Ric Shreves is a web applications consultant and author. He's been building CMS websites since 1999 and is currently a partner at water&stone, a web design agency focused on open source content management systems. Ric has published two books on the Drupal CMS and one book on the Mambo CMS. His newest book, the Joomla! Bible was released in January of 2010. He is currently working on another title for Wiley & Co: The Drupal 7 Bible.
I just finished up the Joomla! Bible for Wiley & Sons and am now working on the Drupal Bible. After that? What's next? I have several choices, so I thought I'd put it out there for everyone to have a voice. Let me know -- what are you interested in? What would you like to see a book about?
>>Submit your ideas and vote on the ones received to date.
Fierce Content Management published today an interview I did a week or two ago with editor Ron Miller. The article is the latest in their series of one-on-one chats with industry insiders.
In the words of the publisher, the series provides "in-depth interviews and conversations with the leading ECM minds of our time." And while I am sure reasonable minds might differ as to whether I should be included in that defintion, it was certainly a pleasure to be asked!
The conversation touches on the present state of the open source CMS in relation to the enterprise, recommendations for SMBs, and some advice on what to watch out for when selecting systems.
At the begining of this month, I was invited to speak at the Travel Distribution Summit in Singapore. The show is targeted at marketing and revenue strategies for the travel industry and is well attended. In terms of search marketing, it's a fairly sophisticated crowd and there is a fair amount of interaction and some interesting questions.
On day two of the show, I did a one hour workshop on search marketing. I've now posted that presentation for view over on the water&stone site. If you'd like to take a look, click the link below.
>> view search marketing presentation on the water&stone site
It's official, the ink has dried on the contract and the table of contents has been approved: My next book project is the Drupal Bible!
This will be my fourth title for U.S. publisher Wiley & Sons and my second book in the popular Bible series. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Bible series of tech books, Wiley pushes authors to provide "the ultimate resource" on the topic at hand. The books strive to be comprehensive and authoritative.
The Drupal Bible, like the Joomla! Bible I am currently working on, will cover how to obtain and install the core, how to configure the system optimally, and how to manage the various core features. Looking beyond the core, I dive into customization, common extensions, and the basics of ongoing site management.
The Bible series includes explanations, tips and practical examples. Weighing in at well over 700 pages, it is expected that this book will provide a much-needed resource for site administrators and those who are looking to deploy sites using the Drupal CMS.
Current plans are for a publication date in late Q4, with the hope being that we can focus on the upcoming Drupal 7 release.
Today is the official release date of my newest title -- the Ubuntu Linux Desktop Visual Blueprint. Though April 9 is the "official" date of release, I just got back from Singapore where I saw copies of the book already on display in the bookstores!
The Ubuntu Linux Visual Blueprint covers the Hardy Heron release of the Ubuntu Desktop operating system and goes into a great deal of detail concerning not only the base OS, but also the bundled applications, including Open Office. If you are looking to adopt the Ubuntu Desktop, this book is a nice "how to" -- the "missing manual" if you will.
If you have not looked at the Ubuntu Desktop, but are curious about whether a Linux desktop system is right for you, I would encourage you to download Hardy Heron and check it out. It's quite impressive and for many people would be a perfectly acceptable Windows replacement. Indeed, those of you who are tech-oriented really have no excuse any more. If you're sick of Windows, you now have a viable option.
This title is my second for Wiley's Visual Blueprint Series. The books take a visual, step-by-step approach to the subject and are highly task-oriented. I'm working now on another title for Wiley, this time the Joomla! Bible, which is slated for release in September of this year.
Rumours of a pending IBM / Sun deal raise some interesting questions. What if IBM became the steward of Java, StarOffice and MySQL? The potential for a lot of good things, I would say.
IBM has a well-established history of supporting open source (and they also do a pretty good job at making a business out of it, too!). Over the years the firm has released large amounts of their intellectual property to the developer community and have leant their not-unsubstantial support to the Eclipse Foundation and the Developerworks program.
The inclusion of Sun's IP and expertise would give IBM a huge boost in the open source arena. Not only would the acquisition of Solaris give IBM a vital and powerful OS (and make it painless to retire AIX) but also the access to populist applications like StarOffice and MySQL would give IBM open source reach that is unchallenged in the industry.
One also has to think that IBM could do some interesting things with the combination of StarOffice and Lotus Symphony. Symphony is based on the ODF (Open Document Format) standard. Imagine a turbo-charged StarOffice backed by IBM. Think that might get Microsoft's attention?
As for Java, the combination of Eclipse, WebSphere and the Sun Java resources would bring the potential for creating a truly united and consistent Java development path, and would give Java a much-needed shot in the arm.
While this is all still speculative -- with a few arguing that the deal will run into anti-trust problems -- it is fun to imagine what it might bring.
