Reality Bytes » Open Source

Top 10 Drupal Modules

jesh — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:47:55 +0000

It has been a year ago since I started developing websites utilizing the Drupal Content Management System. For a brief introduction, Drupal, as we all know, is one of the widely used Content Management Systems. You can try Joomla, PhpNuke, Mambo, and all those other flavors of CMS, but it is Drupal that I frequently use. Website creation and development in Drupal revolves around its modules. What you want your website to display is basically through the Drupal Modules. Some might be provided by default, and some are in Drupal’s website for you to download and install. As a freelance developer, I have used numerous modules of Drupal and here are some of the few modules that I recommend to have a tick on your module list checkboxes.

CCK (Content Construction Kit) – You can’t have your website if you don’t have content fields. Put some custom Content fields to make your Contents more detailed.
Panels – Customize and personalize your pages’ layout for a better look on your website.
Views and Views Bonus Pack – If you have listing pages, this module is useful to add a more customized list. Includes table, grid and node listing features.
Image API – For high-end processing schemes of images and photos that your website supports.
Blog and Blog API – For basic portfolio websites with avid blogger authors, you might include this in your list. This is one of the stock modules of Drupal
Forums – For community websites, a community discussion board might be useful. This is also a stock module of Drupal
PrivateMsg – Another module that allows sending messages between users for community websites.
Buddylist and Invite – If you are creating a social networking website, this modules are where to start best.
Voting and Voting API – These modules provide voting and rating functionalities for your post nodes and contents.
Workflow-ng – Works like database triggers. Allows more functions to be attached together with other functions for a more flexible site.

You can download these modules thru Drupal’s official Module Download section or at drupalmodules.com.

Reality Bytes moved to WordPress

jesh — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 12:45:31 +0000

I have made some minor changes in my personal web blog. I’m sorry if most of the searches that result in Google, or Yahoo! or whatever search engine you use to search the contents of my blog would result to an Error 404 (Page not found). For some reason I have switched to WordPress instead of Blogspot. Of course, I can’t leave my readers behind. However, you can still access the same contents of my blog through my personal domain (jreflores.net) or my WordPress blog address (jreflores.wordpress.com).

I switched to WordPress not because I transitionally disliked Blogspot. Blogspot offers complex features that I could not find in other blog hosting service providers. I am switching because of my preparation in openning my personal portfolio website soon.

I may have switched but, I have not stopped in writting my deep opinions on topics and ideas. Tutorials, opinions and different articles are still being published under my authorship. Happy blog reading.

Blogspot to Drupal

jesh — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:24:44 +0000

It was just a few months ago that I have decided to develop my own website. I decided to use Drupal for this to be able to exhaust Drupal’s full capability as a Content Management System. Since I already of an existing Domain Name and blog account in Blogspot (or Blogger), I wanted to migrate my blog entries from Blogspot to Drupal. So far, I haven’t found a direct and straightforward solution to this but I have discovered another way. This involves only a few clicks and soon enough you’ll just realize, the migration is complete. Also note that this is only applicable to Drupal version 5.x. Here are the things/installations that you will be needing:

A Blogger/Blogspot blog site (of course, where will get your data if you have none)
Drupal site (a local site will do)
WordPress blog account (this will be our bridge)
Some Drupal modules. All available at the Drupal Modules download section.

And here are the steps:

Prepare and setup your Drupal locally.
If you have an existing WordPress account (the free account will do), this has an import feature that allows you to migrate your Blogspot blog entries to WordPress.
After importing has completed and now that your Blogspot blogs are in your WordPress, you can proceed by exporting your WordPress blog entries (that was previously blogspot entires). Again, WordPress has another Export feature included for you to be able to do this. WordPress allows you to export your entries to an XML file.
Next, you need to download and install into your prepared Drupal site the WordPress Import Module. Go to your Drupal Adminstration section and select on the WordPress Import, select the exported XML file and proceed with the import. Click on your drupal blog section and there you have your Blogspot imported to Drupal.

I hope this tutorial is useful for you. This solution worked for me and I hope it would work for you too.

Best things in life are for free…

jesh — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:50:00 +0000

I read a YM status message of a friend of mine. A very COOL quote.. The best things in life are for free. Love, Wisdom, Open Source… Pretty cool huh? ;) Related posts:Sonnet 17 They say MACs are virus free. I don’t think so. Smart BRO-ken?? Related posts:

Linux hails and MAC goes down the drain in CanSecWest hacking contest

jesh — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:52:00 +0000

I was waiting for a work order at the office while I was browsing over some forum sites. It was just recently last March 26-28, 2008 that CanSecWest held its annual PWN2OWN contest. The name of the game is simple. Any registered attendee of CanSecWest 2008 can participate as a contestant. One contestant, one machine and hack at least one, if not, all machines running in different operating systems. You hack the machine, and you own the machine. Basically, you “pawn” and you “own”.

Here are the contest rules:

There are three target platforms all set and installed with typical client and user configurations. Once you are able to hack it, you get to keep it. These are the target:
- VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running with Linux Ubuntu 7.10
- Fujitsu U810 running with Vista Ultimate Edition SP1
- MacBook Air running in OSX 10.5.2
Each of these machines contains a special text file that holds the procedure in claiming another set of prize/s.
In the contest’s three-day duration. Target machines are set with higher security level. First day involves hacking only with the operating system. Then moving to the second and third day, more applications will be installed on these target machines to increase its potential security level.
The contest was not used to exploit the performance of these platforms in terms of security. This was just to guide the vendors and buyers by addressing the vulnerability of these platforms.

Throughout the whole duration of this contest and with over 400 participants, two (2) persons emerged to successfully pawn these machines with one laptop each. These are in the name of Shane McCauley and Charlie Miller winning the MacBook Air and Windows Vista respectively.

MacBook Air was hacked first in this contest with just two minutes upon the start of the contest. This was done by utilizing some loopholes that the hacker found within the Safari Web Browser. Every thing was set in the first day and was successfully hacked on the second minute of the second day after applying user interaction with an email opened in Safari.

Second hacked was the Vista Ultimate Edition SP1. It was in some hours after the start of the second day when Vista’s system was successfully dominated. It was through the Java software installed in the system. It was some in flaw of the Java-Windows combination that allowed this attack to succeed.

And the last man or the last “system” standing was the Linux System having been surviving multiple attacks from 400 hackers. There were some bugs found in the Ubuntu Linux operating system but the attendees did not want to work in making the exploit code for such bug.

With this, I leave you with your own critiques in lieu with these operating system platforms. It might impress or it might depress.

More detailed information can be found on these links:
http://cansecwest.com/post/2008-03-20.21:33:00.CanSecWest_PWN2OWN_2008
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=393788#393788
http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/08/03/28/0126221.shtml