RobsHouse.net [Arichive] - Technology

The ABC's of DrupalCon Munich

robertDouglass — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:40:01 +0000

DrupalCon Munich is a few weeks past but today was the first day I was fully recovered, and by "fully recovered" I mean all of the red toe-nail polish was finally gone. Through various twists and turns I ended up being part of five sessions this year, including the highlights of being onstage with Acquia's Jim Shaw talking about Enterprise Sales, and announcing the entire product strategy for the Commerce Guys (which will be reprised as a webinar soon). Those were certainly stressful sessions with high expectations and a lot riding on me to perform well.

But in the end, nothing took quite as much preparation and hard work as the opening session - the 6th iteration of a tradition started at DrupalCon San Francisco - where jam (aka horncologne aka some name that only his mother calls him) and I get on stage at a stupidly early morning hour and use music and cheap theatrical tricks to convince people they didn't come to the wrong conference.

So, for posterity's sake, here's the video of this year's session, featuring the debut apperance of "Roberta", the Beautiful Blonde Baviarian with a Beard. After utilizing Alphorns, Accordions, Dirndls, Lederhosen, Schuhplattler, Yodeling, and the amazing soundtrack from the recently released film "Bavaria", we're going to need some new ideas if this show is going to play Portland next year! (video after the break)

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"161","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]

Tags:

Drupal

Drupal Planet

Technology

Robert, Jam, Webchick and others interviewed by CommPress

robertDouglass — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:02:57 +0000

Karsten Frohwein of CommPress interviewed me and some others during DrupalCon Denver. Here are the fun results!

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"96","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","title":"Drupalcon Denver - Jam","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"101","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","title":"DrupalCon Denver - Robert","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"106","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","title":"DrupalCon Denver - Webchick","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]

Tags:

Technology

Drupal

Interview in PHP Magazines

robertDouglass — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:56:46 +0000

I was recently interviewed by S&S Media Group about PHP and Drupal. The article appeared online in German and English, and was printed in full in PHPmagazin as well as the first issue of the new Web and PHP Magazine.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"41","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"261","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"480"}}]]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"46","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"453","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"480"}}]]

Tags:

Technology

Drupal

Relaunching on Drupal Gardens

robertDouglass — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:45:16 +0000

Today I'm relaunching this site, RobsHouse.net on Drupal Gardens. RobsHouse.net is one of the reasons I became deeply involved with Drupal. It has given me a means for experimenting with Drupal, always leading to that next itch to scratch, and thus the next contributions and innovations. My current itch, however, is to not pay for hosting, and to have a site that takes no time and effort to keep up to date. I haven't actually posted to RobsHouse.net in a while, and it is burdensome maintaining the software for the site. So rather than upgrade from Drupal 5 to Drupal 7, I'm just moving it to Gardens.

Since Gardens doesn't yet have a content import feature, I picked a handful of blogs and articles that are still relevant, and copy and pasted them here. That'll mean a reduction in the overall size of the site, and some content that will now be archived and not online, but none of it is content that anyone will miss.

Hopefully this decision will lead to more blogging, and eventually to restoring this site as the center of my online identity. Right now Facebook and Twitter (leaning ever more towards Facebook) play these roles, and though I'm basically at peace with that, I think there is more of a role for a personal site to play as well.

The other advantage is that by doing nothing more than adding a banner image, this site already looks better than the last iteration of RobsHouse.net. I ain't no themer.

Enjoy!

Tags:

Technology

Drupal

Sell your code: Announcing the DroopyAppStore - my presentation from DrupalDevDays in Brussels, 2011

robertDouglass — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:51:46 +0000

Tags:

Technology

Dries, Please come to Munich! Drupal Developer Days, May 8-9

robertDouglass — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:02:24 +0000

http://www.drupal-dev-days.de/

Tags:

Technology

Open Government, a citizen's excitement

robertDouglass — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:57:52 +0000

How refreshing it is when the US Government does something so right that my chest swells with pride and my heart fills with hope! How exciting it is that Drupal and Acquia can play a role in bringing openness to government. I'm referring to the Open Government Directive (OGD), an instruction from the President of the United States to all federal agencies to drastically change the way that government talks to and shares information with the public.

The OGD is predicated on three principles: transparancy, participation, and collaboration. Here I quote from the President's website:

Transparency promotes accountability by providing the public with information about what the Government is doing. Participation allows members of the public to contribute ideas and expertise so that their government can make policies with the benefit of information that is widely dispersed in society. Collaboration improves the effectiveness of Government by encouraging partnerships and cooperation within the Federal Government, across levels of government, and between the Government and private institutions.

On top of these principles is a clarification of the baseline position that government agencies are to adopt, in particluar regarding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Government agencies are instructed to presume openess and disclosure.

These instructions also come with teeth. There are concrete steps to be taken, and deadlines. Hard deadlines that are coming up fast. Each agency was given 45 days to identify three sets of data that had never been released before, and to make them available on Data.gov. In the same time agencies are to appoint a highlevel senior official to oversee the "quality and objectivity of, and internal controls over, the Federal spending information publicly disseminated through such public venues as USAspending.gov or other similar websites." Those are big changes in a short time.

Within 60 days, agencies are to go even further, and launch portals on their websites, http://www.[agency].gov/open, which will keep the public informed of all their activity and efforts pertaining to the OGD. This also pertains to information and policies regarding the FOIA. There are also 60 and 120 day deadlines for the communication of frameworks for making Open Government systemic to the very DNA of government agencies. Changes include a "longer-term comprehensive strategy for Federal spending transparency".

One particular goal, to be met in the first 45 days, summarizes the attitude towards technology and public participation:

[provide] a forum to share best practices on innovative ideas to promote participation and collaboration, including how to experiment with new technologies, take advantage of the expertise and insight of people both inside and outside the Federal Government, and form high-impact collaborations with researchers, the private sector, and civil society.

This is essentially saying that the government wants to collaborate with the public on the difficult issues facing us, and that modern technologies and tools (such as Drupal's social publishing and collaboration tools) should be used where appropriate if they further the goal of fostering collaboration.

All of this is like fresh air. I work with open source software specifically because I believe in the value of transparancy, participation, and collaboration. The Drupal project is a shining example of what humans can achieve when they work together in this way. I am also thrilled that Acquia is already deeply involved in helping government agencies realize these goals, and that the tool that many are looking to as an Open Government Directive enabler, is Drupal. Acquia has a new Government JumpStart program, a whitepaper on Social Publising for Government, and an exciting partnership with Carahsoft to guarantee that we can meet the urgent needs of agencies in the throes of change.

Read more about Acquia's OGD offerings and partnerships. Dana Blankenhorn covered Acquia, Drupal and OGD on ZDNet. Dries and Kieran have both written about Drupal and OGD on Acquia.com.

Tags:

Technology

Big steps for the Drupal-Initiative, planning sprint report

robertDouglass — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:32:39 +0000

Edit: I totally had the dates wrong for the Drupal Developer Days in Munich - they're May 5-7 :P The Drupal-Initiative e.V. is a German non-profit organization dedicated to driving the growth of Drupal in German speaking countries. Yesterday was an important milestone for this group as we had our first ever planning sprint that was open to the public. The sprint was in Essen, in a neat location called the Unperfekthaus (the imperfect house), and we had 17 people from across Germany who came to help us plan, divide the work, take on responsibility, and breathe life into an organization which has until this point been the work of 5-6 individuals. The history of the Drupal-Initiative starts in mid 2008 when members of the Cologne-Bonn Drupal Users Group decided to host a DrupalCamp in Cologne. We knew that we'd need some structures in place, such as a bank account, a website, and so forth. We also had our eyes on a bid to host the international DrupalCon in Germany at some point, so we thought that building a strong, formal entity, such as a non-profit organization, was the best way to achieve these goals. Some months later, in January, 2009, we hosted DrupalCamp Cologne which saw over 200 people show up - a great success. Shortly after that we actually finished the legal proceedings, including becoming an e.V. (eingetragener Verein), and securing a license from Dries Buytaert to use the word "Drupal" in our name. Eventually we launched a membership program and have been quietly growing, with both individual and corporate memberships, ever since. The planning sprint in Essen was the first time that we'd set out to involve our current members beyond the founding core, and to raise the level of awareness about what we do, and most importantly, how people can help. Some of the results of the sprint include: 1. We're going to redesign the hastily created Drupal-Initiative.de website. We have a "Feuerwehr" team (Fire department) to attack the most obvious and easily fixed problems, and a long term team to do a proper needs assessment, design, and implementation of a comprehensive site. 2. We're going to be involved in more national events. There are two events immediately on the horizon: DrupalCamp Essen in February 2010, and Drupal Developer Days Munich, in May 2010. Both of these events are now officially Drupal-Initiative events, which shows an unprecedented amount of cooperation amongst the German Drupal community. 3. We're going to organize an effort to write a series of articles for the TN3 magazine to promote the launch of Drupal 7. 3. We're going to start sending newsletter issues about Drupal and Drupal-Initiative activities. Sign up here if you'd like to get these. 4. We're going to launch a site WarumDrupal.de (Why Drupal?) which will, similar to Drupal.com, be a shiny landing page and dispatcher for people looking for places to start. 5. We're in the process of moving our sites and infrastructure from private servers to a server rented by the Drupal-Initiative, and to build a redundant and empowered team of sysadmins and developers who can maintain our current and future sites in a structured and sustainable way. 6. If Berlin is selected to host DrupalCon 2011, the Drupal-Initiative and it's members will likely have a large role to play. We're ready! Special thanks to Daniel Niehaus for taking the lead with organizing the sprint. When you meet Daniel, make sure to ask him why his nickname is Jack Plain - it's a worthy story =)

Tags:

Technology

Interview: Digital Marketing

robertDouglass — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:49:51 +0000

On October 22, 2009, I gave a keynote presentation at a digital marketing conference in Brussels. After my speech I was interviewed by the organizers of the conference. Here is the video. Note that my grandmother is actually 88, and really is on Facebook.

Tags:

Technology

Nice Lobster at DrupalCon Paris

robertDouglass — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:05:27 +0000

Among the notable celebrities to appear at DrupalCon Paris was the one and only Nice Lobster. The epic tale of ~~Drupal~~LobsterCon has been recorded and told graphically by Jam (aka HornCologne), and is included below for your amusement.

LobsterCon Paris 09

View more documents from horncologne.

DrupalCon Paris 09 - Nice Lobster Takeover by horncologne - jam - Jeffrey A. McGuire is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Germany License.

Tags:

Technology