axlroach's blog

What're you crazy!? Haven't you ever heard of the CCK module? Yes, it's true CCK coupled with views will allow one to create, manipulate and display custom content. Combined with hook_nodeapi, the cck/views combo is can be extremely powerful and flexible. 99% of the time these two modules are sufficient to handle the job of building and managing custom content. The problem arises when you need any sort of custom access control or ownership of your custom node content. With CCK, the ownership of the node belongs to node.module, and there's no 'access' operator exposed in hook_nodeapi. You could patch core ( http://drupal.org/node/143075 ), but in general, that's not really a road you want to start down.

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For some time now, I've wanted to have an svn set up on my shared web host similar to what we have here at civicactions.  Having to make changes on my local machine for any personal (non-civicactions client) sites, then scp those files up to my server is ridiculous -- especially since when working on client sites, I've become so used to simply commiting the changes to a repository and then updating that repository on the server side.  All that said though, I kept putting off the svn set up because as a simple drupal and civicrm developer, I was afraid that a system admin task like setting up svn would be too involved and maybe a bit over my head.  Turns out, I should've done it months ago.  It's crazy easy!

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I was recently asked to take some civicrm demographic data from various groups and graph the data so that a visual comparison could be made between groups. In the course of looking for some graphing/charting technique that would integrate well with drupal & civicrm I discovered the google chart api module.

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Recently, during a civicrm upgrade to 3.x, a client asked for each civiMail click-through to not only be tracked for mailing reports, but to show up as an activity record for the user that clicks through. The main problem with doing this out of the box is that when civimail sends an email, it doesn't send any record (other than the email address) of who is receiving that email.

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As an independent contractor, I find that one of the most banal tasks required of me on a daily basis is the submission of my time entries. If you work as a contractor, then you know the drill: You’ve just finished some huge milestone. Everything works as expected even after rigorous testing. Time to go out and celebrate! Not quite yet. First you have to submit the time that you’ve spent that day working on it to the powers that be (ie: the nice folks who pay you).

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Recently, I was involved in a project here at CivicActions in which the client – a major university – wanted to to sell online courses geared towards high school teachers. These courses are intended to help school teachers incorporate more effective teaching techniques into their daily lesson plans. This client not only wanted the ability to sell these courses, but also wished to collect data from their customers that would allow the client to better target potential customers.

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As some of you may know, I attended Virginia Polytechnic and State University -- better known as Virginia Tech -- from 1993 until 1998. I also made Blacksburg, Virginia my home for two years after graduation, so all told I have spent nearly a quarter of my life in the usually idyllic town of Blacksburg, VA. I was a computer science student. Much of my higher education took place in Norris Hall where most of the unfathomable tragedy took place. My first college girlfriend was a resident in West Ambler-Johnston where the violence began.

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This is a very interesting article from IBM. They have published a series where you can "follow along as the IBM Internet Technology Group team designs, develops, and deploys a closed community Web site using a suite of software that is freely available". "There are many ways to manage your Web site content, from the simple Web log (blog) engine system that allows limited content publishing to a full content management system framework to application frameworks, on which you can build your own custom content management system. With the wide array of choices in the open source space, it can be hard to choose the right solution for your needs. Ultimately, we chose Drupal."

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So, it looks like Scotty McClellan is resigning his post as White House Press Secretary. At least that's what he says: http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8H344FO3.html Don't be so sure though, the man has lied before. Just a few times... Once Twice Thrice Four Times

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