But none of that matters.

I’ll tell you the coolest thing that happened here was Meeting Dries.

After the Core developer summit on saturday, I came over to where people were getting some drinks and food, and ran in to my friend Alex, and he pulled me in to the crowd and said “I’ll introduce you to Dries. I told him at first “man, I don’t need to be that guy…” I’m not a fanboi, and I’m sure he’s got more important people to talk to…

Alex shushed me and said “no, he’s great…” So I walked up to him, and shook his hand, and introduced my self.

I’ve had the chance to meet the “leaders” or “executives” of companies, and/or products before. The people who steer the ship, make big decisions, and help form the strategy of what their company / product does. Generally, they’re kinda dick, who don’t really care, unless you’re a big player of some kind. 2 years ago I met the CTO of a vendor my current employer has spent a good healthy 7 figures on over the past 10 years. In my position, I had some legit questions about how I can do the work I do, in conjunction with the work they do.

He brushed me off, said he’d get back to me… and I never heard another thing. Polite, but dis-interested.

Dries is the polar oposite of this.
Here I am, just one of the many many many users of Drupal. I’m far from being a powerful figure in the community. I’ve only contributed to a few modules, and not even in code commits, but by assisting in testing. Dries didn’t care about any of that. He asked me how I use drupal, and he asked me how I could use drupal better.

And he listened. He listened to how my work at a small place on the east coast of the US is using drupal in a small way compared to others, and how I want to use it to make the web better. And he cared. He asked me how drupal could be better for me, and he actually responded to my comments, and questions.

This is why Drupal is awesome.
This is why this is the best conference I’ve ever been to.
This community cares at a really base, fundamental level about the work they do on this framework, this platform.
They care about the way its going, and where its going.
And its led by a guy, who doesn’t get paid a licensing fee, doesn’t get paid a wage for standing on that stage giving a keynote.
He does this cause he cares about the community and the work we’re all doing in it, and he wants to hear about it. He wants to talk to you about it.

Everyone I’ve met here has been like this, and cares about what Drupal is trying to do, and trying to be in the internet.
Its an amazing conference, in an amazing city, filled with amazing people.

I feel really good about the work I do now, and I’m invigorated to be part of this community.

Things achieved this morning.
1. got up
2. had coffee
3. took a shower
4. launched a website

http://www.uarts.edu just launched with a new home page, and a refresh to the interior style sheets. its *MUCH* cleaner now.

bigger changes are down the road, but we’re on to a great start.

Its 1230pm on a saturday, and I feel great.

I had to figure out how to get this to work, but someone else did most of the labor.

Drop this in your template.php file


function THEMENAME_preprocess_page(&$variables) {
if ($variables['node']->type == "my_content_type") {
$variables['template_files'][] = 'page-node-my_content_type';
}
}


replace “THEMENAME” with the name of your theme, and now you can create “page-node-NODETYPE.tpl.php” files to your hearts content.

I got this from http://drupal.org/node/223440

(yeah, now I have to migrate my blog to drupal

At the top, there’s a tab that says “Tab this page”.
Click it.
Then click on “Design” in the main navigation below it.
See what happens?

Now browse around a bit and find a product that you like, “Tab this page”.
You now have a running tab interface inside of the site you’re using, thats being tracked by the site your using.

I haven’t bothered to make an account on the site yet, but I did close my browser, and reopen the page, and it kept my tabs. So its probably giving me a cookie of some kind to track that.

Ok, lets extrapolate how this could be useful.
Put this on a large scale ecommerce site that has you going between multiple views of products quickly, and needing to compare different things. Tabbed Browsing lets you do that, but its easy to lose your “state” in the ecommerce system if you forget to hit refresh when you go back to another tab in your browser.

Reference websites, where you may need to remember a location on something as you travel off a tangent to find more information on something else.

its a pretty slick interface trick, simple, but effective..

I build websites for a living. I’ve been doing it for 10 years or so.
For 10 years or so I’ve been completely frustrated with IE as a browser, and how it choses to ignore the standards of the industry… but, since 80%+ of the market uses it, you have to accomodate its broken-ness.

Its refreshing to hear a major industry website that tracks everything in my industry say that …

Obviously, with IE7 Microsoft made great strides in correcting the most glaring and painful issues that plagued developers in IE6. But the unavoidable truth revealed by this reference is that Internet Explorer is still miles behind the competition.

Yeah, I’ve been saying that for a while now…

Ok, thats KINDA my logo now? did I change it enough for fair use laws? is the NSA reading this?
Do I hate Amerika?

Well, thats all for later.

Let me know what you think of the new layout, its got a little more flair then the old one, but it needs some tweaking.