When beginning this blog, I assumed that folks would wander into it from Chingri Maachh's expatriate-oriented content. Based on the logs, that doesn't seem to be the case. Before I address my SEO issues, I thought I would provide these Drupal-seekers with more preliminary Drupal information.

As stated before, this site is built on Drupal (http://drupal.org) a free and open-source PHP/MySql based content management system.

Drupal vs Joomla vs Wordpress (i.e. popular CMS options)

• Drupal's goal: Providing a CMS for community-oriented sites.
• Joomla's goal: Not explicitly stated, but more of a CMS for brochure/informational sites.
• Wordpress' goal: Blog-oriented

For further research, here's a subjective comparison of Java, PHP, and Perl based popular CMSs: http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/open_source_cms_evaluation_part

And a thorough Drupal vs Joomla/Mambo comparison by add-on contributors who switched to Drupal: http://xaneon.com/content-management-systems/drupal-vs-mambo.html

Drupal basics

• 'Content' == 'node'.
• The base Drupal install provides you with two content types: Page and Story.
  • They are identical in structure, but allow for different
    • access control rules: e.g. You can enable anonymous (guest) access to all 'pages,' and only authenticated (logged in members) access to all 'pages' and 'stories'
      
    • input formatting rules: e.g. If you enable the previous access control example, you can augment it by enabling 'full html' input format access to authenticated members, and only 'filtered html' to guests.
    • commenting/publishing rules: e.g. You can enable/disable comments, publish/pending approval, and show/don't show on front page per content type.
      
• You can create new content types, as described in subsequent blog entries
• You can create lists of specific content types, and other criteria, as described in subsequent blog entries
• You can show/hide user-specific content
• Users can assigned to roles (other than the default anonymous/authenticated roles), and you can show/hide role-specific content

External (to this blog) reading and watching material

• Drupal basic site configuration: http://drupal.org/node/363
• Drupal 'cookbook': http://drupal.org/node/120612
• Drupal how-to screencasts: http://www.drupaldojo.com/lessons
• IBM intro/tutorial: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/i-osource1
• Intro screencast: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1412997312232368487