Category: Blog News

MODx Blog Contest Winners

After much deliberation over the entries received for the MODx Blog Contest, I have selected the winners.  I have to admit that it wasn’t an easy task, and this being the first contest that I have held on this blog, I wanted to be sure that I was fair and that the winning entries were chosen based on the criteria that I had set out in the contest post. I wish I had prizes for everyone who entered 🙁

My goal in holding this contest, as stated in the initial post, was to get some exposure to the MODx content management system, to encourage people to participate and to share knowledge and ideas, and to see what people could build using MODx.  This was intended to be a learning experience, and I think I can say that this goal was, and continues to be met.

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MODx Blog Contest Drawing to an End – Less than 2 Weeks!

The MODx Blog contest is now winding down. We have already received some submissions, and we’re counting down… less than two weeks to the end.  If you haven’t  submitted your entry, please make sure to do so before the morning of Friday May 8th.  I will close the comments section to the contest post shortly after that so that we can start the process of selecting the winners.

So make sure you get your entries in on time.  I am looking forward to seeing what people are building with MODx.  Remember that we are looking for more submissions from people who are new to MODx, so no matter what your knowledge level, all you need to enter is a 3 page (at least) website built on MODx and a small write-up :).  There is a series of newbie tutorials on this blog to help you get started, just click onthe MODx category and get started… you have time! 🙂

Some of the prizes include copies of the MODx Web Development book and memberships to the tuts+ network.

Visit the main contest page to learn more and to submit your entry!

Cleaning up the Blog Clutter – A Fresh Look

If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you’ll notice that the coding pad has a new look! I spent some time this past weekend rethinking the look and feel of this blog and deciding on what changes to make to create a better and cleaner visitor experience. I liked the old look a lot, but it was time for a change.

When I went theme searching, I was looking a theme with the following features:

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Gauging User Interest – MODx vs. Drupal

This post was inspired by a conversation on Twitter, where @ShaneSponagle, my buddy and MODx guru extraordinaire 🙂 asked me what my blog stats looked like with respect to interest in MODx vs. Drupal, since I blog about both platforms.  What I’m going to present here is a simple, and yet not so simple answer to that question.

Some disclaimers before I start:

  1. I’m not an expert on either platform, I just share what I know and I’m learning
  2. I’m not an expert at statistics or interpreting them
  3. I’m not making any statements about which CMS is “better” or “more popular” than the other
  4. In the grand scheme of things, I’m a small fish and this blog is just a small portion of the web, and so I don’t pretend to represent any global trends

That said, I think there’s some moderately good basis for comparison for three simple reasons:

  1. I am working concurrently on two tutorial sets, one for Drupal and one for MODx
  2. They are both aimed at complete newbies, so the audience is comparable
  3. A lot of my top hits and searched are on posts in either tutorial series, with the exception of two other posts (one on Fedora and the other on splitting CSV files).

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Get 5 Free Computer eBooks this week only from Packt Publishing

Packt Publishing, one of the sponsors of our MODx Blog Contest, are celebrating their fifth anniversary this week!!  As part of their anniversary celebrations, Packt will be giving away a free ebook each day this week!! All you need is an account at Packt.  Other offerings over the next five weeks will include:

  • Buy 5 books for $99
  • Buy the book, get the eBook free
  • Competitions with 5 special prizes
  • Buy 2 eBooks, get the 3rd free

This is not an offer to be missed. Today’s offering is a free copy of the book  Building Online Communities with phpBB. So hurry over and celebrate with Packt!  You can read all the details here.

For updates and more good stuff, be sure to follow @packtpub on Twitter.