I gave a talk today at DrupalCamp ( #DrupalCampWMA ) on Web Strategy and how Drupal fits in that view of the world. I have to say I was hugely gratified with the reception - the room was packed and everyone asked a ton of great questions and sparked wonderful conversations. I've certainly written previously about what web strategy is and why I think it's so important, but what's equally vital is how Drupal can play such an integral role in enabling that strategic approach in designing and developing really compelling web solutions.

If you’ve been around the Providence tech scene for any amount of time, you’ve heard about Providence Geeks. According to Jack Templin ( @jacktemplin ) and Brian Jepson ( @bjepson ), this month marks the 4th birthday of the group, and they organize a monthly dinner/drinks/presentation by a local startup, usually at AS220. Not that many get the chance to present, and it’s usually a packed room full of some of the smartest technologists in the area.

I wanted to add a bit more on the subject of my site redesign while it’s still fresh in my mind, and pass along some thanks to those who have provided some great inspiration and feedback. My wife Ellen and long-time friend PJ ( @pjmoore_1) had some really great insights that helped me ‘be my own designer’ better than I was, and really got me excited about the process of design and the ‘doing’ of it. The design itself came together pretty nicely thanks to the solid #Drupal framework already in place.

[these are tailored to the Media Temple (dv) environment, but are pretty portable to other Linux/CentOS systems]

Basics of the issue are covered in this support article here:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/432

Basically, you need to look in the root directory for your site (where the httpdocs folder is living)

First thing is to connect via SSH and move to that root directory. Usually:

I’m happy to see that the video of my talk last summer on Web Strategy at the Design for Drupal camp. I already posted my presentation previously, but wanted to include the video here as well.

We recently had an issue where status messages would ‘pile up’ and fail to clear until you logged out and back in again. We found different possible causes listed but couldn’t work out the root of it until we saw this:

https://drupal.org/node/623028

which led to this:

https://drupal.org/node/635042

Giving a talk to day at Design for Drupal in Boston on web strategy. I wanted to make sure the slides are available so thought I’d repost here.

Just launched a new site for a series of Providence Drupal Meetups that I've been putting together with Chris Murray. I decided that we should use this as an opportunity to show where things are going, so I built it in Drupal 7 alpha 4.

I just spent the past 3 days in San Francisco for DrupalCon, and after such an intense immersion it does warrant some reflection. What better time than 6 hours on a plane, right? John Mayer playing on my iPhone doesn’t hurt either. There are many standout memories of the past 72 hours (almost to the minute since I landed in SFO Sunday night), but some stand taller. I’ve always been a William Gibson fan, and Tim O’Reilly quoted him well in his keynote yesterday: