Order Processing. Only one items catalogue could be active in current time, however you can have unlimited number of “seasonable†catalogs
3. Credit Card Payments. As Order Management just sends Orders or Invoices to GP SOP, it doesn’t process or validates credit card numbers in real time. You do it behind the scenes in GP through CC processing extensions. Please, let’s allow here some speculations – Business Portal is mostly for Business to Business sales, not for walk in customers at this time. Business to Business we assume that in most cases you sell on account
4. Order Management Shopping Cart. It is reasonably intuitive. If your customers used to place orders and track order statuses in eOrder, they should recognize new interface and turn around to use OM without any extra help
5. If Order Management doesn’t fit you. Then you should consider existing shopping carts available on the market, plus hosting options, if you don’t host internally. If you sell to general auditorium and most of your customers are walk in public, plus if you have very custom e-commerce logic with user logins, custom catalogs, complicated discounting, promotions and pricing schemas, chances are high that your case requires custom shopping cart programming, especially in connecting to your back office ERP – Great Plains. Please check with use first.
3 Steps to Create a Blog Web Site Using Wordpress
WordPress is the most popular Blog platform in the world. It’s open source and a lot of people contribute to it from both application development or theme development perspective. And the most important one to us is that it’s totally free.
Want to own a WordPress, it’s not too hard, below are the 3 steps you can follow.
1. Find a Reliable Web Hosting for Blog
Blog is a special type of web site. You will need to have a place which can connect to internet to host it. There are a lot of blog hosting service provider. But just like another web site, a reliable web hosting package is crutial to all. But you have no need to get a VPS or dedicated web hosting sulution when you just start blogging. You can choose a shared web hosting solution which only cost you $3 to $7. This is good enough before you attract more than 10 thousand visit per day.
2. Install WordPress
Installing a WordPress application is not hard. Right now, WordPress is so popular that the most of the web hosting service provider will pre-install it their web hosting environment. What you need to do is just by doing some simple click and get it setup.
But if your web hosting package hasn’t pre-installed the WordPress scripts for you, you can go to www.wordpress.org, download the installation scripts, and upload them to your web hosting directory. WordPress configuration can be done via Web. So you need to type in the URL in the Browser where you upload WordPress script to, and system will automatically guide you through how to create the Blog.
3. Choose an Appropriate Theme for Your Blog
Theme is used to decide the outlook of your Blog, everyone want to get an attractive theme for their Blog. If you are technical enough (some CSS and php knowledge), you can create your own theme. Or you can download the theme the other open source contributors have built. A more realitics way is that you can download a free theme and make some adjustment to theme to make it work better to you. Want to download a theme, you can go to http://wptemplates.org/ to find a list of great and free WordPress template.
Reference:
Implementing a Content Management System (CMS) for your website
Content Management describes the process of easily creating, managing and publishing online content with neither programming nor technical skills.
What is a CMS?
Content Management describes the process of easily creating, managing and publishing online content with neither programming nor technical skills. Easy and effective content management is achieved through the deployment of a Content Management System (CMS) that is either custom built or purchased as an off-the-shelf solution. However, without a well defined content plan, evaluating and choosing a CMS may prove disastrous.
The basic idea behind a Web Content Management System (CMS) is to separate the management of content from design. Page designs are stored in templates while the content may be stored in a database or separate files. When a user requests a web page, the parts are combined to produce a standard HTML page. The resultant web page may include content from multiple sources. For instance, a page describing a workshop might have, as a sidebar, a list of all the other workshops on this year along with the standard navigation and title bar at the top.
Components of a CMS
A CMS usually has the following components:
. Document templates
. A scripting language and/or a markup language
. Integration with a database
CMS systems offer support for programming languages like Perl, Java, and Python along with integration into a backend database. The inclusion of content is controlled by the use of special tags in pages. These tags are often unique to a CMS. There is usually support for languages such as Python, Perl, or Java for more complex operations.
Criteria behind evaluating a CMS
Simplification of:
. Site management
. Site development
. Publication information to the website?
Scalability and Flexibility
. Ability to accept documents converted to HTML
. Ease of uploading and using images in documents
. Programming and scripting languages supported
. Support for a range of databases
These requirements and others must be identified prior to evaluating any CMS. Once these are documented, specific evaluation criteria and a content management plan can be developed for evaluating different vendors and systems.
Please visit more on: http://www.indigo.co.in/thinkpod/content-management-system.htm
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