Massachusetts

Who is behind cmsproducer.com?

This is a question that may cross your mind as you browse through content on this website for a technical or business solutions to your web design, development, or branding challenges. The editorial tone of this web resource is split between formal, informal, anonymous (the use of "we"), and personal in some of the articles, and the blog entries in particular. This mix of tone and stage is a reflection of the back-and-forth that has marked the evolution of this website. www.cmsproducer.com is the brainchild of Donny Nyamweya - myself (It is in order to speak in the first person now).

Why cmsproducer.com

I started this website in early 2006 because I had, and still have a passionate motivation to share my knowledge and experiences with others. At that time, I was employed as a web production manager at a mid-size company with the responsibility to implement a content management solution from scratch. With a brand-new HP web server in the data-center, I had fertile ground for the foundation information in this website that detailed the processes, trials, tribulations, and successes of building the WAMP (Windows, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP) infrastructure on which I eventually installed Drupal (my choice CMS infrastructure since early 2004), configured it, and built a User Interface/UI theme that reflected the desired brand.

Along with the above was the urge to test conventional wisdom, common knowledge, myths, and truths about web Standards, Search Engine optimization, Accessibility, and the implementation of front-end Web Technologies. More so at the time than now, many had beliefs about what google will punish, and banish for, whether or not it was worth the time and energy to code markup correctly separating markup from presentations or if using Dreamweaver (or other WYSWYG) with table-layout to whip-together web-pages is acceptable. Time has come to reveal that like the many Web Standards and Accessibility evangelists, I was right to do things the correct way irrespective of how hard it seemed at the time. Needless to say, I am ashamed of the times in the past when I compromised Web Standards - I have not done that for more than 3 years. In all the above, my hobby turned passion (Drupal) was central in developing CMS applications.

Evolution of cmsproducer.com

cmsproducer.com has grown beyond the initial dream. It now serves to champion the development CMS powered websites based Web Standards, and semantic markup. The Drupal framework has proven to be the ideal infrastructure for my projects. The visibility provided by the ideas and approaches discussed in the content on cmsproducer.com attracted notable individuals and organizations to request me to implement and brand Drupal powered CMS solutions for their institutions. With this momentum, I decided to leave my formal employment and dedicate all my time to my passion: Creation of websites based on Web Standards, and that are W3C valid, accessible, powered by a scalable and flexible CMS framework. Drupal has been the obvious choice for most of my clients and myself because it embodies, and is sustained by a similar passion for work-well-done. cmsproducer.com has now turned into iDonny Productions.

Challenged by the many travel agents that use it's award-winning application to plan and book rail travel, RailAgent rebuilt the content management infrastructure necessary and needed a way to serve this vast amount of content in an intuitive layout, adhere to web-standards, and introduce accessibility and speed.

Based on a Sitecore CMS engine with XSLT translation from XML to XHTML, the front-end of this Web Application is built to facilitate re-branding. This is accomplished by moving away from the legacy table-layout, and taking advantage of the separation between markup and presentation in the front-end. The site markup does not have any presentation elements, the CSS layer manages the layout and branding of the content served by this CMS-driven web-site/application. This successful front-end implementation was rolled-out worldwide to more than thirty (30) affiliate train travel agencies such as: Amadeus, STA Travel, FlightCenter, Amtrak, Miki Travel.

Roles & Responsibilities

• Senior Front-End Web developer: Development and markup of XHTML/CSS front-end structures
  
• Certified Sitecore CMS Developer
• Training and orientation of CMS editors and users in using the application
• creation of subsequent branding regimes for affiliates
  

The Website production team tasked with planning, producing and implementing a website for the 'Entertainment For All' convention and exposition identified Drupal as the ideal platform and infrastructure for the eforallexpo.com site. This choice is based on the numerous advantages of using Drupal in the implementation of a community focused and large website because of Drupal's extensibility, built-in community features (blogs, forums, distributed content production & moderation and more ...).

The exposition web production and support vendor selected by IDG Network (CIO, Computerworld, CSO, GamePro, Games.net, IDG Connect, IDG World Expo, Infoworld, JavaWorld, LinuxWorld, MacUser, Macworld, Network World, PC World, Playlist) needed a quick and high quality turnaround in creating the eforallexpo.com website in addition to assisting the core team in understanding and integrating the Drupal infrastructure into existing wireframes, website maps and design mocks.

iDonny Productions was contracted to provide the above outlined services. This was successfully accomplished by quickly understanding and meeting the client's needs in this time-critical situation without compromising quality. I worked with the client's in-house Graphic/Web Designers, content producers and project managers to make their website vision a reality. Visit the Entertainment For All Website

The Fall or Autumn season is here, and the change of seasons is always a good time to capture the images of the transition. These are a few of the photos that I took in the second week of October. As explained before, you do not need to plan a big-budget expedition to distant lands in order to create photo opportunities, use your imagination, look beyond the usual and you will gain a new perspective.

The chosen photos show both macro, and medium focal-length views of the changing plans, animal and seasonal manifestations of Autumn.

Autumn Photography Expedition