Drupal NW England User Group, Podcast II? Hot Potatoes and Apple

With apologies to readers elsewhere, but it looks like the 1st Drupal NW user group meeting scheduled for next Wednesday 10th may be in Manchester 7-9.30pm and not Preston. I'm awaiting news of the exact details. I was going to stay on at work and catch up on electronic-Care Programme Approach data entry. Also an opportunity to learn and test, but I'll reserve some other time. I'd prefer Manchester really for other reasons.

Reading and searching Drupal resources this Content Management System [CMS] is really powerful - the themes, modules, and the code under the hood - CSS, PHP, Ajax. I've had two books sat on the shelf, well now the dust has gone Babin's Beginning Ajax with PHP and Darie et al Ajax and PHP are good intros.

This weekend I'll draft out a structure for the first draft experimental site. A case of looking at the existing website and asking what content can readily be 'saved'. Brian's original notes will certainly have a home there, plus the h2cm and website chronology. (Currently) the Drupal community offers a timeline module - the solution is based on the SIMILE project from MIT, but this may be too grand for my needs?

Some 18 months ago I updated the multiple choice questions using Hot Potatoes, they have been sat off-line ever since. Now with Drupal I can check on the available educational modules. The meeting will help next week. I know nobody else is going to do this for me, that'd spoil the fun. It's listening and seeing what others are doing - a gravitational assist! Anyway I'm really looking forward to it and Yorkshire Sculpture Park too a week Saturday.

Podcasts: Yes I know part 1 is looking lonely (and needs to be improved upon).

The audio kit is back from Danny - our eldest - which I used for the first podcast. I've three drafts ready to roll, including the one that wrote itself on the trip to London last year when I managed to visit Tate Modern. Must get over to Tate Liverpool sometime. When I do record Part II, I'll use the software to put it together in parts - easier on the voice. We'll see if we can have that done for the year end.

Dan is buying an iMac and reckons I should head that way. I've visited the Apple Store in Manchester and no doubt about it absolutely cool kit and apps. If you were reading the QUAD earlier in the year I visited the Regent St store in London - cool then too. In the late 1980s-early 90s I think it was Bruce Webster in Byte magazine who did a 3D-star map program for the Mac. I wrote (yes that long ago) and he duly replied with a disc. I still have the letter and disc somewhere. Finally got to see the program on the Apple stand at the Which Computer Show in Birmingham. Those shows were quite something, for the UK at any rate, three halls at the NEC.

I've always had an affection for Apple - the beginning, the design, style and innovation, the OS developments. The market has needed that green presence even if it has waxed and waned. So when funds allow and Apple pick up the real green agenda as suggested in the Mac mags - then the podcasts might trip more lightly! In the 80s Acorn helped me out with special pricing for the BBC micro, but there's no time to justify any serious development efforts at present. Plus there's the small matter and foggy remoteness of steep learning curves...