Content Management with Mambo

1
Content Management with Mambo

• Sean Tierney
• www.LightsOutProduction.com
• legaltech at gmail.com

2
My Background

• Self-taught (no formal CS training)
• 10 yrs in Web
• Primary experience is in ColdFusion apps
• After various corporate jobs
• Now own and run Lights Out Production
• Launching Grid7 developer co-op shortly

3
What is Content Management (really)?

• Visual consistency
• Searchable
• Manages media assets conveniently
• Authoring tools
• Organization is decoupled from presentation
• Consumable in different formats
• Varying levels of role-based access
• Scheduled deployment capability
• Ability to syndicate material and consume other
  feeds
• Ability to view changes historically
• Takes care of plumbing like navigation and page
  creation
• Caching capabilities

4
What is Open Source?

• Free as in
• speech
• beer
• Developer can
• Read
• Redistribute
• Modify
• Faster bug fixes
• Draws on collective intelligence of community
• Promotes spin-off uses and advances industry

5
An Entirely OSS Solution

• PHP
• MySQL
• Apache
• Linux
• Mambo (Joomla)

6
The Basics of Mambo

• Two-minute install process
• Template-driven design
• Static vs. Dynamic Content Pages
• Menus
• Media Manager
• Users Roles
• Components (backend)
• Modules (public-facing components, multiple
  pages)
• Mambots (page controls, occur on a single page)

7
Advantages of Mambo

• Free
• Intuitiveness of use
• Masks the complexity of adding advanced features
• Extensible through components (mamboforge.net)
• HUGE, helpful developer community
• OSS means flaws are fixed relatively quickly
• Inline editing easy to grasp for
  non-administrators
• Galleries of pre-built designs to start from

8
Disadvantages of Mambo

• Its prevalence makes it a prominent target for
  hackers
• Some other frameworks are more customizable but
  with the cost of simplicity
• Non SEF Urls (can be mitigated w/ 404SEF
  component)
• Certain features unfinished (versioning
  management)
• Independent instances means no global control
  over many sites at once
• Alternatives - www.opensourcecms.com

9
Beyond CMS How to best position yourself

• Mentors and trusted weather vanes
• Having a strong foundation in the principles of
  flight vs. chasing the latest jet engine
  technology
• Be an index rather than a book
• Architects and Brick Layers titles aside, which
  position is more likely to be commoditized?
• Strength in peripheral supporting skills
  (communication)
• Play! Side projects outside of work are the best
  way to learn new stuff and develop contacts

10
Extras Tools of the Trade

• Sourceforge is your friend
• Google Desktop - the 24/7 helmet cam
• Basecamp for collaboration
• Read blogs and keep your own
• iTalk for archiving meetings
• Treo (or other PIM device)
• David Allens Getting Things Done
• Listservs
• User Groups
• Podcasts ITconversations.com- for the
  conferences you couldnt attend
• Del.icio.us, Digg, Forums, OReilly books
• Subversion, Beyond Compare, Single-click VNC,
  Eclipse, Anagram, Visual Mind, Xenu Link Sleuth,
  VPC, Trillian, Shoutcast, Bloglines

11
Questions?

• Technical details of the framework
• Experience as small business owner
• Career suggestions
• Interesting projects Im currently involved with
• Technologies to keep an eye on
• What else?
• Presentation will be available on
• www.ScrollinOnDubs.com