Facebook-style Statuses

This is the documentation for the 3.x branch of the Facebook-style Statuses module, which provides each user with a microblog where they can write what they're doing, how they feel, or anything they want.

Blocks

One block is provided by default: the Facebook-style Statuses block, which shows a form to create a new status message as well as (optionally) a view of the latest status updates.
Additionally, the default Views provided by the module add several blocks.

Pages

• Edit and delete pages are provided for users with permission to edit and delete statuses.
• Conversation pages are generated when users exchange status messages.
• There is a page for each status at /statuses/SID where SID is the Status ID.
• A page at the URL /statuses/share contains a status update form which can be pre-filled with the "s" parameter in the URL, like /statuses/share?s=test. Read more about the share-status page here.
• The /statuses/announce page allows administrators to broadcast a status message to all users at once.
• Other pages listing status updates are available with the Views module installed.

Module Integration

Facebook-style Statuses integrates with a large number of modules. Many of these modules also integrate with other modules, creating a wide range of possibilities for what you can accomplish with Facebook-style Statuses.

Also check out the modules that extend FBSS.

For more information about Drupal Development, Drupal Expert, Drupal Developer and Drupal Programmer visit at http://www.dckap.com
Source:  http://drupal.org

Docs Team spring 2011 update

Hello from Jennifer and Ariane, your friendly Drupal Documentation Team co-leads! It’s time for another quarterly update on what’s happening in the Documentation Team—a lot has been going on since our last update (December 24, 2010), and we’d like to take this time to review the past quarter, talk a bit about the future, and let you know how to get involved! (Be sure not to miss the info at the very end about the April 2011 month-long documentation sprint priorities!)

Long-term goals and vision

People have been asking us about the long-term goals and vision of the Documentation Team lately. We’ve outlined some goals for the next year or so, but as of yet, we haven’t really articulated anything out farther than that. Rest assured, we will be thinking about longer-term goals and vision soon, but as new Documentation Team leads, we are currently still trying to get the basics taken care of and assess where we are and what resources we have for changing directions. That said, we do have some overarching goals:

• Make the documentation more complete and more accurate.
• Make it easier for users of all levels to navigate the documentation.
• Facilitate documentation work, so more people can help and those who are already helping want to continue.

If you have ideas about what our longer-term goals and vision should be, please start a discussion on http://groups.drupal.org/documentation-team - we’d love to hear your ideas!

For more information about Drupal Development, Drupal Expert, Drupal Developer and Drupal Programmer visit at http://www.dckap.com
Source:  http://drupal.org

Building a Brand Ambassador System with Drupal

Brands are increasingly turning to brand ambassadors to market their products. Ambassadors are individuals with credibility in a given area who are hired by a brand to introduce consumers to a given product and educate them about its advantages.

Liquor companies, for example, often hire bartenders as brand ambassadors. The bartenders / brand ambassadors then tell their customers about the company’s brand of gin, and train other bartenders in making signature cocktails with that gin.

Brand ambassadors provide companies and products with valuable credibility. Wouldn’t you trust a liquor recommendation that came from a bartender over one that came from a salesperson?

The downside is logistics. Creating a regional or national team of brand ambassadors requires big investments in recruitment, training and management.

With Drupal however, you can create an online system that helps recruit, manage and monitor brand ambassadors with much less investment.

This project was another collaboration between design and development shop ISL Consulting in San Francisco, and ClearMetrics digital agency in New York.

For more information about Drupal Development, Drupal Expert, Drupal Developer and Drupal Programmer visit at http://www.dckap.com
Source:  http://drupal.org

DCKAP Technologies

DCKAP offers clients a whole suite of Software solutions.

Our business analysis team, development team and marketing team work in tandem to produce the best technological solutions with high productivity, and efficiency. We ensure feedback is included in the Software Development Life Cycle to ensure client gets exactly what he wants and needs.

The following are three of the popular technologies that we use

1. Open source Implementation :

We specialize in Open Source Development and it's customization to match client’s business requirements.

We have completed several projects using CMS  like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and eCommerce solutions like Magento, osCommerce etc.

2. Web 2.0

We have developed Next-generation Portals, Rich Internet Applications, Enterprise mash ups and Social Networking sites. With emphasis on technical know-how and client’s satisfaction we provide solutions that are not only effective but also at very competitive pricing

3. Game Programming & Multimedia

We have very experienced programmers who develop educational games, adventure games, Games for children, Sports Games, and Strategy games.

In Multimedia, we develop Corporate Presentations, Video presentations and Flash movies.

We provide comprehensive digital multimedia solutions for all business communication needs.

About DCKAP

DCKAP is a Global IT Company with clients all over the globe. Headquartered at California, DCKAP has offices in UK and India.

DCKAP Company

DCKAP offers clients a whole suite of Software solutions.

Our business analysis team, development team and marketing team work in tandem to produce the best technological solutions with high productivity, and efficiency. We ensure feedback is included in the Software Development Life Cycle to ensure client gets exactly what he wants and needs.

The following are three of the popular technologies that we use

1. Open source Implementation:

We specialize in Open Source Development and it's customization to match client’s business requirements.
We have completed several projects using CMS  like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and eCommerce solutions like Magento, osCommerce etc.

2. Web 2.0

We have developed Next-generation Portals, Rich Internet Applications, Enterprise mash ups and Social Networking sites. With emphasis on technical know-how and client’s satisfaction we provide solutions that are not only effective but also at very competitive pricing

3. Game Programming & Multimedia

We have very experienced programmers who develop educational games, adventure games, Games for children, Sports Games, and Strategy games.

 In Multimedia, we develop Corporate Presentations, Video presentations and Flash movies.
We provide comprehensive digital multimedia solutions for all business communication needs.

About DCKAP

DCKAP is a Global IT Company with clients all over the globe. Headquartered at California, DCKAP has offices in UK and India.

January-March 2011 Docs Team happenings

Events

The Docs team participated in several events during January-March 2011.

Core conversations and sessions at DrupalCon Chicago

• We led a very productive discussion on a new help system for Drupal 8, which spanned a “Core Conversation” session and two Birds of a Feather sessions, and which will hopefully result in an improved Help module for Drupal 8 core (see Priorities section below for more information).
• We also presented a more general session on the state of the Documentation and Docs Team, and a call for participation/contribution. The video from the session should be posted on Archive.org soon. Several people contacted us afterwards to find out how to get involved (besides the people who attended the sprint—more information on that below).

Documentation sprint at DrupalCon Chicago

So many docs sprinters! Ariane led the main sprint in person in Chicago, while Jennifer joined via IRC from Seattle to lead the API docs sprinters. We peaked at 45 people in early afternoon, and there were certainly more attendees throughout the course of the day. Many commented and/or signed up on http://groups.drupal.org/node/132194 to show their attendance, and here are some highlights:

• drewish helped get several new people up to speed on contributing to API documentation. His quote of the day: “Docs are so much more fun. You can actually finish a patch in under an hour” (as compared to doing core code patches). He asked Jennifer not to spread the word about this, so he could keep all the fun and credit to himself, but she ignored that part. :) jeffschuler also worked on API docs, and drumm came by for a bit to answer some questions about API module.
• carolyn, liberatr, rootwork, and a pile of other folks worked on the theme docs! They are brave souls, and actually got a bunch of the theme docs updated with Drupal 7 information.
• wilbyr and greggmarshall started rearranging some distribution docs to get a solid base for this growing.
• gravelpot, mikechase, and some others worked on reviewing the Drupal 6 to 7 upgrade docs (the core upgrade docs are now finished!)
• jjkd, skjalf, bmadore, and others got us closer to having all of the Drupal 7 core module docs updated.

• itangalo, kvantomme, and eric_sea worked on planning and prototyping some of the new documentation and help system infrastructure improvements.
• chachasikes did some visualizations and diagrams of data migration methods.
• And more... we were so busy we can’t remember it all!

Thanks to all who participated in the sprint!!!

Other events

Several groups held smaller, but still mighty, documentation sprints, such as one led by bmadore and company on a bus trip from Minneapolis to DrupalCon.
And there was a lot of informal docs sprinting in the Sheraton lobby all through the week as well!

For more information about Drupal Development, Drupal Expert, Drupal Developer and Drupal Programmer visit at http://www.dckap.com
Source:  http://drupal.org

The Google Summer of Code is Back for 2011!

We are thrilled to announce that for the seventh year in a row, Drupal has been selected for the Google Summer of Code program!

Drupal uses this great opportunity to expand its family with new talented contributors and award its existing long-term contributors. This fantastic program also gets Drupal some amazing new coding projects done! More information about the program is available in the Google Summer of Code website and program timeline.

So if you're:

• a post-secondary student looking for an exciting project with a thriving development community and tons of smart people you can work with
• an existing Drupal contributor who happens to be attending college/university and would love a chance to get paid over the summer to work on the "Next Big Drupal Thing"
• a seasoned Drupal developer with some time over the summer, who'd truly enjoy mentoring and helping the next generation of contributors make Drupal the best that it can be
• a Drupal community member who might not have the time or coding experience to mentor, but knows where to find resources and enjoys helping others find them.
• someone with a great project idea for an improvement in Drupal that would be perfect for a student to work on over the summer
• a Drupal evangelist who wants to help grow the community by actively engaging students

...then there's something for you in Summer of Code! Read on to find out more.

For more information about Drupal Development, Drupal Expert, Drupal Developer and Drupal Programmer visit at http://www.dckap.com
Source:  http://drupal.org