Drupal Essential Training [CD-ROM]

Tom Geller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2008

Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) for a variety of platforms. It has a robust user community and easy-to-use administration features. Drupal Essential Training covers all the important aspects of installing, configuring, customizing, and maintaining a Drupal-powered website. Instructor Tom Geller explores blogs, discussion forums, member profiles, and other features while demonstrating the steps required to make Drupal perform. He also teaches fundamental concepts and skills along the way, including installation, backups, and updates; security and permissions; flexible page layouts and CSS; menu navigation; and performance monitoring and disaster recovery. He also discusses how to select and install the community-supported modules that further expand Drupal's capabilities, and gives experienced PHP programmers tips on customizing page templates. Example files accompany the course.

Topics Include:

• Understanding the inner workings of Drupal
• Creating stories, pages, blogs, forums, and polls
• Managing users and comments
• Setting and customizing themes
• Exchanging content via RSS
• Stopping comment spam with a CAPTCHA
• Launching a site and joining the Drupal community

Duration: 7 hours
On 1 DVD-ROM

System Requirements

Macintosh Requirements

• OS 10.3.9 or higher
• DVD-ROM drive
• 1024x768 resolution
• 24-bit video support
• QuickTime 7 or higher

Windows Requirements

• XP or Vista
• DVD-ROM Drive
• 1024x768 resolution
• 24-bit video support
• PC sound card/speakers
• QuickTime 7 or higher (included)
• .NET 2.0 or higher (included)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Most of the courses at lynda.com are for graphic-arts software like Photoshop. The Drupal course was designed to be useful to and understood by the lynda.com subscribers. As such, it assumed no prior understanding of system administration, programming, or other skills that you d find in a different sector of Drupal users. The course, as well as all other lynda.com courses, is available as part of a $25/month subscription, and will also be released on DVD [edit: DVD version now available]. A 4-1/2 minute discussion of requirements for the course is found in the free video Checking Drupal s requirements . This course covers basic concepts of content management and content management systems. Tom compares Drupal to other popular content management systems such as Joomla, Wordpress and MediaWiki and gives advice on when to use Drupal and when not to use Drupal. Feeling that one of the biggest challenges for new users to Drupal, Tom focused an entire section to installation. About 45 minutes of the course is dedicated to installation... and even that doesn t touch on the many, many, MANY things that can go wrong , Tom told us via email. This is the first exposure that new users will have to Drupal: If they can t get past the installation, the rest is moot . As Tom digs into further chapters in the video, he gives an overview of how Drupal works, technical requirements for running the software, and some basics of how to configure Drupal. Tom also told us that he would like to see a true, MAMP-like, platform-specific, one-click installer for local development. In other words (for example), Drupal for Mac , which would be available from all the Mac download sites. It would include MAMP and Drupal (with poormanscron); perform all permissions foo; create the database; and set up Clean URLs . As an aside: hmm, does this already exist? Has anyone tried out the Drupal JumpBox or any similar Drupal appliances? There is a lot to know about Drupal and in an introductory title, it is impossible for Tom to go into depth on these topics. However, he provides important pointers on where to go for more information and how to get help with Drupal either through the online forums or commercial support. He encourages the viewer to get involved in the Drupal community. There were a few places where his advice or topics covered threw up red flags. For example, Tom points viewers to some high profile sites that are using Drupal but then advises his viewers not to use Drupal for very high-traffic or mission-critical sites , which did not make sense a contradiction to his own poor advice. Many modules can be added to Drupal to alter its functionality, but Tom neglected to introduce some important modules which are necessary for most sites. For example, he left out the Views module and other modules that add additional features such as multi-media and image support. Conclusion On the whole, this was a good title. I would have liked to see the author go into more detail in some areas, such as the importance of taxonomy beyond the basics of just using it to tag content. But he did a good job of introducing Drupal and the Drupal community. If you are new to Drupal, or if you have the joy of introducing Drupal to others, this title may help you. If you are looking for in depth explanations of how to set up particular modules, or how to build niche sites, this title will disappoint you. In Tom s own words, the audience of this training course is most useful to those who: a) Are trying to understand what a CMS is b) Want to see how Drupal works, in order to decide whether to use it c) Have decided to use Drupal and want a step-by-step guide to making it do what they want d) Want to do something specific that s covered in the course (such as setting up forums, or modifying CSS in a theme). --Top Notch Themes Blog

From the Publisher

Each lynda.com CD/DVD course offers hours of training movies that you watch on your computer. The movies are recorded in pixel-perfect quality, and include the authors' narration and movements as they teach the subject matter. Courses include the same project files that the instructors use, so you can follow along at your own pace. lynda.com tutorials are great for visual learners and people who like to learn by doing. Topics include software applications, workflow optimization, tips and techniques, and much more. Play, fast-forward, and rewind for easy learning.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• CD-ROM
• Publisher: lynda.com, Inc (September 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596714824
• ISBN-13: 978-1596714823
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,169,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Wish I Had Gotten This Sooner, February 18, 2009

By 

C. Tyllick (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drupal Essential Training (CD-ROM)

If you learn by seeing things done moreso than by reading about them, I recommend Tom's video highly. Depending on your intent for using Drupal, you might want to pair it with one of the several excellent books that have recently become available:

* If you want an all-around background in developing Web sites in Drupal, try Using Drupal by Angela Byron, Addison Berry, Nathan Haug, Jeff Eaton, James Walker, and Jeff Robbins.
* If you want to create educational sites with Drupal, try Drupal for Education and E-Learning by Bill Fitzgerald.
* If you want to develop audio- or video-rich sites in Drupal, try Drupal Multimedia by Aaron Winborn.

In its respective area, each of those books offers thorough coverage. But as soon as I got a copy of Tom's video lessons, I began to work as if I had a coach over my shoulder -- in other words, much faster than I could by following even the best "how-to" manual.

I am still glad I have the books. But if, as I did, you find yourself moving slower than you would like to with your first Drupal site, get this video. The minute you start playing it, your productivity will increase dramatically.

Oh, and one other benefit -- if you need to teach others why you're using Drupal or how to help you on your chosen Web project, Drupal Essential Training is the perfect teaching tool. Depending on the topic, lessons cover about 2 to a little less than 10 minutes. Most are about 3 to 5 minutes. And within each lesson you can quickly navigate to any step you want. That makes it easy to focus on precisely the area where you need help now. If your project is being done in small fragments of time, that also makes it a lot easier to pick it back up right where you left off.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drupal Essential Training with Tom Geller, June 25, 2009

By 

Marvin Wooten (Colorado Springs CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drupal Essential Training (CD-ROM)

The author, in succinct terms and through detailed on-screen demonstrations, provides a clear, understandable and extremely informed explanation of the how-to's with respect to learning and using Drupal. As a result, I was able to immediately build a Drupal site for a client. I also used the information as a reference anytime I got stuck or had a question for review. For the new Drupal user, I believe this training DVD is superior to the several written texts on Drupal that I have examined to this point. Geller comes at Drupal from a design versus a programmer's background (there is a huge difference!) and makes it easy for those of us who do not know php, perl, C++, etc., to understand and use Drupal effectively. If you want to learn how to use Drupal, this is a great way to do it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to learn Drupal? THIS is the way to start., July 21, 2010

By 

Cecil Wade "no, not that one" (Darien, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drupal Essential Training (CD-ROM)

Drupal is a fabulous tool, but it has a difficult learning curve. Lots of arcane terminology, complexity and power. It's really hard to get a handle on it. I tried all kinds of tools, the Lullabot and Drupal School videos, Drupal for Dummies (pretty good), Using Drupal (also good), [...] website, etc., etc., but Drupal Essential Training by Tom Geller was the breakthrough for me. It went really quickly, but every step was clear as gin, built on the preceding lessons and unfolded logically. When I finished the course I easily developed serveral Drupal sites, and I had the context that made the previously mentioned tools much more valuable to me. You'll still be a long way from an expert when you finish this training, but you will be competent, and positioned to massively develop your skillset.