Customer Reviews

Drupal Essential Training

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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.

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.

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.

This video will save tons of time. Very easy to follow and well worth the money. Better than any book I've bought on Drupal.

Just a quick note to say that creating this seven-hour video series was a *wonderful* experience: The folks at Lynda.com are great, and I'm extremely proud of what we produced. I recommend it people 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).

However you use it, I hope it works for you! If you have any comments, you can reach me through my Web site, easily found through an online search. :)