DrupalCamp Seattle Wrap Up

Wow, what a great 2 days! We had over 80 people show up over 2 days for some great sessions at DrupalCampSeattle. I think that the highlight, had to be Greg Dunlap’s Deploy Module Presentation, again! And of course some great hallway conversation and little show and tells. A big shout out to all the sponsors, and everyone who pitched in to help. Check out DrupalCampSeattle, for more wrap up information and links to session presentations (my updated IA Presentation Deck is attached to this post, I also plan to edit the audio of my presentation and synch it up with the slides within the next 2 weeks or so.) Thanks to Jared, Kirk and Gary for handling video! You can watch videos from most sessions at DrupalCampSeatle08...

DrupalCamp Seattle Underway

DrupalCampSeattle2008 started this morning at the Youngstown Arts Center in West Seattle. We have a great crew of folks here, and the sharing and learning is well underway. I just finished an intro to Drupal talk, it was billed as a “101” but I think that we hit some 102 and 103 level topics (CCK, Views, permissions and taxonomies). Arthur Foelsche is talking about Media Mover and Rich Media in Drupal to a rapt crowd, while a talk about CCK is going on in the theater. All the sessions are being video recorded and should be uploaded to the web by the end of the weekend. I’ll be presenting on Panels tomorrow, and also giving my Information Architecture talk. Keep an eye on twemes for updates throughout the...

Barack Obama, Al Gore and the Origins of the Internet

This morning Mirasol pointed out on our team mailing list that Al Gore had thrown his support behind Barack Obama. Like Mirasol, I too received Al’s message in my in box this morning, and the image included in that message looked a little strange. (I was struck by the combination of the signs saying “Change We Can Believe In” and Gore’s message about Climate Change, is “Climate Change, the Change We Can Believe In?”) Someone suggested that Gore looked like a new age preacher. Check out Joel Osteen’s book cover You have to admit there is something about the blue background, the dark suit, the aura around the face… Anyway, I digress. One last comment pushed one of Fen’s buttons… “Hey! He invented the internet!” This is actually a slight peeve of mine, as Al did play a major part in the Internet’s birth. Here’s a note to set things straight from two good fellows that were there. (For those who don’t recognize the names, Vint Cerf created the IP protocol and Bob Kahn created the TCP protocol, cornerstones of all things Internet.) The article that Fen references is good. It is a clear explanation of Gore’s record on supporting the growth and development of the internet for something like 15 or 20 years. It is kind of sad to read it and remember back in 2000 when Gore was being mocked for his casual mis-speaking (not like he claimed on multiple occasions to be ducking sniper fire…) Al Gore, wooden as he may be, was pretty visionary. And if only that vision had been what garnered new coverage,...

DrupalCamp Seattle 2008 Fast Approaches

Last night some folks from the SeaDUG got together and we banged out the rest of the Seattle.Drupal-Camp.org. CivicActions is really happy to be a sponsor of this event, and out entire Seattle crew (myself, Robin and Jared) are working on various aspects of the camp. An early thanks to our early sponsors Hazel Consulting, Pyramid Consulting, Poplar ProductivityWare, Achieve Internet and DrupalCamp Vancouver. We are still looking for additional sponsors, if you are interested, contact me. Thanks to Mike from StartPad for opening up the office and staying late with us. DrupalCampSeattle is fully booked with over 80 people signed up. We have created a waiting list in case anyone...

Henry Poole Quoted on Web Security For Political Campaigns

Our very own Henry Poole was quoted in a PC World article on Barack Obama’s web security: Internet security is always a top priority for political campaigns, even if security jobs are not always advertised, said Henry Poole, founder of the Internet campaign consultancy CivicActions. “We’ve always had somebody looking at the security issues,” he said. “Maybe it’s just an issue of the Obama campaign being more transparent.” While Web defacements and denial of service attacks may be the most common security problems, a Web privacy breach could quickly become a major campaign issue, Poole said. “For a big office, things like the reputation of the candidate are really important,” he said. At CivicActions we actively monitor the security of our websites and use a hardened version of GNU/*/Linux called Owl developed and maintained by Openwall, who happen to be our security team. And speaking of security, Owen Barton (grugnog) recently identified a vulnerability in the Taxonomy Image Module for...